World News 07-09-2000 UN Workers Butchered In West Timor who: UN relief workers what: Murdered by Indonesian militia where: West Timor when: Yesterday snippet: "Three United Nations relief workers were beaten to death and burned by Indonesian militias in West Timor yesterday," reports The Independent`s Joanna Jolly, "in an attack that overshadowed the opening session of the millennium summit in New York." "Thousands of machete-wielding militia and refugees stormed the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)," says Catherine Philp in The Times, "and dragged workers into the street where they were beaten to death, then doused with petrol and burnt". Thirty-two other UN civilian staff were injured and later evacuated by helicopter. "The attack, which clearly targeted foreign rather than Indonesian UN staff, was by far the worst the UN has faced in West Timor," says Alex Spillius, South East Asia Correspondent to The Telegraph. East Timor declared independence following a referendum last year and has been under UN administration ever since, but the militias oppose the decision and they "operate with near impunity". [... more]

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