Two militiamen killed in shoot-out with UN troops in East Timor
2 August -- Soldiers from the United Nations peacekeeping forces in East Timor today shot and killed two armed militia members near the border with West Timor.
In Dili, the head of the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET), Sergio Vieira de Mello, said that the incident was important because "it indicates that the militia remain active." He noted that it was the first time that UN troops had engaged a militia group at a short distance, and the first time they had killed militia members.
Mr. Vieira de Mello added that the rules of engagement in East Timor had not changed, but were being applied at the border "without the slightest hesitation," following last week's killing of Private Leonard Manning, a member of New Zealand's UN contingent.
According to a UN spokesman, peacekeepers from the Australian Battalion had been tracking militia activity in Maliana District, about 10 kilometres away from the border when, "shortly after noon today, they came across a group of four to five militia, who were armed with rifles and grenades, [and] they shot and killed two militia members, while the others are still at large." No UN peacekeepers were injured in the incident.
The Force Commander of the UN forces, Lieutenant General Boonsrang Niumpradit, said that today's events should "send a signal a across the border to make militia members think twice before placing human lives in jeopardy."
At the meeting, Mr. Vieira de Mello stated that "there could be no normal relations between the appointed leadership in East Timor and pro-autonomy groups in West Timor until these groups denounced the killing of the New Zealand soldier, renounced the use of violence and accepted the results of the popular consultation of last August."
