Volunteers who arrived in Tokyo from East Timor earlier this week told their stories Wednesday of pro-Indonesia militias going on rampages, disturbing the voting in an independence referendum, torching homes and shooting civilians in the violence-torn province.

The volunteers said the militias are apparently acting in concert with and have full support from the Indonesian police and military.

Stefani Renato, a member of a nongovernmental organization, said that during the Aug. 30 voting, the polling station he was assigned to had to suspend operations for an hour because of militia gunfire.

After the voting, militias on several occasions tried to take ballot boxes from United Nations workers by shooting at vehicles and helicopters engaged in the vote collection, he said.

Yuko Shimizu, who was also a ballot observer and was evacuated from Dili on Monday, claimed that militias began shooting and setting fires even before the ballot result was revealed. She said that most residents in a town she stayed in had fled to the west by Sunday, leaving behind a ghost town.

Kiyoko Furusawa, who joined Diet members on a visit to East Timor in August and returned Wednesday morning, said her residence and the U.N. head office were attacked by militias after the polling.

All the people who were targeted in shootings and were later evacuated to the U.N. office said Indonesian troops had turned a blind eye to violence against civilians.

Marilyn Kajioka, who helped ballot-monitoring operations for two months until voting day, said the militias are manned by Javanese who could be Indonesian troops.

She said it is easy to distinguish Javanese from local Timorese by their physical appearance.

Renato said the conflict in East Timor is not a civil war between Timorese but suppression of East Timorese by the Indonesian government. He noted that the majority of East Timorese do not support militias, which, he believes, are controlled by the military.

Before the news conference, the volunteers submitted a written petition to Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi and Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura, urging the government to push the Indonesian government to immediately hand over police authority to the United Nations.

It also called on the government to pressure Jakarta to avoid further bloodshed before entrusting authority to U.N. peacekeeping forces, using Japan's influence as Indonesia's largest aid donor.