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Requiem for Timor 'martyrs'
Mourners kiss the coffins of the dead priests |
A requiem has been held in East Timor for three priests, whose bodies were found in mass graves on Thursday.
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"I consider them all martyrs of the church and their diocese because they defended the people," he said.
At the end of the service, members of the congregation, many of them tearful, stooped to kiss the coffins.
 Father Hilario called me ... telling me it was the last night for them  |
| Bishop Carlos Belo |
Another, Father Hilario Madeira, is to be buried in his home town of Emrara later on Saturday.
Rights activists believe the victims were sheltering in the precincts of a church in the East Timor town of Suai, 110km (70 miles) south west of Dili, when anti-independence militias attacked them on 6 September.
Bishop Belo said the priests knew they were going to be killed.
"Father Hilario called me on the night of the fifth telling me that it was the last night for them," he said, adding that the phone was then cut off.
Priests throw earth on the grave of Father Tarcisio Dewanto |
A total of 26 bodies were discovered on Thursday in three mass graves across the border from Suai in Indonesian West Timor.
The priests' bodies were returned to East Timor by the International Committee of the Red Cross on Friday, after autopsies carried out in West Timor.
The other bodies were due to arrive in Dili on Saturday.
Autopsies have shown that most of them, like the priests, had been killed by gunshot or knife wounds.
I think in many places like this we will find bodies |
| Indonesian investigator, Munir |
Munir said the team would following up further unconfirmed reports of mass graves near the town of Atambua.
"I think in many places like this we will find bodies," he said.
In October, international peacekeepers discovered a mass grave in the territory containing 20 bodies in the town of Liquicia, 20 miles west of Dili.
On Thursday a United Nations team arrived in East Timor to investigate the activities of the anti-independence militias and the Indonesian military in the wake of the independence referendum.
Meanwhile the UN chief administrator of East Timor, Sergio Vieira de Mello, laid down the legal and political framework for the period of transition to independence, by signing "regulation number one".
He said he would head a 15-member National Consultative Committee, which will include members of the church and the pro-independence umbrella organisation, the National Resistance Council of East Timor
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See also: |
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27 Nov 99 | Asia-Pacific |
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UN sets rules for Timor transition |
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09 Sep 99 | Asia-Pacific |
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Timor militias 'targeting Catholics' |
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19 Oct 99 | Asia-Pacific |
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Mass grave unearthed in Timor |
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22 Sep 99 | Asia-Pacific |
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Timor atrocities unearthed |
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18 Oct 99 | Asia-Pacific |
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Gurkhas find Timor massacre evidence |
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15 Oct 99 | Asia-Pacific |
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UN probes Timor rights abuses |
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14 Oct 99 | Asia-Pacific |
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'No evidence of Timor mass murder' |
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Government of Indonesia |
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UN Mission in East Timor |
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