Indonesia was cracking down on the international media, one week before the scheduled date of a self- determination poll in East Timor, a US journalist who was expelled from Indonesia claimed Monday.

Amy Goodman, a reporter for the US-based Pacifica radio network, told IPS by telephone from Taiwan that Indonesian officials had refused to allow her to enter the country because she had been “blacklisted by the Ministry of Defense.”

Goodman said that she was unaware she was part of any black list until she tried to disembark at Bali’s International Ngurah Rai Airport Monday, enroute to East Timor to cover the Aug. 30 self-determination vote.

When she arrived in Bali, Goodman said that Indonesian officials showed her name on a computerised list and also displayed a large book containing “hundreds” of names. She was then put aboard an airliner to Taiwan.

Goodman was one of two US reporters present at the 1991 massacre of an estimated 200 people during a funeral procession in Dili, East Timor, but she had visited Indonesia in 1994 during a visit there by US President Bill Clinton.

Since the ouster of president Suharto last year, Indonesia’s new leader Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie promised to open up Indonesian society and to allow Timorese voters a chance to determine whether they preferred continued Indonesian rule or independence.

On Aug 30, voters were due to select either autonomy within Indonesia or independence in a ballot organised by the United Nations.

“Indonesian President Habibie claims to be part of a new regime that is democratising Indonesia,” Goodman said Monday. “But the Indonesian military’s support for local militias in East Timor that are targeting civilians, as well as this blacklist, shows that the army is still in charge.”

UN officials confirmed that pro-Indonesia militias had stepped up violence against pro-independence Timorese in several parts of East Timor, including Maliana, Suai, Viqueque, Liquica and Ainaro.

David Wimhurst, spokesman for the UN mission in East Timor, said the attacks appeared aimed at intimidating local people and to force them to move.

Yet Jose Luis Guterres, a senior official for the pro- independence National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT), told IPS that the Timorese leadership remained confident that the vote would go ahead as planned next Monday.

“There are a number of incidents, but we do not believe the vote will be delayed,” Guterres said. He added that the pro- independence camp believed that 85 to 90 percent of the voting population would reject the autonomy option and set the stage for independence.

Nevertheless, Wimhurst said in East Timor that in several areas where intimidation had occurred, people had left their villages and moved into the forest. In many other areas, he added, the CNRT had not been allowed to campaign openly.

Still, UN officials remained confident that the violence would not affect the outcome of the ballot.

“It is (the Timorese people’s) courage and determination that saw them through the registration process, and we believe that the same determination and courage will be shown on polling day when they finally have their chance to decide their future,” Wimhurst said.

East Timor was invaded by Indonesia in 1975 and annexed one year later. In May this year, Indonesia and Portugal signed a UN- brokered agreement which allowed for all East Timorese above the age of 17 to vote to determine whether they would accept autonomy under Indonesian rule.

Goodman is one of several journalists who has detailed a history of abuses by the Indonesian Army in East Timor. According to Goodman and many human rights groups, at least 200,000 people died in the aftermath of the invasion of East Timor.