U.N. to return to West Timor camps

Thousands of refugees fled to West Timor following the 1999 independence vote

UNITED NATIONS -- The United Nations is to allow staff to return to Indonesian West Timor for the first time since the murder of three U.N. workers there last September.

The move would allow U.N. aid workers back into West Timor refugee camps housing some 100,000 East Timorese who have been living there without international aid since the U.N. withdrawal.

"The decision to permit U.N. staff to return is subject to the completion of an agreement specifying security responsibilities with the government of Indonesia," U.N. chief spokesman Fred Eckhard said on Friday.

U.N. employees would be allowed to conduct emergency or humanitarian relief operations in line with the recommendations of a U.N. security assessment mission that visited West Timor in July, Eckhard told reporters.

The U.N. pulled out of West Timor in September last year when three refugee workers were killed by a pro-Indonesian mob who stormed the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees office in the border town of Atambua.

The U.N. workers, an American, an Ethiopian and a Bosnian were stabbed to death, and had their bodies dragged to the streets and burned.

The gang also killed some 20 East Timorese civilians in the violence.

Mob killings

Other relief agencies followed the UN's departure, but in March this year French charity Medicins Sans Frontieres began to deploy staff there again, followed by a number of smaller independent charities.

In May, a court in Jakarta sentenced six men to up to 20 months in prison for the killings, saying the deaths could not be directly linked to the defendants because of the rampaging mob.

The light sentences sparked an international outcry.

Neighboring East Timor has been under U.N. administration since voting overwhelmingly in August 1999 to split from Indonesia after 23 years of Indonesian rule.

It is expected to gain full independence in early 2002 after a general election to be held later this month.

At the time of the 1999 independence vote, members of pro-Jakarta militias killed thousands of East Timorese and forced many more to flee into Indonesian West Timor.

New Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri this week issued a decree widening the scope of a special court set up by her predecessor to try those behind the bloodshed.

The court, which has yet to be established, was originally barred from hearing cases of alleged crimes committed before the independence vote, when some of the worst killings took place.

Reuters contributed to this report.