Militias and local authorities in East Timor have been conducting an illegal voter registration in an attempt to frustrate the coming popular consultation, according to East Timorese church sources and the human rights organisation, Yayasan HAK.
During the last weeks in several districts militias and local authorities went from door to door with false registration forms forcing citizens to sign and explaining to them they would not have to register any more at the United Nations Assistance Mission in East Timor (UNAMET).
Meanwhile the independent Carter Centre said that intimidation of voters was still rampant in East Timor and there had been no significant improvement in security. "An atmosphere of violence, intimidation and insecurity continues to pervade most areas of East Timor," the centre said.
Voter intimidation; internally displaced persons; active campaigning for autonomy by the Indonesian government and military; and the need for the Indonesian military in the territory to be re-deployed were the four main issues of concern.
Last Friday the UN opened 200 centres for the official registration for the referendum at the end of August in which the people will decide whether East Timor will be an autonomous province within Indonesia or become an independent state.
The illegal registration is meant to create confusion among the citizens, giving them the impression registration at the UN centres is not necessary. If they do not register at the UN centres they will not have the right papers to participate in the ballot. It is unknown how many people have been forced to fill in illegal forms.
People were told to disclose the option they were going to vote for during the popular consultation.
Church sources say other areas in Dili reported that during the false registration, which was carried out by unknown East Timorese, people had to hand over the documents they need for the official UN registration.
In the region of Liquica 9,000 refugees have disappeared, humanitarian organisations said. Until recently the refugees were kept hostage by militias in Liquica, a town 40 km west of the capital of Dili.
"It is possible that they have been put in working camps by the militias and are forced to pick coffee in the plantations for the military," an aid worker said, adding it could also be that they have been trucked by militias, who have unleashed a terror campaign, to neighbouring West Timor.
The Carter Centre said yesterday there were 30,000 internally displaced persons in East Timor, citing figures from the UNHCR. The Catholic Church charity Caritas has said it registered more than 58,000 refugees.
A document, apparently leaked from the Indonesian Co-ordinating Ministry of Internal Political Affairs, describes a major evacuation plan in case the East Timorese vote against integration.
According to the document all Indonesian civil servants and migrants will be pulled out even before the results of the vote are made public.
Former Indonesian president, Gen Suharto, was admitted to Jakarta's Pertamina hospital yesterday, and a private television station said the 78-year-old former dictator had suffered a mild heart attack. A security guard confirmed that all six of Suharto's children and one of his grandsons had at one point been together at Gen Suharto's side.