U.N. Calls for Tightened Security in East Timor

A U.N. official urged Indonesian security forces Thursday to do more to keep the peace in East Timor ahead of next month’s emotion-charged independence referendum.

Ian Martin, the U.N. mission chief in East Timor, warned that “a significant improvement in the security situation” was necessary before the vote on the troubled province’s future could be held Aug. 21 or 22.

In New York, meanwhile, the United Nations opened another round of talks to discuss plans for a U.N. presence in the territory after balloting is complete.

The two-day meeting got a boost Wednesday evening when Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced that, after two delays, the United Nations would allow voter registration to begin as scheduled today.

Top Indonesian officials have offered repeated assurances that security forces will clamp down on violence by anti-independence militants trying to derail the vote, and police have begun arresting troublemakers and confiscating weapons.

But U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Stanley Roth on Thursday reiterated foreign concern that the military is backing the armed groups. He said Indonesia’s promises to support a peaceful vote must be backed by action.

“There is significant evidence that elements of the military have been supporting some of the militia groups, and that has been a large contribution to the lack of security,” Roth said upon arrival at the airport in Dili, the region’s capital.

He said the Indonesian government and military officials had promised him they would improve security. “They should receive great credit for that,” he said.

Martin said police commanders told him that they had confiscated weapons, removed militia roadblocks and arrested 13 vigilantes involved in two recent attacks--one on a relief convoy and another on a U.N. office.

The former Portuguese colony was invaded by Indonesia in 1975 and was ruled with an iron fist until the forced resignation last year of Indonesia’s authoritarian leader, Suharto.

Earlier this year, President B.J. Habibie said East Timor would be allowed to choose between independence and remaining part of Indonesia as a self-governing province.