/** reg.easttimor: 3766.0 **/
** Topic: Indon double agent reveals reconciliation 'charade' **
** Written 7:13 PM Sep 15, 1999 by Joyo@aol.com in cdp:reg.easttimor **
Subject: Indon double agent reveals reconciliation 'charade'
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST Thursday, September 16, 1999
EAST TIMOR
Double agent reveals reconciliation 'charade'
ANNEMARIE EVANS in Macau
Rui Lopes could count former president Suharto's son-in-law, Prabowo Subianto, and General Gleny in Jakarta among his closest friends.
They have been fighting and working together since the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. Since 1985, Mr Lopes, 47, had also been working for Xanana Gusmao's resistance guerillas.
Yesterday he revealed the extent of the Indonesian military's plans for the political cleansing of East Timor, and for the arrival of foreign peacekeepers.
While "reconciliation" meetings were being organised throughout East Timor this spring between pro-Jakarta militia chiefs and bishops and pro-independence leaders, a massive military build-up was taking place over the border, the East Timorese agent said in Macau.
At least 20 battalions - a total of 15,000 soldiers - were stationed in West Timor by June. Some were in Tamrasi and had a secret base in a mountain called Laser, which the Australian military had also used as a clandestine refuge during World War II.
The Indonesian military brought in a sophisticated radar from Bandung, West Java, that could track ships in the South Sea. Marines and tanks were taken to the Indonesian island of Kisar, off the eastern tip of East Timor. These had now been driven up through Lospalos in East Timor, Mr Lopes said. "They prepared all this," he said, "because they knew the Australians would intervene."
A strategic triangle was set up. There were bases at Balibo on the West Timor border; Kupang, the West Timor capital, would be used for the refugees coming in after the cleansing; and military training was carried out in Atambua, just inside West Timor. Troops would go to the border at night to spy, dressed as civilians.
Mr Lopes was president of a pro-autonomy campaign based in Suai, East Timor. He was trusted enough to attend an annual meeting in Austria organised by the United Nations to bring about reconciliation between the two sides. Mr Lopes arrived in Macau on Saturday after fleeing Jakarta.
** End of text from cdp:reg.easttimor **