Expect battles say fighters in hills

DARWIN - Pro-independence guerrilla commanders have warned that Indonesian forces are preparing to resist United Nations troops when they land in East Timor.

Speaking by satellite telephone from the Lospalos district, Lere Anan Timor, deputy chief of the Falintil army, said Indonesian soldiers "are saying they will attack and kill the international troops, using the militias."

He said Falintil was well-armed and prepared to fight if necessary, but would only do so with a specific request from the international force, because it was determined to honour the peace agreement signed in New York last May.

"Our people voted 78 per cent in favour of independence, and we have kept our word to maintain the peace," he said. "We will only fight if needed."

Lere is also commander of the 1st military region of Falintil in the far eastern tip of the territory and said that Indonesian troops in his area were withdrawing from rural areas to concentrate in the towns, but continued to execute pro-independence supporters and conduct forced deportations to Indonesian West Timor.

"The United Nations force is very welcome," he said. "The majority of our people have fled to the mountains and are dying of hunger and of ongoing massacres.

"The death toll is high, and rising."

He said that the Indonesian Army had used heavy artillery in areas south of Lospalos on Thursday, although no casualties had resulted.

"They are firing mortars and bazookas," he said. "The aim seems to be just to terrorise the population."

Meno Paixao, a spokesman for Virgilio dos Anjos, the veteran guerrilla leader known as Ular who commands the 4th military region, said he also believed there would be resistance. "It won't be frontal, but by means of snipers' bullets, using the militias - but they don't have the power to resist themselves, and the Indonesian Army will be behind them," he said.

His region covers the strategic area west from Dili to the border and the guerrilla spokesman said the civilian population was being herded into trucks and taken towards the border with West Timor, where they have to pass through two inspection posts.

Independence supporters were taken from the trucks, transferred to cars and taken away for execution. "They are shooting about two or three a day." - SYDNEY MORNING HERALD