Indonesian terrorism
The National Council of Maubere Resistance (CNRM) reports that Indonesians from Java on January 25 stabbed to death Atai, an East Timorese of Chinese ancestry, in Bairro Pite. It was not immediately known whether the killers were soldiers or civilians.
Elsewhere a day earlier, civilians Malimau and Domingos Araujo were detained, beaten and tortured by the Indonesian military in an attempt to gain information about a supposed guerilla presence.
Early in the morning of January 29 in Dili, 24-year-old Silveiro Martins was detained for questioning on suspected pro-independence sympathies. He has since disappeared.
Labut Melo, a notorious collaborator with the Indonesian occupiers, has been leading a group of black-shirted thugs in stoning private residences at night. He and the military are setting up a program to train 600 mercenaries to fight the East Timorese resistance and its civilian supporters.
The mercenaries are to be trained in Suai and Kupang (West Timor) and are reportedly being paid the equivalent of US$750 to sign up.