Indonesia today denied a report that 44 people had been killed during a military crackdown in East Timor. In East Timor’s capital Dili, thousands of East Timorese students staged a protest against the crackdown at a local legislator’s office. The students accused the Indonesian military of killings, arrests and torture during last week’s crackdown against the Fretilin movement in Alas district, about 125 miles east of Dili. A former East Timorese governor appointed by the Indonesian military, Mário Carrascalão, was quoted by the Portuguese news agency Lusa as saying that yesterday 44 people had been killed, and 40 others injured, when troops raided the town near Dili. Reports of the killings prompted Portugal to suspend talks with Jakarta. While Indonesia has denied the crackdown, they’ve also denied repeated massacres, including the 1991 massacre in which more than 250 Timorese were gunned down.

And in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, more bodies have been found after clashes in Jakarta’s Chinatown at the weekend. People said they discovered seven more bodies, one less than an earlier police report, bringing to 13 the number killed in Sunday’s clashes, which followed a week of student-led protests earlier in the month, when 15 are known to have died. Opposition and religious leaders have warned that the violence was organized. Several buildings were torched and looted in Jakarta on Sunday, most of them in the bustling Chinatown district, during clashes in the area.