English/Nat East Timor independence activist, Jose Ramos Horta, says that unless the post-referendum violence in the province stops, there could be a major humanitarian catastrophe in the next few days. The joint Nobel Peace Prize winner made the comment after a meeting with U-S Senator Patrick Leahy, the Senate Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee. New York-based Human Rights Watch said it was against martial law in East Timor because it meant that those who had created the problem were also being asked to solve it. Ramos Horta was at the U-S Capitol on Wednesday afternoon to talk about the plight of the East Timorese. He met with Senator Patrick Leahy, the ranking member the Senate Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee. After the meeting, Horta spoke about the urgency to act on East Timor. SOUNDBITE: (English) "If Indonesia is not stopped, there will be a genocide, a human catastrophe, this is one of the most extraordinary, dramatic developments in recent times. You have a country of eight hundred thousand, within four days more than two hundred thousand have already been displaced. East Timorese are forcibly removed from the country, trucked into Indonesia, put into ships in Indonesia, this is mass deportation as it happened against the Jews in World War Two, as it happened in Kosovo in recent months." SUPER CAPTION: Jose Ramos Horta, East Timor independence activist and joint winner of the Nobel Peace Prize Earlier in the day, Jose Ramos Horta told a news conference in Washington on Wednesday that the East Timorese people need a commitment from the international community that a peace enforcement mission will be sent to the province. The East Timorese activist and joint winner of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize says a U-N peacekeeping force is the only way to protect civilians and ensure that their overwhelming vote for independence from Indonesia is respected. But Horta says the U-N needs to be decisive and act now in East Timor, otherwise it could signal an end to the organisation's presence in the region. SOUNDBITE: (English) "It will be the end of the U-N presence in East Timor. The people of East Timor are doomed. The U-N will never again recover from this tragedy." SUPER CAPTION: Jose Ramos Horta, East Timor independence activist Horta also urged the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to halt international aid to the Indonesian government if the violence continues. SOUNDBITE: (English) "We call upon the World Bank, the I-M-F to freeze all monies to Indonesia. I find it extraordinary that someone in the World Bank, or those in the World Bank, are able to go to sleep at night, knowing that they are still releasing funds, hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers money, to fund despotic regimes." SUPER CAPTION: Jose Ramos Horta, East Timor independence activist The U-N Security Council has called an emergency meeting on East Timor for later on Wednesday. In New York, the Asia director of Human Rights Watch said the group was against the declared martial law in East Timor. SOUNDBITE: (English) "We think martial law is a terrible idea, partly because what this entails is more troops being sent to East Timor. It means giving the military the authority to solve the problem in East Timor when it was the Indonesian army which created the problem in the first place." SUPER CAPTION: Sidney Jones, Asia Director, Human Rights Watch Supporters of the peacekeeping option say if the U-N and the international community don't send in a peacekeeping force, the East Timorese will lose faith in the world body and may face even worse violence. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/ba53582348bcec6ca1b3ffe0f66c9646 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork

• published: 30 Jul 2015
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