DILI. East Timor. Oct 9: The head of the multinational force In East Timor on Saturday outlined a three-point plan to stabilise the territory and integrate militia fighters and the anti-lndonesia resistance into a new government, reports AFP.

Major General Peter Cosgrove urged pro and anti-independence fighters to seize what he. called "a golden opportunity" to take part in a "progressive laying down of arms'".

' But he warned that the process would not happen overnight, and that the Interfet international force would not lower Its vigilance against militia attack.

Meanwhile. 195 more East Timorese refugees flew back home on UN chartered aircraft Saturday from West Timor, some to emotional reunions in Dili, bringing the total number of returnees to 368.

UN officials said that despite fears that an Indonesian government registration system was endangering would-be returnees among the 260.000 dis-

placed people in West Timor, they hoped to speed up the process.

In Geneva Sadako Ogata, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said she hoped the pace could be speeded up to 1.000 returnees a day. and officials here said ships might soon be pressed into service to bring the refugees home.

In Kupang, the West Timorese capital, a truckload of refugees from the border town of Atambua turned up at the airport and pleaded to be taken to Dili on one of the planes, but left peacefully alter they were told how to take part in the repatriation program.

"I think It is going to snowball. once word gets around the camps." UNHCR spokesman Fernando del Mundo said.

In Dili. Cosgrove said that in his plan disarmament would be linked to "progressive and selective introduction into government service of those elements which by their trust in laying down of arms have shown that they wish to partlc-

ipate in the nation building."

He said the third part of his plan involved "progressive reconciliation between those warring parties who are in fact at the heart of the dispute."

Cosgrove said ne presented his proposals to pro-independence Falintil chief of staff Taur Matan Ruak in a meeting on Friday, but had as yet received no response, and that the offer was extended to the miltia.

But he added that he would push ahead with talks with the Falintil even if the militia decided not to join the talks.

"I can't afford to sit on my hands when there is one part willing to talk and the other part willing to use the gun.

" Here is a golden opportunity to get in on the ground floor of negotiations. This is something the miltia ought to seize." he said.

He said he was ready start immediate "talks about talks," because tee expected the process to lead to "substantive achievement."

However he warned that it

would be wrong to expect Immediate progress towards disarmament and reconciliation less than two months after East Timor was engulfed by militia violence.

"I have pointed out that the disarmament process is not an event to be knocked over in a day. a week, in a fortnight."

Cosgrove has told ABC radio In Australia that he had made "er to the militias through the ...ionesian military, which is widely blamed for setting up and arming the militias.

Most militia members fled across the border into Indonesian West Timor after the arrival of the Interfet troops ended their murderous rampage that followed an August 30 vote for independence.

Militia leaders in the Indonesian province have threatened to launch a guerrilla campaign against the Australian-led force. This week saw the first firefight between peacekeepers and the militiamen.