FED: Timorese hold no illusions about vote

AAP General News (Australia)
08-30-1999
FED: Timorese hold no illusions about vote

By Royal Abbott

MELBOURNE, Aug 30 AAP - Melbourne's East Timorese community turned out in force today to
vote on whether their homeland should remain part of Indonesia.

Maria-Gabriela Carrascalao told AAP she had spoken to friends in Dili early today and they
had reported an unprecedented voter turn-out.

As she spoke, hundreds of Timorese of all ages gathered in the courtyard of Melbourne's
Wesley Central Mission in Lonsdale Street, one of four polling station's in the city which
opened at midday under the watchful eye of the Australian Electoral Commission.

"I think the intimidation the militias were using (in Dili), that strategy they were using,
it didn't work today," said Mrs Carrascalao said.

She said the friends told her that in one Dili district at 5am today, where more than 2,000
were registered to vote, there was a 100 per cent turnout.

But she said that even after opposing militia leaders appeared on television news reports
shaking hands and apparently agreeing to observe an amnesty today, anti-independence
supporters were continuing to make threatening phone calls last night.

"Some friends living in Dili were forced to flee their their homes after they said they
received threatening phone calls last night," she said.

Mrs Carrascalao said she received several calls from friends telling her that Indonesian
police were harassing pro-independence leaders and that large numbers of heavily armed militia
and Indonesian military in plain clothes had massed at strategic points.

She said the ceasefire between integrationist and independence militia leaders was just for
show and would not last.

"The agreement on TV was just that, they've been doing that over and over, and each time
they agree, each time they sign they go straight away and break it over and over," Mrs
Carrascalao said.

Several hundred members of Melbourne's 8,000-strong East Timorese community had already
gathered at the Wesley Mission when the polls opened.

"I'm so emotional... I feel very emotional," one whispered to her friend as they climbed
the steps into the church hall to cast their vote.

AAP ra/jlw/it/br

KEYWORD: TIMOR AUST VIC

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