02 September 1999

Dili, East Timor: More than 150 of some 500 polling officers and medical personnel fielded by the Bonn-based United Nations Volunteers programme ahead of East Timor’s “popular consultation” ballot on 30 August have been repatriated.   The ballot saw more than 98 per cent of registered voters participate in a decision on the territory's political future.

The first 55 left the territory's capital Dili on 31 August and some 276 were to have been repatriated through Darwin, Australia, by 3 September, UNV officials in East Timor have reported.

Some 127 UN Volunteers are to remain in Dili to either assist with the ballot count, which is expected to be completed by the end of this week, and/or stay behind as civil affairs officers during East Timor’s transition period. Once the ballot count is completed, 56 of the 127 are expected to depart late next week. The remaining 71 will continue serving as civil affairs officers. The numbers of UN Volunteers leaving and those staying in East Timor are subject to change.

Despite violence carried out by members of a local militia near the United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) compound in Dili on 1 September, all UN Volunteers are safe. 

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan strongly condemned the violence in a statement issued on 1 September.

“The United Nations will not allow this violence to deter it from completing arrangements for the popular consultation so that the will of the East Timorese people can be determined, ” he said. In an earlier statement, the Secretary-General said voters on 30 August “cast their ballots in a calm and dignified manner”.

Read UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s statement on the 1 September violence:
www.un.org/News/Press/docs/1999/19990901.sgsm7116.doc.html

Read more about the incident in a UN press briefing held in New York:
www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/1999/19990901.db090199.doc.html