10 September 2001 -- The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) today presented its final, certified election results to the head of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) at a ceremony in Dili.
The Chair of the IEC, Bong-Scuk Sohn, who presented the results to Sergio Vieira de Mello, praised the East Timorese for the dignity and determination with which they cast their ballots in such massive numbers on 30 August, when an estimated 91 per cent of the population turned out to vote.
"They sent a signal to their community leaders, and indeed to the whole world, that for them, a successful electoral process was more important than any particular outcome," the Chairperson said. "It is an attitude which typically distinguishes mature democracies from those still in a process of development."
Mr. Vieira de Mello congratulated the Independent Electoral Commission and the Board of Electoral Commissioners for their "remarkable work." He said the people of East Timor "have proven the skeptics wrong" and that they have shown that their country's democracy, after only one election, "has indeed taken root."
In another development, around 2,000 people in the East Timorese enclave of Oecussi in West Timor attended a memorial service yesterday in honor of the victims of the Tumin massacre, in which some 70 people were killed on 8 and 9 September 1999.
Meanwhile, earlier this morning, a truck carrying Fijian soldiers from the New Zealand battalion of UN peacekeepers overturned 3 kilometres east of Taroman in East Timor. One soldier was killed and 11 other Fijian soldiers sustained a variety of injuries.
The casualties were evacuated to the Slovakian Field Surgical Team facility at Suai for immediate treatment. A formal medical assessment is being conducted on the personnel that sustained injuries.
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