Commandos form the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (FRETILIN) are training school children in the use of automatic weapons, as the battle foe control of the Portuguese Colony continues.
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GV School children learn to load and unload rifles.(2 shots)
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CU Automatic weapons.
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GV 16-years-old with loaded automatic rifles.(2 shots)
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SV FRETILIN leaders and troops look on.
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GV 16-years-old fire rifles into air.
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SV Released prisoners walking into street and talking to military leaders and newsmen. (3 shots)
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SV ZOOM OUT FROM Prisoners (member of the APODETI group) being held by FRETILIN in museum.(2 shots)
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SV Women and children outside museum.
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SV Banner ZOOM OUT TO prisoners outside museum.
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GV Armed troops in foreground with troops on truck in background at barracks.(2 shots)
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GV Prisoners outside museum and ZOOM OUT FROM prisoner looking out window to troops standing guard.
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SVS Slogans against traitors on walls of museum.(2 shots)
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Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
Background: Commandos form the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (FRETILIN) are training school children in the use of automatic weapons, as the battle foe control of the Portuguese Colony continues.
The children, aged between 10 and 16, are being brought from remote mountain villages into the capital of Dili for their military lessons.
Their instructors say they are learning fast and are quite willing, "even eager", to take up arms for the FRETILIN cause.
Since the abortive coup by the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT) early in August, FRETILIN forces have gained more and more ground.
They control Dili and have done so for sometime. But persistent offensives from the combined forces of UDT and the People's Democratic Association of Timor (APODETI) have begun to take their toll.
The UDT and APODETI both favour integration with Indonesia, and the Indonesian Government claims the two groups now hold a large section of Portuguese Timor and predict they will control the whole colony by the end of the month.
FRETILIN leaders refute such claims. They point to two hundred APODETI supporters they are holding in the Dili Museum as proof.
The supporters were living in and around the now abandoned Indonesian Consulate.
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