In a letter to UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches has again urged the sending of a UN peace-keeping force to East Timor and has flagged the importance of international protection for the East Timorese refugees and forcibly displaced persons currently in camps in West Timor. The text of the letter follows.

Your excellency,

On August 25, in a letter co-signed by Bishop Carlos FX Belo of the Roman Catholic church in East Timor and Rev. Francisco M de Vasconcelos, general secretary of our member church, the Christian Church in East Timor (GKTT), we wrote to you urging that you take immediate steps should violence erupt in the aftermath of the popular consultation following a pro-independence vote. "No time should be lost in sending a peacekeeping force to minimize the suffering of the East Timorese people."

The violence of the militias has far exceeded the fears we expressed on August 25. Among their victims is our friend Francisco de Vasconcelos, who was shot by militia and died at 14.00 on Friday, September 10.

We warmly welcome the belated invitation to the UN by the president of Indonesia, Mr BJ Habibie, to send an international peacekeeping force to East Timor.

We again urge you, therefore, to send international peacekeepers to East Timor under the UN flag as soon as possible.

It will also be important to agree an international presence in camps in West Timor and the earliest possible repatriation of East Timorese refugees and forcibly displaced persons from these camps, where it is reliably reported that they are being harassed and intimidated by the militias.

The people of East Timor have suffered more than enough already and deserve the strongest protection of the international community.

Respectfully,

Milan Opocensky, general secretary

Note

The Alliance subsequently learned that the reports of the death of Francisco de Vasconcelos were, happily, not true. Many other Timorese did die in the violence sponsored by the Indonesian army.