/** reg.easttimor: 2824.0 **/
** Topic: AFP:Indon planning to deport 300,000; replace w/pro-Jakarta outsider **
** Written 1:49 AM Sep 7, 1999 by Joyo@aol.com in cdp:reg.easttimor **
Subject: AFP:Indon planning to deport 300,000; replace w/pro-Jakarta outsiders
Indonesia planning to deport 300,000: resistance leader
SYDNEY, Sept 7 (AFP) - Indonesia is planning to deport up to 300,000 East Timorese and repopulate the territory with oppenents of independence, a resistance leader said Tuesday.
Truckloads of refugees are being taken from Dili at gunpoint and sent to Kupang and Atambua in West Timor, Joao Carrascalao, head of the National Council for Timorese Resistance in Australia, said.
"They are going to put people from other parts of Indonesia into East Timor to repopulate it," he said.
Carrascalao said he had received reports that 20,000-30,000 people, mostly from Java, were already at the West Timor border in the company of five Indonesian army generals.
Carrascalao said he had received reports that women and children had reached Atambua, but not men.
"They are all being separated," he said. "We don't know where the men are, but they did not get there."
The resistance leader said pro-Jakarta militia and the Indonesian military, operating under martial law, could carry out the operation within a couple of days.
"If the international community continues to turn a blind eye, they will do it for sure," Carrascalao said.
An Australian doctor in Dili, Dr Kevin Baker, called the plan a form of ethnic cleansing and said it was no secret the Indonesian military was behind the militia.
"The paramilitary are basically a rabble, I mean a brutal one," he told ABC radio. "But they could never have the weapons they've got, obviously we all know that, other than (from) the police and military."
According to the Red Cross, up to 60,000 East Timorese have been herded to police headquarters in Dili to be forcibly deported to West Timor.
"They were all brought to that place by militia, by the police, or by the army," said the head of the Red Cross delegation to East Timor, Jean-Luc Metzker, who was evacuated by the Australian Defence Force to Darwin.
** End of text from cdp:reg.easttimor **