MILITIA AMBUSH

October 6, 1999
		Two pro-Indonesia militia members are killed in a failed attack on U.N.-sanctioned peacekeeping troops in East Timor. -- Posted 1:00 PM ET

Online NewsHour Special Report: East Timor Independence Sept. 28, 1999: Three experts discuss U.N. plans to bring peace to East Timor. Online Backgrounder: A look at East Timor's stormy history. Sept. 27, 1999: The Indonesian military hands over control of East Timor to peacekeepers. Sept. 24, 1999: International troops conduct house to house searches for militia members.. Sept. 14, 1999: An newsmaker interview with Madeleine Albright. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of Asia.     United Nations Mission in East Timor Indonesian Embassy in Washington National Council of Timorese Resistance U.S. Embassy in Jakarta Carter Center

In their first armed clash with pro-Indonesia militias, U.N.-sanctioned peacekeepers in East Timor killed two militia members during a failed ambush near the town of Suai. Two members of the Australian-led force were lightly wounded in the attack, according to Maj. Gen. Peter Cosgrove, head of the peacekeeping force. "It was well and truly a sneak attack," Cosgrove said. "The militia have chosen again to operate with violence, notwithstanding our desire to do this with negotiations." Suai is a main crossing-point into Indonesian-ruled West Timor. The peacekeepers had been on their way back to the town after escorting a separate band of armed militiamen across the border. Though peacekeepers have pushed the militias out of several areas in East Timor since their arrival September 20, this incident was the first to result in fatalities. Earlier in the day, Roman Catholic Bishop Carlos Belo, one of the region's leading spiritual leaders, returned to the homeland he'd been forced to flee during a wave of militia violence. "It is worse than hell," Belo said during a tour of Dili, the East Timorese capital that has been devastated by militia attacks. "We haven't seen hell yet, but this is really it." Belo, who shared the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize with fellow independence leader Jose Ramos-Horta, is the first major East Timorese figure to return since the militia attacks began. "My priority now is to be with the people -- to pray with them, to say Mass with them and to be with them," Belo said. According to the Associated Press, resistance leader Xanana Gusmao, jailed by the Indonesian government since 1992 and widely expected to be an independent East Timor's first president, is due back next week. East Timor's people are also slowly making their way home. While peacekeepers are helping to return some of the estimated 250,000 East Timorese who fled to West Timor during the violence to the area, many others are still hiding in the mountains of East Timor despite the growing presence of peacekeeping troops.