JAKARTA - Around 40 pro Indonesian demonstrators yesterday tried to force their way into the Austrian embassy where 33 East Timorese have taken refuge, diplomatic sources and witnesses said. The banner waving demonstrators said they were East Timorese and wanted to see the youths protesting against Indonesian rule in the disputed former Portuguese colony.
Scores of police who had been present since Tuesday - when the East Timorese youths entered the embassy demanding to see the visiting UN special envoy on East Timor, Mr Jamsheed Marker - only intervened at the repeated request of an Austrian diplomat. Mr Marker has been in Indonesia for the past week. On Tuesday, he saw three of the East Timor youths from the Austrian embassy.
The organiser of the demonstration was identified as an East Timorese known as "Hercules" believed to have the backing of the authorities.
An Austrian diplomat said the 33 youths were likely to spend another night in the embassy as "no solution is in sight. .. Any solution would presume the cooperation of the foreign ministry and the young people themselves," he said, without elaborating.
Meanwhile the Indonesian military has claimed that only about 80 armed East Timorese pro independence rebels remain in the territory, it was reported in Jakarta yesterday. Resistance sources have put the rebel strength at several hundred.