Rebel Call to Arms Raises Fears in Indonesia

A jailed East Timor rebel leader ordered a new wave of guerrilla attacks against Indonesian forces Monday after clashes between pro- and anti-independence groups in the territory.

The threat of widened violence endangers a U.N.-supervised ballot scheduled for July among East Timor’s 800,000 people on whether to become an autonomous state within Indonesia or to break away completely.

Opposing factions in the territory are bitterly split over independence and have clashed in recent weeks with guns and homemade weapons such as bows and arrows. Two people were reported killed Monday.

Rebel leader Jose Alexandre “Xanana” Gusmao issued a statement warning of a new “blood bath” in the former Portuguese colony, which has been racked by human rights abuses and guerrilla fighting since Indonesia invaded amid a civil war among rival factions in 1975.

In a statement that was confirmed as authentic by his lawyers, Gusmao accused the Indonesian military of arming and training anti-independence militias in a bid to scuttle the U.N. ballot through violence and intimidation.

Gusmao, who is under house arrest in Jakarta as part of a life sentence for fighting Indonesian troops, said he had ordered his “guerrillas to undertake all necessary action in defense of the population of East Timor.”

“I also authorize the population to undertake a general popular insurrection,” he said in the statement.

Until now, Gusmao had long ordered his guerrillas, based in East Timor’s rugged interior, to suspend attacks as he appealed for dialogue with Indonesia.

At least two people were killed and nine others injured in Monday’s clashes in Liquisa, 18 miles west of the territorial capital, Dili.

A pro-independence group claimed that as many as 17 people were killed when Indonesian soldiers opened fire there. However, Indonesia’s East Timor military chief, Lt. Col. Tono Suhartono, denied the accusation.

Indonesia annexed East Timor, 1,250 miles east of Jakarta, in 1976 and for years refused international calls to give the territory the right of self-determination.

In February, Indonesia struck a deal with the U.N. to hold a referendum on an autonomy plan for East Timor. Jakarta has said that if the plan is rejected, it will grant the territory independence.