Intelligence on Timor Kept Secret, By Lindsay Murdoch ~ Dec. 20
Timor's Stolen Children Abandoned, By Lindsay Murdoch ~ October 25
E-mail Warned Of Killing Spree, By Michael Cameron ~ Sept. 9
Oxfam Staff Evacuated From West Timor, Oxfam ~ September 9
Statement On The International Workers Killed This Week in West Timor, by Xanana & Ramos-Horta ~ Sept. 8
ETAN Calls UN Deaths in West Timor Preventable, ETAN ~ September 6
ETAN Calls Indonesian Suspect List "Inadequate and a Capitulation" Calls International Tribunal Only Option, ETAN ~ September 1
East Timor Federation Urges International Tribunal on Timor Vote Anniversary, ETAN/TOPAL ~ Aug. 30
One Year Later, East Timor Still Needs Justice and Security, ETAN ~ August 29
Genuine Self-Rule Elusive A Year After Independence, By Kafil Yamin ~ Aug. 29
Gusmao Steps Down As Head of Falintil Army, By Mark Dodd ~ August 21
Border Raids Have UN At Full Stretch, By Mark Dodd and Joanna Jolly ~ 18 August
Indonesia Promises To Shut Refugee Camps In West Timor, Associated Press ~ August 1
Church In Atambua To Open Reconciliation Dialogue, NTT Ekspres ~ August 1
Australian Unions Criticises UN Over Asbestos Concerns, by Denis Peters and Linda McSweeny, AAP ~ August 1
New Zealand Foreign Minister Appalled By Bounty Report, AP ~ July 31
East Timorese Youths Rejected Foreign Military Bases, TEMPO Interaktif ~ July 31
Timor Militia Bordering On Comeback, by Don Greenlees, The Australian ~ July 31
Act Now For East Timor, Grassroots International ~ July 30
Boyhood Dream Dies in Timor, by Geoff Cumming and Paul Yandall ~ July 26
Time To Punish The Usual Suspects In Indonesia, By José Ramos-Horta ~ July 26
East Timor Militia Thugs Stage Protest in Kupang, Indonesian Observer ~ July 26
Australian Labor Party Forges Ties With Indonesian Militiary, by D. Sangga Buwana ~ July 26
United States Complicity In Indonesia's Illegal Occupation, Amy Goodman ~ July 21
At Least 547 Refugees Have Died in West Timor, Associated Press ~ July 20
Funding for East Timor: Charity or Justice? La'o Hamutuk Bulletin ~ July 19
Xanana Gusmao Hails E. Timor's First Transitional Government, AFP ~ July 17
No U.S. Military Engagement with Indonesia, ETAN ~ July 17
Coalition Government Approved, Ministers Chosen – UN, LUSA ~ July 14
Timorese Demand Release Of U.S. Documents, Democracy Now ~ July 12
IFET Warns of West Papua-East Timor Parallels, By Charles Scheiner ~ June 13
Urgent Request for Photographs, Anecdotes, Oral Histories, By Brennon Jones ~ June 14
Falintil Apologizes to Muslims Around the World, Surya Timor ~ June 9
East Timor's Muslims Bemoan New Hostility, By Rajiv Chandrasekaran ~ June 9
Not Independent Yet: East Timor, By Reese Erlich ~ June 9
Yohanes Yakob Denies he Planned Solidamor Attack, Surya Timor ~ June 7
Jakarta Police Reluctant to Act Over Militia Attack on Solidamor, TAPOL ~ May 31
Support Ban on U.S.- Indonesia Military Ties, ETAN ~ May 31
Ethnically Mixed Bosnian Police Contingent Working in East Timor, by Daniel Cooney ~ May 30
ETISC Deplores Militia Attack on Indonesian NGO, Solidamor, ETISC ~ May 30
Update on Solidamor Attack in Jakarta, TAPOL ~ May 29
Gusmao Condemns Attack on Jakarta Support Office, Lusa ~ May 26
Gusmao: Where Is The Aid Going?, by Mark Dodd ~ May 26
Solidamor Office Attacked, Activists Injured, TAPOL ~ May 26
UN Condemns Attacks on East Timorese Muslim minority, by Daniel Cooney ~ May 26
US-Indonesia Military Ties, by Jim Randle, Voice of America ~ May 25
East Timor Action Network Opposes Resumption of Military Ties with Indonesia, John M. Miller ~May 25
East Timorese Asking to Be Returned Home, Dow Jones Newswires ~ May 24
Latest on the Timor Floods, by Niurka Piñeiro ~ May 24
Ramos Horta - Remove District Administrators by August, by Mark Riley ~ May 24
U.S. and U.N. Must Support an International Tribunal on East Timor, by John M. Miller ~ May 23
Marzuki to Force Ex-Officials to Testify on Timor Violence, Indonesian Observer ~ May 18
General Wiranto Grilled for 7 Hours, Jakarta Post ~ May 17
East Timor Leader Notes Resistance's Past Mistakes, by Jose Ramos Horta ~ May 16
Workers Confront Discrimination, Poor Conditions, by Akara Reis ~ May 15
Leandro Isaac Criticizes UN Performance, by Francisco Mangas ~ May 15
CNRT to be Disbanded After Independence, Kyodo News ~ May 15
Allan Nairn's Statement to Congressional Subcommittee on Human Right, ETAN ~ May 11
Calls for U.S. and Indonesia to End East Timor Refugee Crisis, by ETAN ~ May 11
Former Militias Form Party to Contest First East Timor Election, Antara ~ May 11
Australian Minister Rejects Ramos-Horta Timor Treaty Proposal, AAP ~ May 10
Indonesian Activists Lash Out at East Timor Probe, Jakarta Post ~ May 9
Former Indonesian Minister Killed Journalists, by Marianne Kearney ~ May 3
Labour Issues Discussed by UNTAET, Timorese Representatives, UNTAET ~ April 28
50,000 Timorese Refugees Still Living Under Thumb, by Joanna Jolly, South China Morning Post ~ April 7
Uncovering Indonesia's Cemeteries of Truth, by Kusnanto Anggoro, Jakarta Post ~ April 7
Indonesia's Gen. Lumintang Labels U.S. Rights Group's Lawsuit 'Strange', AFP ~ April 6
Jakarta Troops 'Train Militias for Invasion' in Timor, by Joanna Jolly, South China Morning Post ~April 4
East Timor's Gusmao Opposes Sanctions on Indonesia, Reuters ~ April 3
Former Australian PM Appeased Indonesian Brutality, AFP ~ April 3
Indonesia Hands Over East Timorese Refugees to UNHCR, Jakarta Post ~ April 3
For Articles before April Please See East Timor Archive Page
Intelligence on Timor Kept Secret
By Lindsay Murdoch, The Age ~ 20 December 2000
Australia has withheld from United Nations prosecutors secret intelligence implicating dozens of people, including former Indonesian armed forces chief General Wiranto, in last year's violence in East Timor.
Evidence collected by Australian and US spy agencies includes photographs of massacre sites and those involved, according to Canberra-based defence intelligence specialist Desmond Ball.
Professor Ball says the Australian Government has a wealth of information on atrocities in East Timor, including unreported mass killings of students whose bodies were dumped at sea in the days after the UN-sponsored independence ballot.
"The Australian intelligence agencies were able to provide the government with a ringside seat at the mass killings and forced deportations that began when the result of the ballot was announced on September 4," he says.
But Professor Ball, of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University, says Australia has handed over only a "minuscule" amount of the evidence and "none of the most incriminating material".
He argues, in a paper to be published in the London-based Pacific Review, that despite security sensitivities, "ensuring that evidence concerning gross violations of human rights will be brought to bear against war criminals not only serves justice but may deter future violations".
Indonesian military officers are refusing to cooperate with UN investigators trying to collect evidence against those responsible for the violence. Indonesian prosecutors, pursuing separate investigations, have failed to name General Wiranto as a suspect.
Professor Ball says secret briefing papers, prepared for Canberra last year, cited intelligence material revealing that General Wiranto's chain of command remained intact during the military-sponsored violence, with officers loyal to him in operational control. But Australian Government ministers insisted publicly that they believed "rogue elements" in the armed forces were behind the violence.
A September 9 report by the Defence Intelligence Organisation, obtained by Professor Ball, said the Indonesian military had used East Timor as a vehicle for its broader aspirations, which included undermining the then president, Dr B.J.Habibie.
The report said that while the military's immediate aim was to retain East Timor as part of Indonesia, "its broader and longer-term aim was to strengthen the position of the TNI (military) and Wiranto in the Indonesian political system". The military was to employ all necessary force but with maximum deniability.
The report said the military had embarked on a "coordinated process of revenge, destruction of infrastructure and records, killing of key pro-independence leaders and both short and longer term destabilisation of East Timor".
Professor Ball says most of the high-resolution imagery, which could identify individuals in particular incidents, was given to Australia by the United States and is not Australia's to share. But he argues that the need to protect sources and methods is never absolute given the importance of bringing war criminals to justice.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said early this year that Australia had provided some classified material to UN investigators using "the precedent of what the British and Americans did in supplying intelligence material on Bosnia".
END
Timor's Stolen Children Abandoned
By Lindsay Murdoch ~ October 25
Nersia Emaculada De Nercio sits on the edge of a bed in the dormitory of an orphanage she shares with dozens of other children in central Java. She clutches the tattered photographs that are now the only link she has with her family, somewhere hundreds of kilometres away in the squalid refugee camps of West Timor. Asked about her parents, seven-year-old Nersia proudly holds up the photographs. She says her father's name is Anthony; she cannot remember her mother's name. Nersia is one of 130 East Timorese children taken from their parents in the camps of West Timor in the violent aftermath of the Indonesian withdrawal from East Timor last year and placed in poor orphanages in Central Java. Humanitarian investigators and other sources have told The Age the children were relocated by pro-Jakarta Timorese who plan to indoctrinate them as political activists to push for East Timor's reintegration with Indonesia.
Investigators believe the children are among as many as 1000 separated from their parents at the height of the violence in East Timor last year and later from refugee camps in West Timor. Investigators fear many of the children have been forced to work in Indonesian factory sweatshops, plantations or as prostitutes. The Age has found 130 of the children - aged six to 17 - living in primitive orphanage shelters under the supervision of caring Catholic nuns and volunteers who struggle to provide food, clothing and medicines to look after them.
The children, many of them deeply traumatised, have been told they will not be able to return to Timor to see their parents for three years. Even then, they would have to return to Java to continue their education. In one of the orphanages 57 boys are living in one room under a leaky roof. Twenty-three girls are packed into three rooms in a tiny house. For 80 children there are only four toilets and several cooking pots.
Parents in the West Timor camps were persuaded their children would receive a better education in Java. They agreed for the children to go at a time of chaos and fear for the future, UN officials and humanitarian workers say. Some parents have complained to the UN that documents were thrust on them to sign. The arguments of the men who arranged the separations were similar to those used by white Australians to separate Aboriginal children from their parents early this century. The separations go against the spirit of UN conventions protecting children.
The children, weeping and distressed, were left without prior arrangement with Catholic Church officials in the Central Java city of Semarang in November and on Christmas Eve last year after travelling from West Timor by passenger ferry. Nuns at the orphanages say many of them suffer nightmares and are deeply unhappy. But the orphanages are managing to provide the children with a basic education and care despite an acute lack of resources.
The church fears the children will be politically manipulated and has tried to restrict visits by the men who brought them. Brother Paulus Mudjiran of the Semarang Catholic bishop's office said the church felt trapped because it did not want to get involved in East Timor politics. "Our job is just to care for the children," he said. "We are quite aware that others may have plans for the children. In order to minimise any political manipulation we try to minimise contact between those who brought them and the children."
The men who arranged for the children to leave their parents are closely linked to pro-Jakarta militia responsible for violence and intimidation in the West Timor camps. One of them is Octavio Soares, a prominent Timorese student activist based in the Central Java city of Yogyakarta. Speaking by telephone from West Timor, where he is visiting the camps, Mr Soares said yesterday he arranged for the children to be sent to Java so that they could get a proper education. "They lost everything in the war," he said. "They lost their country. I just don't want the children to lose their future. To be honest, I was in a blank when I brought the children to Java. Fortunately, some nuns agreed to take care of the children, it was just a spontaneous idea. Don't get me wrong. I did this for strictly humanitarian purposes."
Mr. Soares denied he intended using the children for political purposes or to train them to be militia or soldiers to fight for the return of East Timor. "That's naive, so stupid," he said. "If I have such a bad intention, why did I not buy weapons in the first place instead of spending the money on transportation and study for the children?" Mr Soares said he wanted to provide an education for at least 1000 Timorese children. "They will be given proper education for at least nine years so that they will become a full and better person who can fight for their own political rights when they grow up."
Mr Soares said he planned to bring more Timorese children to Java. "The plan has been delayed because I still need to obtain formal permission from the parents. I don't want to be accused of kidnapping other people's children. So many parents want me to bring their children to Java for study, but I do not have enough money to support them."
Mr. Soares said he obtained money to bring the 130 children to Java from the Indonesian Government-sponsored National Foster Parents' program (GNOTA). The program was launched by former president Suharto's daughter-in-law, Halimah Bambang Triatmodjo. Mr Soares is a nephew of the former Jakarta-appointed governor of East Timor, Abilio Soares, who faces charges over last year's violence and destruction. Abilio Soares' wife chairs the GNOTA program for East Timor.
Many pro-Indonesian Timorese groups have not given up hope of East Timor again becoming part of Indonesia. Militia leaders continue to demand that parts of East Timor be partitioned and returned to Indonesia so Timorese who voted against independence can live there. "There is a plan for East Timor to come back to Indonesia even if it takes 20 years or more," a source who knows Octavio Soares said. "The plan is to use these children to help that cause."
Francisco Tilman, 12, told The Age at Saint Thomas' orphanage 50 kilometres south of Semarang that he was unhappy and missed his family, especially his five-year-old sister Juleta. He never got the chance to say goodbye to her. "Octavio (Soares) got mad when I said I wanted to go home," Francisco said, looking away and fighting back tears. "I wrote a letter to my parents but they never replied."
Humanitarian workers believe many of the children's parents do not know where their children have been taken. Most of the letters the children have written to their parents have gone unanswered. Alda Pereira, 13, who is also at Saint Thomas' orphanage, said she greatly missed her family. "I can only see them after three years," she said. But Alda's father, Agabioto Dos Santos, pleaded in a June 16 letter for her to be brought home. "If the child does not want to stay there it is better to ask the orphanage to return her to her parents," Mr Dos Santos wrote in the letter that reached Alda. "Please, we want our child to come back to us."
Sister Maria Francine, a nun at St Thomas', said the children have had difficulty settling down. "When it was raining and there was thunder one of them yelled to the rest, `Get down.' They all dived under tables," she said. Some of the children were suffering malaria, tuberculosis and other illnesses when they arrived. "Many still talk in their sleep in their language (Tetum)," the nun said. "Often they yell and scream and fight each other." But last weekend, during a rare two-day stay at a church camp, the children of Saint Thomas' were worried about 13-year-old Paulina Soares. A friend from another orphanage told her that her father, a former East Timorese soldier, had died two months ago. She became hysterical and refused to eat. She stared sadly into space as other children tried to engage her in games and other activities.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, whose representatives have twice visited the children, revealed after being contacted by The Age on Monday that it wants to contact the parents and arrange for the families to be reunited. But the withdrawal of UN and other international aid workers from West Timor after the September 6 killing of three UN staff has frustrated the plan."The principle of family unity is central to this," said Peter Kessler, the UNHCR's spokesman in Dili. "The UNHCR will support efforts to reunite these children with their families in either West Timor or East Timor."
An unknown number of the children's families who were in West Timor have returned to UN-ruled East Timor. Six families have contacted the UNHCR in Dili and asked for their children to be brought from Java. The UN has confirmed they are among the 130 children in the Java orphanages. Mr Kessler said that because the UNHCR could not now work in West Timor, where 120,000 people in the camps are being held virtual hostage, Indonesian aid workers with access were being asked to try to track the families of the children. The UNHCR would also try to trace other parents who had returned to East Timor, Mr Kessler said.
Soni Qodri, a Jakarta-based humanitarian worker and investigator, told The Age that Indonesian non-government organisations believe up to 1000 children have been separated from their parents and brought from East and West Timor to various parts of Indonesia. "We fear many of them are being mistreated, such as being forced to work in sweatshop factories, plantations and prostitution but evidence is difficult to obtain," he said.
Two months ago Mr Qodri went to an orphanage in the East Java town of Situbondo where he heard East Timorese children had been taken. It was early morning when he arrived, Mr Qodri said, and no supervisors were about. He asked a boy about seven where he was from. He replied, "East Timor." But another boy, aged about 12, came up and punched the younger boy. "You are from Kupang," the older boy said, referring to the West Timor capital. The younger boy was then dragged indoors. Later, supervisors at the orphanage denied any Timorese children were there.
The UNHCR has been told the Jesuit Refugee Service has traced 16 East Timor children to an orphanage in the Indonesian province of Kalimantan. Mr Qodri said it was wrong for any children to be uprooted from their parents no matter what the circumstances. "The children have been taken from their families and culture and are under the influence of others," he said. "UN agencies and the Indonesian Government should immediately take steps to trace the parents and reunite these families. I am very concerned these children will fall victim to certain political groups."
END
E-mail Warned Of Killing Spree
By Michael Cameron, The Advertiser ~ Sept. 9
A UNITED Nations official e-mailed a message warning of threats of attacks from Indonesian militia just hours before he and two other aid workers were killed at Atambua in West Timor.
The UN Security Council released the harrowing note by Puerto Rican volunteer Carlos Caceres-Collazo to officials in New York yesterday. The other two men killed were Samson Aregahegn, of Ethiopia, and Pero Simundza, of Croatia.
In the e-mail, Mr Caceres-Collazo said he was in his office "when the news came out that a wave of violence would soon pound Atambua" in retaliation for the death of a senior member of a local militia.
"We sent most of the staff home, rushing to safety. The militias are on the way and I am sure they will do their best to demolish this office," he said. "The militia man killed was the head of one of the most notorious and criminal militia groups of East Timor.
"These guys act without thinking and can kill a human as easily and painlessly as I kill mosquitoes in my room."
The rampaging mob stormed the UN headquarters, hacking the victims to death with machetes and then dragged their bodies to the road and set them on fire.
Their actions had been prompted by the killing of Olivio Mendoza Maruk, a 45, the head of the Laksaur pro-Indonesia militia. His decapitated body was found near Atambua on Tuesday.
It is believed militia leader Eurico Gutteres orchestrated the attack. The massacre cast a sombre note over the first day of formal discussion by the participants in the UN's Millennium Summit in New York. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, opening the meeting of 150 world leaders, said he had taken up the matter with Indonesia "at the highest level". United States President Bill Clinton told the summit he was "deeply saddened to learn of the brutal murders".
"I urge the Indonesian authorities to put a stop to these abuses," he said.
Outside the General Assembly, Prime Minister John Howard said that "everybody was disturbed about what has happened". "An unjustified and unprovoked attack on humanitarian workers is always repellent and something that people naturally condemn very strongly," he said.
Faced with widespread condemnation, Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, who was at the summit, said he had ordered two battalions to West Timor.
Indonesia has a large contingent of soldiers in the territory but, according to witnesses, they refused to intervene as the angry crowd attacked the UN building.
The militia members are angry at UN involvement in the independence vote in neighboring East Timor a year ago.
Pressed by international troops, gangs fled to Indonesian-controlled West Timor from where they have launched border raids against UN troops and civilians.
END
Oxfam Staff Evacuated From West Timor, Programme In Aceh Suspended
Oxfam ~ September 9
Oxfam aid workers have fled for their lives from the militias which reportedly killed 4 UNHCR workers in Atambua, West Timor, today.
The four Oxfam staff were evacuated by the UN peacekeeping mission in East Timor, to a UN military base in East Timor. This comes only ten days after 3 Oxfam staff were severely assaulted by Indonesian police in the western Indonesian province of Aceh on Sunday 27 August.
Oxfam has protested to the Indonesian police and other authorities about the incident in Ladang Rimba, south Aceh, in which all 3 were beaten and received deep cuts on their feet and heads. One of the Oxfam workers had his index fingernail pulled out by police officers, cigarette burns on his back and injuries inside one ear. Oxfam operations in Aceh remain suspended, and will until Oxfam can be satisfied that the authorities can ensure adequate security.
These incidents, together with another attack on UNHCR staff in West Timor earlier in August, show that Indonesia's far-flung regions of conflict are not safe either for the civilians displaced by the violence, nor the aid workers seeking to bring relief to them.
Despite taking significant steps towards democracy, the Indonesian authorities are either unable to provide protection, or, as in the Aceh incident, responsible for violence themselves.
This latest violence in West Timor coincides with the UN Millennium Summit in New York, discussing issues from peacekeeping to arms control. While Oxfam is extremely grateful for the UN peacekeepers acting to evacuate its staff to East Timor today, the presence of the peacekeepers in East Timor for a year has done little to protect those who fled to West Timor.
In a major report for the Summit, Oxfam has called for international controls on the arms trade to prevent arms going to where they may violate human rights. British and EU arms to Indonesia - again possible since an embargo was lifted in January 2000 - are precisely what such international controls must prevent, so long as Indonesia's security forces are linked to the violence shown in recent incidents.
END
Statement On The International Workers Killed This Week in West Timor
by Xanana & Ramos-Horta, NCTR ~ Sept. 8
Statement by Xanana Gusmão, President, and José Ramos-Horta, Nobel Laureate and Vice President, National Council of Timorese Resistance/National Congress
We extend our deepest condolences to the families, friends and colleagues of the international workers killed this week in West Timor and to the U.N. community of which they were a vital part.
The brutal attack on the UNHCR office is the result of bad faith on the part of the Indonesian military leadership.They cannot escape responsibility by blaming militia.It is not only the refugees but the people of West Timor who are held hostage by militia gangs supported by elements of the military.
During the course of the Millennium Summit, we have met with Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid to reiterate our full support for his efforts to bring democracy to his country. We call on him and the international community to forge a common front against impunity and organized crime in Indonesia and West Timor.
If Indonesia fails to deal with the violence against refugees and international staff, Indonesia must seek help from its ASEAN neighbors and international community to restore law and order in West Timor.
The U.N. Security Council must now consider establishing an international tribunal on East Timor to punish those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Only a tribunal will send a clear signal to the criminal elements who destroyed East Timor and continue to terrorize refugees, international staff and others that the world does not tolerate their impunity. At the same time we reiterate our continuing trust in the leadership of Indonesia's Attorney General Marzuki Darusman. We view a tribunal as complementary to his efforts.
Xanana Gusmão
José Ramos-Horta
National Council of Timorese Resistance/National Congress
New York, New York
8 September 2000
END
ETAN Calls UN Deaths in West Timor Preventable
ETAN ~ September 6, 2000
The East Timor Action Network/U.S. called today's brutal murder of U.N. personnel in West Timor tragically preventable." These killings never should have happened. They stem directly from the failure of Indonesian authorities to keep repeated promises to stop militia violence and protect humanitarian workers," said John M. Miller, spokesperson for ETAN.
"World leaders now in New York for the UN's Millennium Summit must be unequivocal in demanding that Indonesia meet its commitments to secure the border with East Timor, protect international humanitarian workers, meet international standards of human rights, and assure the safe return of some 100,000 refugees still trapped in West Timor," said Miller.
ETAN described the attack on the U.N. in West Timor as yet another of many recent egregious examples of an out-of-control military acting through militia proxies.
ETAN called on the U.S. and other governments to strengthen security in West and East Timor by publicly suspending all military assistance to the Indonesian military (TNI) and police until critical conditions are met, including safe return of East Timorese refugees, disarming and disbanding of militia groups, and arrest and extradition of militia leaders.
"A direct military role in the attack may never be confirmed, but the Indonesian military clearly created, armed and trained the militia groups. In the over 100 reported attacks on UN workers in West Timor since last September, Indonesian security forces have often stood by and allowed militia violence to continue unhindered. TNI must bear ultimate responsibility for these acts and omissions," said Miller.
ETAN also cited the disappearance of Acehnese human rights lawyer, Jafar Siddiq Hamzah. A U.S-resident, Hamzah's body is believed to be among five bodies recently found in Northern Sumatra near where he disappeared.
"An international tribunal to prosecute those responsible for violence in East Timor is necessary to realize justice for the East Timorese. It would have the added effect of helping to ensure security for the refugees and those working to assist them. Indonesia should arrest known militia leaders immediately place them under protective custody, and turn them over to U.N. authorities for prosecution," said Lynn Fredriksson, Washington Representative for ETAN.
"The U.S. and others would do well to side with the forces of democracy in both Indonesia and East Timor; support for an international tribunal ultimately translates into support for greater military and judicial reform," she said .
"Any form of U.S. assistance to the Indonesian military contributes to the unraveling of Indonesia's fragile democratization, betrays our commitment to genuine self-determination in East Timor, and violates the intent of Congress in withholding aid to human rights abusers," added Fredriksson. "The killing of human rights advocate Jafar Siddiq Hamzah and hundreds of others in Aceh, and the recent fatal attacks on international aid workers in West Timor require the U.S. to take unequivocal, decisive public action, before more lose their lives."
Four people, including at least three international staff, were killed at the UNHCR office in Atambua. Witnesses said the militia beat the foreign UN workers to death and burned their bodies.
An estimated 100,000 refugees remain in West Timor and elsewhere in Indonesia. UNHCR had suspended its operations in West Timor following an August 22 attack on three staff members severely beaten by suspected militia members. The agency resumed activities on August 29 after Indonesian authorities arrested two of the alleged assailants and promised to increase security for humanitarian workers.
For more information see http://www.etan.org/.
Or Contact: John M. Miller, (718)5967668; (917)690-4391 (mobile)
END
ETAN Calls Indonesian Suspect List "Inadequate and a Capitulation" Calls International Tribunal Only Option
ETAN ~ September 1, 2000
The East Timor Action Network/U.S. today condemned the Indonesian Attorney General's announcement that he plans to question only 19 suspects in last year's campaign of murder and destruction in East Timor.
"The list is wholly inadequate and a capitulation to the continued power of the Indonesian military. The Indonesians should turn over their files and suspects to U.N. prosecutors in East Timor and work with the U.N. to set up an international tribunal," said John M. Miller, spokesperson for ETAN.
"Indonesia's promises to hold those responsible for East Timor's destruction will at best be only partly kept. The list of names does not even cover all those fingered earlier this year by Indonesia's own human rights commission. This announcement -- combined with Indonesia's recent passage of a constitutional amendment foreclosing direct prosecution of past human rights abuses -- demonstrates that a tribunal is needed to provide genuine justice for the people of East Timor," said Miller.
"This list is far more than disappointing, it is an indication that the time has come for the U.N., the U.S. and other governments to call, unreservedly, for an international human rights tribunal," said Lynn Fredriksson, Washington Representative for ETAN.
"With Indonesian military-backed militia violence continuing unhindered in West Timor refugee camps and creating terror along East Timor's border, genuine human rights accountability is needed to deal with current problems, as well as to achieve justice and reconciliation for past violations," she added.
"The U.S. would do well to side with the forces of democracy in both Indonesia and East Timor; support for an international tribunal ultimately translates into support for greater military and judicial reform," said Fredriksson.
"The suspect list issued today by Indonesian investigators fits the pattern of the Suharto years of targeting lower-ranking officers while letting off their commanders and political leaders in Jakarta who plan the terror campaigns, provide the resources and issue the orders," said Miller.
Among those absent from the list are many militia leaders, including Eurico Guterres and Joao Tavares; General Wiranto, then commander of the Indonesian armed forces; and Indonesian cabinet officers who funded the militia, such as then foreign minister Ali Alatas and retired General Feisal Tanjung, the former coordinating minister for political affairs and security.
Also missing is former Army deputy chief of staff Lt. Gen. Johny Lumintang, who has been sued in U.S. courts for his role in the events surrounding last year's independence vote in East Timor. That lawsuit is based on the same legal grounds as the one filed yesterday against Chinese leader Li Peng over his role in the Tiananmen Square massacre.
For more information see http://www.etan.org/action/issues/h-rights.htm or Contact: John M. Miller, (718)596-7668; (917)690-4391 (mobile)
END
East Timor Federation Urges International Tribunal on Timor Vote Anniversary
Calls Case for Tribunal "Irrefutable"
ETAN/TOPAL ~ Aug. 30
August 30, 2000 -- Calling "the case for an international tribunal for East Timor &ldots; now irrefutable," the International Federation for East Timor (IFET) today urged UN Secretary General Kofi Annan immediately take steps to establish one.
In a letter delivered to the Secretary-General on the anniversary of East Timor's vote for independence, IFET wrote that the recent passage of a constitutional amendment introducing a non-retroactivity principle "confirms our prior assessment that the Indonesian judicial system cannot bring the perpetrators of the violence and destruction in East Timor to justice."
IFET warned that failure by the U.N. "to act decisively to end impunity for crimes committed in East Timor" encourages those responsible for the violence to "continue their reign of terror in the West Timor refugee camps and their attacks on civilians and UN peacekeepers across the border.... As long as the perpetrators of last year's mayhem enjoy impunity, there is no incentive for them to stop."
IFET reminded the Secretary-General that he and other U.N. officials have "repeatedly stated that you are holding the possibility of an international tribunal in abeyance to give the Indonesian justice system a chance to try the crimes." But IFET wrote, "little progress has been made in bringing justice to the people who suffered so much for expressing their desire for freedom. The arguments against allowing Indonesia to take responsibility for trying those responsible for the violence are overwhelming and we urge you to act immediately to set the international process in motion."
In the months leading up to last August 30 vote in East Timor, the International Federation for East Timor sent 140 non-partisan observers to East Timor to observe the U.N.-administered consultation process. IFET was formed in 1991 to support the self-determination process for East Timor at the United Nations. It now has 39 member groups from 23 countries.
A copy of today's and a previous letter can be found at http://www.etan.org/ifet.
August 30, 2000
Hon. Kofi Annan United Nations Secretary-General
UN Secretariat
New York, NY 10017
By fax to 212-963-2155
Dear Excellency:
Recent developments in East Timor and Indonesia have greatly increased both the urgency and the necessity of an international tribunal to bring those responsible for committing and ordering crimes against humanity in East Timor to justice.
As we wrote to you on 5 July, the International Federation for East Timor and many other people around the world believe that an international tribunal is essential to punish and deter past and future violence against the people of East Timor.
Militia forces are now escalating violence in East Timor, with no effective effort by the Indonesian military to stop them, and recently killed two UN peacekeepers. One of the most effective ways the UN can prevent more criminal militia activity is to make it clear both to the militias and to TNI officers who support or tolerate them that the international community will ensure they are held to account for their crimes. For as long as the perpetrators of last year's mayhem enjoy impunity, there is no incentive for them to stop. The recent enactment by Indonesia's People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) of a constitutional amendment, which introduces the principle of 'non-retroactivity' into Indonesian law without any exceptions, is a major setback. It effectively grants an amnesty to the Indonesian military officials who ordered others to commit crimes against humanity in East Timor and Indonesia.
Many UN officials, including yourself and the High Commissioner for Human Rights, have repeatedly stated that you are holding the possibility of an international tribunal in abeyance to give the Indonesian justice system a chance to try the crimes. More than four months have passed since the date by which Indonesia's Attorney General promised the international community trials would begin, and they are not on the horizon.
The MPR decision confirms our prior assessment that the Indonesian judicial system cannot bring the perpetrators of the violence and destruction in East Timor to justice. The case for an international tribunal for East Timor is now irrefutable. The MPR decision shows that the concerns expressed in our letter of 5 July about the lack of political will behind the Indonesian process were well-founded. The MPR's defiance of the international community and internationally-accepted legal principles is unacceptable and once again we call upon you to recommend to the Security Council that it uses its powers to establish an ad hoc international tribunal without delay.
As Secretary-General, you have a duty to act on the recommendations of the UN Commission of Inquiry report, which found evidence of 'a pattern of serious violations of fundamental human rights and humanitarian law&ldots;[including] violations of the right to life and to freedom from torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, [and] violence against women&ldots;' These are crimes of universal jurisdiction which must now be dealt with before an international tribunal as recommended by the Commission of Inquiry.
In your letter of 31 January accompanying the Commission of Inquiry report you said: '...the actions violating human and international humanitarian law were directed against a decision of the Security Council and were contrary to the agreements reached by Indonesia with the United Nations to carry out the decision of the Security Council. This fact reinforces the need to hold the perpetrators accountable for their actions... The International Commission of Inquiry found that the United Nations and the international community had a particular responsibility to the people of East Timor in connection with investigating the violations, establishing responsibilities, punishing those responsible and promoting reconciliation. I believe the United Nations has an important role to play in this process in order to help safeguard the rights of the people of East Timor, promote reconciliation, ensure future social and political stability and protect the integrity of Security Council actions.'
It appears that Indonesia sees the international community as impotent - all talk and no action. In a phrase, which is often applied to and used by UN missions in East Timor, "words are not enough". If you now fail to act decisively to end impunity for crimes committed in East Timor, those responsible for the violence will continue their reign of terror in the West Timor refugee camps and their attacks on civilians and UN peacekeepers across the border.
The effect of the MPR decision is that a new Article 28 (I) is added to the Constitution. It provides that '&ldots;the right not to be charged on the basis of retroactivity is a basic human right that may not be breached under any circumstances.'
The principle of 'non-retroactivity' is a fundamental human right, but under international law the principle does not apply in the case of acts or omissions which were crimes under international criminal law at the time they were committed (see Article 15 (2) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights). Critically, no similar proviso has been included in the constitutional amendment.
Offences under international criminal law, in particular crimes against humanity of the type committed in East Timor - murder, torture, deportation and sexual offences committed as part of a systematic attack against the civilian population - are not presently crimes under Indonesian law. The attempt (albeit flawed) to incorporate such crimes in the human rights courts bill now before the Indonesian Parliament will be ineffective in terms of past crimes. The draft provision in the bill, which would have allowed for an ad hoc court to be set up to try past 'gross violations of human rights', will have to be deleted in deference to the amended Constitution.
All that remains is the possibility of the perpetrators being tried under the ordinary Penal Code of Indonesia, which is wholly inadequate. As well as not including crimes against humanity, it does not allow for military leaders to be tried under the principle of command responsibility. Inevitably, lower-ranking soldiers and militia members would be targeted and higher-ranking military officers responsible for planning the violence would escape with impunity. Furthermore, the current procedural and institutional safeguards for the rights of defendants fall far short of accepted human rights standards.
We are particularly worried by the recent statement of the then Minister for Human Rights, Hasballah M Saad, that the recent joint civilian-military tribunal used in Aceh can be a precedent for trials of other past crimes against humanity. The Aceh tribunal was essentially a military court and, therefore, breached all known international standards concerning the need for independence and impartiality.
We are also concerned by the failure of an Indonesian court to try prominent militia leader Eurico Guterres for illegal possession of weapons because it was unable to decide if he was following military orders or acting on his own.
The other concerns expressed in our letter of 5 July - the flaws in the human rights courts bill and the considerable time it will take to ensure that the competence and integrity of the judiciary meets international standards - still apply.
Exactly a year has past since East Timor's momentous vote for independence, but little progress has been made in bringing justice to the people who suffered so much for expressing their desire for freedom. The arguments against allowing Indonesia to take responsibility for trying those responsible for the violence are overwhelming and we urge you to act immediately to set the international process in motion.
The upcoming Millennium Assembly provides an important opportunity for you and the United Nations to stand firmly for accountability and the rule of law with regard to Indonesian crimes in East Timor. We hope that you and the Security Council, as well as the General Assembly, will meet that responsibility and fulfill the obligation the UN incurred to the East Timorese people when it facilitated the consultation process in East Timor last year.
Sincerely,
Charles Scheiner United Nations Representative, International Federation for East Timor
cc: Foreign Ministers of Portugal and Indonesia
Ambassadors to the United Nations of the Security Council member states
International media
Contact: John M. Miller, ETAN, +1-718-596-7668; +1-917-690-4391 (US) Paul Barber, TAPOL, +44-1420-80153 (UK)
END
One Year Later, East Timor Still Needs Justice and Security
ETAN Encourages U.S. to Build on Commitment to Full Self-Determination
ETAN ~ August 29, 2000
The East Timor Action Network/U.S. (ETAN) today said that one year after last year's historic independence vote, East Timor still lacks justice and security.
"East Timor has begun to rebuild from last year's destruction, but much still needs to be done to assure justice and security for the world's newest country," said John M. Miller, spokesperson for the East Timor Action Network/U.S.
ETAN called on the U.S. and other nations to support an international tribunal to prosecute those responsible East Timor's destruction and to strengthen East Timor's security by refusing to reestablish any military assistance to the Indonesian military and police until certain conditions are met, including an end to their human rights abuses, disarming and disbanding militias and arresting their leaders, and respect for East Timor's territorial integrity. The Indonesian government must also bring its armed forces under civilian control.
"One year after the Indonesian military and its militias leveled East Timor, the government of Indonesia either can't or won't stop military support for militias violating East Timor's borders, attacking peacekeepers and UN relief personnel, and blocking the repatriation of more than 100,000 East Timorese refugees. Any form of U.S. assistance to the Indonesian military contributes to the unraveling of Indonesia's fragile democratization, betrays our commitment to genuine self-determination in East Timor, and violates the intent of Congress in withholding aid to human rights abusers," said Lynn Fredriksson, Washington Representative for ETAN.
"An international tribunal is the only way to be sure that the victims of military and militia violence in East Timor have their day in court. A tribunal will have the added benefits of discouraging continued rights violations throughout Indonesia and promoting reconciliation in East Timor," said Miller.
"The U.S., until recent years a major backer of Indonesia's invasion and occupation of East Timor, must provide substantial support for East Timor's development. The United States has a responsibility after arming and training East Timor's tormentors for so long," said John M. Miller.
"Now that East Timor is free, the U.S. must support a just and peaceful future for the world's newest nation. The East Timorese need a full range of aid -- from health care to educational scholarships -- the U.S. should continue to contribute what is most needed, as Congress and the administration did at the end of 1999," added Miller.
On August 30, 1999, the people of East Timor defying threats and violence turned out in record numbers to vote overwhelmingly for independence. Following the vote, Indonesian troops and their militia proxies destroyed some 70% of the country's infrastructure, killed more than one thousand people, and forced hundreds of thousands across the border into Indonesia. On September 9, the U.S. suspended military ties and threatened World Bank and IMF assistance to Indonesia. Soon after, the Indonesian military began to withdraw from East Timor and an international peacekeeping force entered. in November, the U.S. Congress restricted most military assistance to Indonesia until East Timorese refugees are returned, there is effective prosecution of military and militia members responsible for human rights atrocities in East Timor and Indonesia and other conditions regarding East Timor's security are met.
But, in July, the U.S. military began to re-engage with its Indonesian counterparts by conducting a joint exercise with Indonesian troops.
In recent months, Indonesian military-backed militias have stepped up their activities in East Timor, killing two U.N. peacekeepers and several East Timorese. Militia attacks on aid workers over the past week forced UNHCR to suspend its activities in refugee camps in West Timor where some 100,000 East Timorese remain virtual hostages.
Last week, in a set back to democratization, Indonesia amended its constitution, creating strong obstacles to prosecutions of past human rights abuses. Indonesian, East Timorese, and international organizations argue that an international tribunal is now the only option to bring military and militia leaders responsible for atrocities in East Timor to justice.
The human rights situation has severely deteriorated in Indonesia in recent months. In Aceh, the military regularly violates the humanitarian ceasefire. Disappearances of human rights activists have also increased. A U.S. resident, Jafar Siddiq Hamzah, president of the International Forum On Aceh, disappeared on August 5 in Medan and has not been heard from since. ETAN has expressed strong concerns about Hamzah's safety.
Last week in Papua people were shot for raising an independence flag. In a reprise of tactics used in East Timor, the Indonesian military has created militias which harass and terrorize the population. In the Moluccas, Indonesian soldiers have been observed fighting with militias on both sides of the conflict.
The Indonesia invaded neighboring East Timor on December 7, 1975, hours after a state visit to Jakarta by then President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. According to human rights groups, one-third of the population -- more than 200,000 East Timorese -- was killed in subsequent years as the U.S. provided weapons and political support under both Democratic and Republican administrations.
For additional background, see ETAN's website www.etan.org.
Contact: John M. Miller, (718) 596-7688; (917) 690-4391; Karen Orenstein, (202) 544-6911
END
Genuine Self-Rule Elusive A Year After Independence
By Kafil Yamin
JAKARTA, Aug. 29 (IPS) -- One year after voting to end a quarter century of Indonesian rule, the East Timorese are realizing that building a nation can be as slow and circuitous as the struggle to win independence.
Although more than 80 percent of East Timor's population opted for independence on August 30, 1999, there is still a long way to go to achieve genuine autonomy, as the nation's resistance leader Xanana Gusmao put it.
The former Indonesian province still relies heavily on foreign assistance in many sectors, from economic and state administration to international relations.
Likewise, urgent problems have cropped up since East Timor was freed from Indonesia, which invaded and annexed it in 1976.
For instance, East Timor, the nation-in-waiting expected to be under United Nations administration until the end of 2001, has not decided on its own currency, national language or constitution.
After Tetun, the local language, leaders of the National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT), the umbrella group that led East Timor's campaign for self-rule, prefer Portuguese as a second official language.
Only 7 percent of the 800,000 Timorese understand Portuguese, and some younger Timorese, who mostly speak Indonesian, believe using the language of East Timor's colonizer will hinder their participation in national affairs.
Decisions about the form of government in East Timor and even its name are expected to be decided in August next year, when elections are held for a constituent assembly.
Meanwhile, even though the U.S. dollar has been the official currency, daily transactions still involve mainly the Indonesian rupiah and the Portuguese escudo.
More than 70 percent of East Timor's infrastructure remains heavily damaged from the Indonesian-led militia violence following last year's referendum, and needs time and funds for reconstruction. Many shops, banks and hotels remain in ruins.
In this territory with a per capita income of $431, 80 percent of the population is unemployed.
Despite the presence of many aid groups helping to distribute food, medicine and financial assistance, the situation remains critical. The nation has only 15 qualified doctors and a shortage of secondary school teachers.
Graffiti in the rubble of destroyed buildings is often derisive. "Emangya enak merdeka?" (How do you like being free?), someone wrote in Indonesian.
Apart from potential income from oil and gas, world-class coffee and rice and maize, the nascent country can count on much international goodwill.
The World Bank, the U.N., and donor countries have agreed to infuse $520 million during a two-year transition period. A number of foreign and local groups are distributing food and medicine, and reconstructing public facilities.
But some say there may be an extension of the United Nations interim administration operation known as UNTAET, and its armed force, INTERFET, because of the continued security threat posed by Indonesian militia groups.
At least two peacekeepers were killed recently in clashes with the Indonesian militiamen, the same groups who looted and burned East Timor after last year's vote.
On Aug. 22, three humanitarian workers of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) were attacked in Naen Refugee camps, West Timor, the Indonesian half of the island across the border from East Timor.
The incident occurred after the Indonesian military pledged to investigate the death of an INTERFET peacekeeper who was attacked by pro-Jakarta militia on the East Timor border.
Indonesia has promised to crack down on militia activity and their cross-border attacks. But the chief of the Udayana military command, Maj. Gen. Kiki Syahnakri, admits his forces cannot fully control the militias.
"We are overwhelmed. Our troops are not sufficient to close all access to East Timor along the border. TNI (the Indonesian military) could not deploy more troops here because they are needed in other parts of the country, which also face security disruption," he said.
Jakarta has postponed the announcement of 30 suspects in connection with last year's East Timor mayhem. The announcement was scheduled for Aug. 23, but was deferred following an amendment of the 1945 Constitution which provides protection against retroactive charges.
Meantime, some 120,000 East Timorese remain in the West Timor refugee camps, which sprouted up last year after up to one-fourth of East Timor's population fled violence by the militias. Militiamen continue to harass people there.
Indonesia has promised to close the camps, and Indonesian foreign ministry official Hassan Wirajuda conveyed this on Aug. 23 to UNTAET chief Sergio Vieira de Mello and CNRT vice president Jose Ramos Horta. But the promise remains unfulfilled.
Media reports said pro-Jakarta militias have built stone blocks in some vital access points to East Timor to try and halt the repatriation of refugees. The UNHCR has delayed the repatriation process for some time.
"It is really regrettable that the militias can move so freely there, evade the law and snub the authorities in Jakarta that has guarantees for humanitarian workers and refugees," complained Soren Petersen of UNHCR.
The militias have vowed to launch an all-out fight against UNTAET."We will never let the white foreigners rule our homeland. We know the Indonesian military is no longer on our side. But that won't make any difference for us," Lafaek, a pro-integration militia member, said in a phone interview from Kupang, West Timor.
"You will see more casualties in the future," he added.
Despite the bumpy road East Timor faces toward real independence, signs of the birth of the state are clearly visible.
Dili, the East Timor capital, is gradually coming to life. Power has been restored, drinking water is flowing again and local telephone systems have resumed operation. Some traders have reopened their damaged shops.
The traditional market in the eastern part of Dili is drawing more crowds buying vegetables, meat, fruit, clothes and other basic necessities.
Azina Gusmao, a trader in the market, says the key indicator of the economic recovery of East Timor -- the poorest among Indonesia's former provinces -- is the decline of prices of basic foods.
Dili's streets are also busier -- taxis and other public transport vehicles, mostly imported from Singapore and Australia, are running again.
While INTERFET regularly conducts weapons searches, the curfew has been lifted and more people venture out in the evenings.
But that is in the capital, which has received the most resources. In other towns and villages, electricity and telephones are not available and drinking water is a luxury.
Xanana says it is too early to judge the situation in Dili, and it should not be the sole indicator of the new state.
"East Timor is not a republic of restaurants," said Xanana, who had earlier quit as CNRT chief. He also gave up command of armed resistance force of East Timor, Falintil, on Aug. 20.
But news reports from Dili say he has been prevailed upon by supporters to stay on as head of the territory's main political grouping. Xanana is widely expected to be East Timor's first president.
"We don't have experience as a state. So it is normal if we still need help," Xanana said, adding that it will take years for the territory to fully recover its bearings.
END
Gusmao Steps Down As Head of Falintil Army
By Mark Dodd, The Age ~ August 21
AILEU, EAST TIMOR - East Timor independence leader Jose "Xanana" Gusmao has resigned as commander-in-chief of the Falintil guerrilla force in a moving ceremony hailed as a significant and symbolic step in the fledgling nation's transition to democracy.
Falintil also made history by becoming the world's only guerrilla army to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, donated yesterday by veteran independence advocate Jose Ramos Horta, who was awarded the prize in 1996 with co-recipient Bishop Carlos Belo for working to end Indonesian brutality in East Timor.
Mr Horta promised to spend his share of the $US800,000 ($A1.3million) prize money on micro-credits for East Timor's poor and he appealed to the foreign community to contribute. Mr Gusmao took the medal from Mr Horta and passed it to the new Falintil commander-in-chief, Taur Matan Ruak.
Standing before Falintil fighters assembled at Aileu, a mountain town 45 kilometres south of Dili, Mr Gusmao gave his last speech in uniform. It was a fitting farewell.
"I was your commander but I learnt from you how to make war. I learnt from you how to serve the national cause and I learnt from you forgiveness and the spirit of reconciliation," he said, his voice faltering with emotion.
He recalled bleak times in the past when he was captured by Indonesian forces in 1992 and how Falintil's total strength had dwindled to 150 armed rebels.
Mr Gusmao praised Taur Matan Ruak for rebuilding the force to more than 1500 men under arms. And in a jibe at the United Nations, he apologised for the poor living conditions of the troops at Aileu.
Mr Gusmao said Falintil needed new heroes to participate in the rebuilding of East Timor.
Earlier he inspected his men and attended a memorial mass held by Bishop Belo.
The UN's special representative in East Timor, Sergio Vieira de Mello, said the United Nations recognised Falintil as the legitimate founders of the country's new defence force.
"The Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, in a letter to the commander-in-chief, `Xanana' Gusmao, a few months ago, formally recognised the role of Falintil in the present, past and future of this country," he said in his speech.
Mr de Mello issued a blunt demand that pro-Indonesian militias stop their cross-border violence and warned that former militia leaders would face prosecution for war crimes.
Mr de Mello also hinted at increased cooperation between UN peacekeepers and Falintil. The Age has since learnt from a senior Falintil commander that a small force of fewer than 100 men will soon be sent to the western border to provide an intelligence and liaison role for the UN peacekeepers in their battle to stem increasing militia violence.
Mr de Mello hailed Mr Gusmao's decision to resign his military role as "confirmation that from today (Sunday) there is a separation of military and political power in East Timor - an affirmation of one of the basic principles of democracy".
END
Border Raids Have UN At Full Stretch
BY Mark Dodd and Joanna Jolly, The Age
SUAI & KUPANG, Friday 18 August 2000: Security on the East Timor border has been stepped up to a level not seen since the United Nations took over from the InterFET force in February.
The increased security demands are placing a strain on the peacekeeping force struggling to cope with militia incursions that have left some local people feeling afraid and vulnerable.
Up to 150 militia from Indonesian West Timor are believed to have crossed the border, and the UN fears they will target peacekeepers, rather than East Timorese.
A former militia leader in the West Timor capital, Kupang, said yesterday the militia would particularly target Australian and Portuguese troops.
The heightened tension comes before this month's anniversary of East Timor's independence vote and next month's anniversary of the arrival of international troops.
Fijian peacekeepers near Suai, close to the border, exchanged fire with four militiamen yesterday and were tracking them last night.
The Fijians had laid in wait for the militia along an infiltration route in rugged forested country 10 kilometres north-west of Suai.
No Fijian troops were injured during the brief exchange of fire, which occurred after the militia were ordered to drop their weapons. Armed with semi-automatic weapons and dressed in Indonesian military fatigues, the militia retreated into dense forest.
The firefight comes amid extreme security along the 172-kilometre border. About 1600 Australian, New Zealand, Fijian, Nepalese and Irish troops secure the border, a number UN commanders now regard as too low.
The militia attacks come as several countries are rotating their battalions out of East Timor. A Filipino contingent has been moved to Dili to allow more Portuguese to fan out into higher risk areas of southern Ainaro and Cassa.
Two peacekeepers, a Nepalese and New Zealander, have died in clashes with the militia in recent week, although UN officers say these were chance encounters rather than planned attacks.
Local people have reported numerous sightings of militia in the past two weeks. Small bands have penetrated as far as Ainaro district, despite a massive security operation by UN peacekeepers.
New Zealand battalion commander Lieutenant-Colonel Martin Dransfield said on Wednesday as many as 150 armed militia were believed to be in East Timor, and their intention was probably to try to kill UN peacekeepers, not locals.
Yesterday people in Holbolu hamlet, close to the site of last week's clash with Nepalese troops, said that militia had tried to come into town foraging for food.
The recent violence has left them scared and vulnerable.
"The PKF (UN peacekeeping force) have asked us not to leave the village because there are many militia in the area," said Jose de Jesus, a farmer. But he said he needed to walk into the hills to hunt and graze his cattle.
More than 100 people live in the village but already two families have moved to the safety of Suai, six kilometres away.
In Kupang, a former militia intelligence head, Elly Cater Ana, said the recent attacks on UN troops were carried out by militia and former Indonesian soldiers who have been hiding in the East Timor mountains for a year.
"I have heard that the groups in East Timor want to kill Australian and Portuguese soldiers, especially Australians as since they have been in East Timor they are not neutral," said Mr Ana, who says he no longer has any links to the militia.
END
Indonesia Promises To Shut Refugee Camps In West Timor
Associated Press ~ August 1
JAKARTA - Facing international pressure to stop escalating border violence, Indonesia promised Monday to close refugee camps in neighboring West Timor used by anti-independence militiamen to stage guerrilla incursions into East Timor.
Last week a militia gang crossed the border and killed one U.N. peacekeeper from New Zealand. Several other raids have been reported in recent days.
"We will close the camps on our side of the border soon," said Foreign Minister Alwi Shihab after a meeting with Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid.
Shihab said Wahid had agreed to shut the camps after calls from the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and Japan at a regional foreign ministers meeting in Bangkok last week.
East Timor broke away from Indonesian rule last year after a U.N.-supervised ballot.
The result of the vote triggered a bloody backlash by anti-independence gangs who went on a rampage across the half-island territory.
The militiamen fled with hundreds of thousands of refugees into the makeshift camps in West Timor after international peacekeepers arrived in September to restore order.
Tens of thousands of refugees have since returned to East Timor, which is now under temporary U.N. administration.
However, the world body along with other foreign officials complain that the militiamen are using the camps as border incursion bases.
Shihab said Indonesia would soon ask refugees whether they want to stay in Indonesia or return to East Timor.
Those who opt to stay would be resettled on another island away from Timor, apparently to ease security concerns on the border.
END
Church In Atambua To Open Reconciliation Dialogue
NTT Ekspres ~ August 1
ATAMBUA - The Bishop of Atambua, who oversees the regions of TTU and Belu, will soon hold reconciliation dialogue for E. Timor youth, especially former members of the PPI (Integration Struggle Force).
This announcement was made by head of the Bishop’s Youth Committee, Pastor Maksi Bria in Atambua, Friday (28/7) in relation to the diocese plans to work with Catholic Relief Services in accompaniment of former PPI members. “We have already planned a reconciliation dialogue for former PPI members and there is a good likelihood the meeting will be held in Atambua with as many youth as possible attending from both Belu and TTU.”
It is hoped that in this meeting the youth can share their thoughts and express their aspirations to develop friendship and peace with youth in E. Timor. He admitted that if E. Timorese youth are now scattered throughout thousands of refugee tents in NTT they would need lots of time to return to the land of their birth in E. Timor. “But in this dialogue there is a good possibility they will give alternative suggestions, if they don’t return to E. Timor how they will continue to live as Indonesian citizens born in E. Timor,” he said. It is just possible that there will be political negotiation between former PPI youth and Falintil and CNRT youth on behalf of peace and reconciliation for all E. Timorese.
An integration youth leader, Agapito Pirres, supported the initiative for a reconciliation dialogue of E. Timor youth in Atambua: “We are very supportive of all efforts at reconciliation and peace for the people of E. Timor. We probably won’t go home to E. Timor but live in Indonesia, so what are the concrete steps so that relations between Indonesia and E. Timor can be improved in the future?” he said. He said that E. Timor youth in Indonesia hope that the church in NTT can be the go-between for pro-integrationists and the people of Timor Lorosae.
The source for all reconciliation is mutual respect for each sides decisions about citizenship, whether to be citizens of Indonesia or Timor Leste. “More than that, all future developments in Timor Leste must come within the parameters of Indonesian culture, not western culture like what is seen now, what more considering that President Gus Dur has already stressed that Indonesia can live without E. Timor, but E. Timor can’t live without Indonesia,” said Agapito Pirres.
A day earlier, Pedro Pereira and Apolinario da Silva, two E. Timor leaders, met with Atambua Bishop, Anton Pain Ratu, to discuss various reconciliation efforts. “We all realize how pressing reconciliation is for the people of E. Timor. Without it, the E. Timor problem won’t be resolved and political flames will continue to burn,” said Pereira. Ever since the arrival of refugees in NTT, the Catholic church in Atambua has wanted at some point for reconciliation to be discussed by all E. Timorese.
To realize this, the church has not only given humanitarian assistance but has had continuous contact with the two bishops in E. Timor so that as soon as possible they can find a way towards reconciliation dialogue. This approach was evident with the visit of Baucau Bishop, Mgr. Basilio do Nascimento in early June to several refugee tents in NTT. Bishop Pain Ratu and Catholic youth have also met with Vice President Megawati to discuss problems related to handling E. Timor refugees. According to Pereira, Bishop Belo has sent a letter to Bishop Pain Ratu and apparently he too wants to create a climate conducive to dialogue for reconciliation.
Refugees in NTT, who now number more than 100,000, hope that Bishop Pain Ratu can visit E. Timor on behalf of a reconciliation mission. Such a visit will enable the refugees to know directly the real condition of Timor Lorosae and know the expectations of the two E. Timor Bishops as well as pro-independence supporters for pro-integrationists. “As a church leader, I am making an effort to facilitate all the good desires of the E. Timorese refugees. Whatever the situation, the people of E. Timor are our own brothers and certainly desire to live as good neighbors in the future&ldots;. May the harmonious life that has been present in NTT among members of different religions not be marred by the destructive actions of refugees,” said Bishop Pain Ratu.
END
Australian Unions Criticises UN Over Asbestos Concerns
by Denis Peters and Linda McSweeny, AAP ~ August 1
CANBERRA, July 31 AAP - Australian unions and a prominent law firm have warned that workers rebuilding East Timor could be exposed to asbestos contamination.
Australia has long since cracked down on the handling of asbestos, which can lead to fatal disease later in life for workers, but there were warnings that much of the now banned material exists in East Timor.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) said the United Nations was failing to protect workers involved in reconstruction work from potential asbestos contamination.
Local and international aid and corporate workers and peacekeepers might already have been exposed to asbestos and other harmful substances, ACTU president Sharan Burrow said.
"We are totally supportive of the UN's role in the reconstruction of East Timor, " she said in a statement.
"But we are concerned that there may have been exposed workers involved in clean-up and construction operations to an unacceptably high risk of exposure to hazardous materials, including asbestos.
"This is an issue not only for local East Timorese workers but also the many Australians in East Timor working for aid agencies, serving as peacekeepers or working for companies who hold reconstruction contracts."
Law firm Slater and Gordon, which has conducted most asbestos litigation in Australia, warned Australian manufacturers of asbestos to act immediately to clean up the situation or face future liability.
It also warned that the UN interim administration in East Timor faced liability for the welfare of Australian and indigenous workers in the clean-up and reconstruction after last year's post-independence vote violence.
The ACTU said it had overwhelming evidence that much of the clean-up operations around Dili after last year's mayhem involved removing and disposing of debris that contained the toxic substance.
Asbestos in East Timor was likely to have come from Australian companies, Slater and Gordon's Ken Fowlie said.
"Australian manufacturers responsible for any asbestos debris in Timor have a duty to assist in its safe removal," he said.
"The asbestos now being uncovered in Timor, like that in Australia, was sold at a time when authorities knew of the health risks from this deadly product.
"We face a new wave of asbestos exposure for those helping with humanitarian and reconstruction work in Timor. "
Mr Fowlie said corporate Australia and the UN was taking on a potential liability unless they did all in their power to protect Australian and indigenous relief workers.
Asbestos Diseases Society of Australia president Robert Vojakovic warned the toll from asbestos in Australia was still rising.
"The authorities responsible for work in Timor must remember there is no safe level of asbestos exposure," he said.
END
New Zealand Foreign Minister Appalled By Bounty Report
AP ~ July 31
BANGKOK - New Zealand's foreign minister said Friday that he was appalled by a report that armed gangs operating from Indonesia are offeriang a bounty for the lives of Australian and New Zealand peacekeepers in East Timor.
Foreign Minister Phil Goff said that he had no independent confirmation of the report in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.
"If it is correct, quite clearly that is totally unacceptable," Goff said.
"I regard it as appalling that a bounty...has been placed for the death of any New Zealand or Australian peacekeeper in East Timor," Goff said on the sidelines of a regional security meeting in Bangkok.
A New Zealand solider in the 8,500-strong U.N. peacekeeping force this week became its first member to be killed in a clash with armed gangs opposed to East Timorese independence.
The Herald quoted unidentified U.N. officers as alleging that a bounty of between 1.5 million and 2 million rupiah ($1=IDR8,913) may have been paid to members of the Laksaur militia believed responsible for the death of 24-year-old Pvt. Leonard Manning.
Manning's body was found with his ears cut off, and the Herald report said they were taken as a bounty trophy.
The U.N. received information on the bounty from militia sources in West Timor, the half of the island ruled by Indonesia, the newspaper said.
Peacekeeping forces led by Australia arrived in East Timor last September to restore order after the territory voted for independence from a quarter-century of brutal rule by Indonesia.
Goff is having talks Saturday with Indonesian Foreign Minister Alwi Shihab that would focus on tighter control over the border, repatriating refugees and shutting down the camps.
END
East Timorese Youths Rejected Foreign Military Bases
TEMPO Interaktif ~ July 31
LISBON - East Timorese youth rejected the foreign military base. It is one point of declaration of East Timorese Youth Congress that was held from July 10 to 15 in Dili, the capital of East Timor. They rejected a military base in East Timor because they are concerned on its negative impact, such as unstable situation in Southeast Asia and an acculturation with western culture. The congress also reflected youth’s contribution and participation in successfully liberating East Timor through a referendum. Therefore, the youth’s role is to develop the country.
The congress also declared statement about political, governmental and economy systems that support small industries and protect national entrepreneurs in entering international market. In terms of social and cultural fields, two national languages, namely Tetum and Portuguese, are declared. In one-decade ahead, Tetum will be stated national language.
The first youth congress since East Timor’s independence was initiated by Youth Presidium Loriko Assuwain, an organization established on April 1999. The Presidium protects all mass and political organizations of East Timorese Youth. The congress was also attended by other ten youth and students organization, such as Impettu, Renetil, Ojetil, Obslatil, and Fitun, and youth representatives from 13 districts in East Timor.
END
Timor Militia Bordering On Comeback
by Don Greenlees, The Australian ~ July 31
JAKARTA - The Harco Hotel in central Jakarta is a dreary resting place for people travelling on the cheap. For 100,000 rupiah ($20) a night, visitors are led down a narrow concrete passageway to a small cell. It's not a place to linger.
The hotel's coffee shop is no more inviting. It is dimly lit and the bare concrete floor is obviously awaiting decorative inspiration and the money to pay for it.
Sitting alone, bent over a table in the corner, is Cancio Lopes de Carvalho. Last year, on his frequent excursions to Jakarta from East Timor's capital, Dili, he was used to the comfort of expensive hotels paid for by the provincial government or the armed forces. On such visits, he was usually guarded by fit men with short-cropped hair. Lopes de Carvalho was an important man: the head of a notorious militia unit that went by the dramatic title of Mahidi, Life or Death Integration. Now his gestures and manner are less sweeping and he describes himself modestly as a "refugee".
At a recent meeting on a bright Jakarta morning, Lopes de Carvalho contemplated the sorry state of an armed movement that only a year ago believed it could dictate the fate of East Timor but today remains confined to the no-man's land of refugee camps across the border.
"Myself, a militia commander, I often feel why do I need to shout. The struggle for integration (with Indonesia) is over," he told The Australian.
"You cannot change the outcome because its already an international decision, the UN is in there. The problem now is the fate, the uncertain future of the . . . people living in the camps."
The militia, officially disbanded but in reality as active as ever, are a source of worry for the UN peacekeepers in East Timor and of irritation for the Indonesian Government.
This week's ambush by suspected militiamen, which claimed the life of New Zealand Private Leonard William Manning - the peacekeeping force's first combat fatality - was a reminder of the dangers posed by pro-Indonesia East Timorese.
It was the latest in a string of cross-border raids - any one of which could have claimed the lives of the Australian and New Zealand peacekeepers, who have the primary responsibility for protecting the border.
More of these raids can be expected in the months ahead as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees gradually clears the remaining 120,000 refugees from the camps, which by some estimates number up to 240.
But the truth is the pro-Indonesia East Timorese are a group running out of options and of influential friends.
Lieutenant-General (retir- ed) Hasnan Habib, who is on a panel of experts advising on prosecution over human rights abuses in East Timor, says the armed forces and Government have nothing to gain from aiding the militia, but have a lot to lose in hard-won international support.
"We have to do something serious about prosecuting human rights abuses," he says. "The President has made a commitment to (UN Secretary-General) Kofi Annan so that there is no need to establish an international tribunal."
Lopes de Carvalho, best known for signing a death threat against Australian diplomats and journalists last year, acknowledges he and his comrades cannot count on the same military connections they had a few months ago.
Asked whether he felt deserted by the Indonesian Army, he replied forcefully: "That's true! . . . It might be harsh, I'm only saying they no longer have any political or moral responsibility towards us."
Sympathy for the pro-Indonesia forces among the political and military elite in Jakarta has declined in direct proportion to the rise in worry over sectarian bloodshed in Maluku and separatism in Aceh and West Papua.
It leaves the militia one card left to play: the existence of a large number of refugees in the camps almost one year after East Timor voted for independence. The camps give the militia bargaining power with the pro-independence victors in East Timor, the UN and the Indonesian Government. If the return of the refugees can be reduced to a trickle, then the pro-Indonesia leadership can claim to represent a significant portion of the population and might be able to cut themselves a better deal.
"What's left in the camps are pure pro-integration people, militia and their families," says Lopes de Carvalho. "There are 140,000 people. If they don't return, that would mean the process of reconciliation has not been successful yet."
Not surprisingly, his assumptions on the numbers wishing to return differ drastically from those of the UNHCR and UN Transitional Administration in East Timor. Those agencies suggest that up to 80 per cent would ultimately like to return home. But the political calculation that the refugees represent bargaining power is absolutely right. It is one of the reasons behind the renewed intensity of disinformation and acts of intimidation in the camps that are hampering the repatriation program and forcing foreign aid workers on the defensive.
Another reason is that the camps remain the springboard for incursions into East Timor. The militia, and those East Timorese who were members of the Indonesian army and police, are not waging jungle-based guerilla war as did the Falintil resistance. They are coming from the camps and the towns. Remove the camps, says Australian Brigadier Duncan Lewis, and you substantially remove the risk of border incursions.
"The central issue is really the refugee camps," he says. "Until we get them away from the border, we will still have problems."
Essentially, the rational pro-Indonesia East Timorese leadership - a small proportion are so fanatical they cannot see what is in their own interests - hope to use the refugees and the border tensions to achieve reconciliation on their terms and keep alive sympathy in Indonesia.
This has a particular poignancy given the fact many have the threat of prosecution for human rights abuses hanging over their heads. The bottom line is that they want the wrongs they committed in the past forgotten.
Says Lopes de Carvalho, hopefully: "There's no hero, no villain, nothing like that. If we want to investigate the violations, I think, that from the pro-independence side they would have to admit honestly and transparently that they had committed human rights violations too."
END
Grassroots International ~ July 30
Please...
* Read this message and share it with others who may be interested.
* Take advocacy actions detailed at the GRI website.
BACKGROUND
**Refugees with nowhere to go, UNHCR threatens to leave**
Nearly 9 months after the 1999 post-referendum violence that drove over 250,000 refugees from East Timor in West Timor, there are still well over 100,000 East Timorese refugees in West Timor. Most live in extremely poor sanitary conditions, and face threats, intimidation and a campaign of misinformation by the Indonesian military and their pro-Indonesia militias.
Despite the Indonesian military's promise to protect the UN High Commission on Refugees as they attempt to help repatriate refugees, UN workers have been repeatedly threatened and violently forced out of the largest refugee camps in West Timor. Most recently, in addition to threatening to pull out of West Timor, the UNHCR closed its border office in Betun due to threats and violence.
**US moves towards normalizing military ties with Indonesia**
Indonesia is asking the US to resume military trade and normalize relations between the two countries. So far the State Department's response has been appropriate: no trade or cooperation until the refugees are returned safely.
Yet the Pentagon has slowly started to renew ties with the Indonesian military, conducting joint naval exercises beginning July 20. There is a lot of political pressure to normalize relations with the Indonesian military, however, and we must remind the State Department and congress that it is far too early to resume relations with the Indonesian military. There is presently important legislation in the Senate that you should ask your senators to support (see action details below) which would make military trade and cooperation with Indonesia illegal as long as it violates human rights.
**Little progress in trials of Indonesian generals**
Indonesia courts have charged 22 generals for abuses in East Timor, but there is little hope that any true justice will be seen against these generals in Indonesia. There needs to be an International War Crimes Tribunal, as called for by many East Timorese leaders and organizations.
TAKE ACTION
1) Call your senators and representatives through the Congressional switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to speak to their foreign policy staffer. Tell the now is not the time for normalization of military ties with Indonesia. Now is the time for the U.S. administration to increase pressure on President Wahid and the Indonesian government to finally resolve East Timor's refugee crisis. Ask them to support the inclusion of the current Leahy conditions pertaining to East Timor in the FY 2001 Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill and cosponsor either HR4357 and HR1063 or S2621 in the Senate. See ETAN's site for details.
2) Take action to force the US to require Indonesia to uphold its end of the bargain for the refugees, and to push in the UN for an International War Crimes Tribunal. Call and pressure the office of Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific Stanley Roth 202-647-9596, 202-647-7350 (fax). E-mail Secretary of State Albright at ; 2201 C St., NW, Washington, DC 20520.
3) Pressure the Defense Department to halt military cooperation with Indonesia. Call Secretary of Defense William Cohen's office to protest the resumption of joint training exercises July 20, 703-692-7100, 703-697-9080 (fax); or write 1000 Defense Pentagon, Washington, DC 20301-1000. Also use this web form to send comments.
For more information on these items, refer to GRI's website and ETAN's urgent action appeal about military cooperation.
VOICES FROM TIMOR
**Cold Beer and Floating Hotels but no jobs in Dili**
Pam Sexton reports on the Dili of today: high unemployment, US$100 rooms for aid and UN workers, and the encroachment of world capital. A fascinating report on the ambiguities and frustrations that arise in a new, UN administered country.
**On the ground in West Timor**
Charmain Mohamed of the British TAPOL reported last spring about the refugee camps in West Timor, when repatriation had literally dropped to a trickle due to militia violence and intimidation. Little has changed since then.
Karen Orenstein, whose recent International Herald Tribune op-ed caught the world's attention, helped organize a Congressional delegation to West Timor and East Timor to observe the refugee situation. Her comprehensive report from May 2000 may be found on the ETAN website.
Grassroots International is a human rights and development organization that provides development aid and emergency assistance to local organizations in Brazil, East Timor, Eritrea, Haiti, Mexico and Palestine. We also do advocacy and public education in the United States.
END
by Geoff Cumming and Paul Yandall, New Zealand Herald ~ July 26
NZ - From his early teens, Len Manning had one clear goal in life - a career in the Army. The country boy who loved shooting and the great outdoors followed his dream, joining the Territorials after leaving school and enlisting in the regular force in January 1997, aged just 21.
On Monday in East Timor's rugged and treacherous border region, he became the first New Zealand soldier to be killed by enemy fire since the Vietnam War.
Private Leonard William Manning, dead at 24, is also the first combat casualty of the UN peacekeeping mission in East Timor, which began last September. Private Manning, the lead scout of his patrol of five, was shot in the head and right shoulder near the border village of Nanu.
His body appears to have been abused after his death at the hands of pro-Indonesian militia, believed to have slipped across the border from West Timor.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Alwi Shihab last night condemned the killing and said his nation would help to investigate the incident.
Asked if Indonesia would actively pursue the killers, he said: "Yes, let us see first who is the actor."
Private Manning's grieving parents yesterday asked the news media to respect their privacy, although they allowed release of his photograph. But his former college principal, who spoke to the Herald with the parents' permission, remembers the "bright, outward-going" youngster as someone with a mission in life.
"From his early teens onwards he was really, really interested in doing one thing with his life and that was joining the Army," said Bill Barwood of Te Kauwhata College.
The young Len Manning liked hunting, shooting and fishing and got his rifle licence as soon as he could legally get it.
"When he went to our outdoor education camp in 1990 he and two other boys had their camouflage gear. They were really interested in a military career and that's what he pursued when he left school.
"He was a very well-rounded young man."
One of his hunting companions, Bill Andrews, said the skills Private Manning learned tracking deer in the local forests made him an ideal scout for the Army.
"He was outstanding in his riflery too, an outstanding hunter."
Private Manning's parents shifted from Te Kauwhata to another Waikato town a few years ago but retained links with the community.
Private Manning's first employer, Dick Teklenburg, said the soldier last visited the town six months ago.
"He was complaining about missing out on going overseas for the Army - he didn't want to miss East Timor too. At least he got to go this time."
Brigadier Jerry Mateparae, joint commander of New Zealand's 660-strong East Timor force, said Private Manning had been an exceptional soldier.
"He was [lead scout] of a tracking team and that is a skill and responsibility that only a very few get."
Brigadier Mateparae said three investigations were under way - the preliminary examination at the scene, an inquiry into the death and its surrounding circumstances, and a UN investigation.
Private Manning's body is expected to arrive at the Whenuapai Air Base in West Auckland on an RNZAF Hercules at midnight tonight or early tomorrow.
Last night, his family had yet to indicate whether they wanted a full military funeral to farewell him.
The acting senior national officer in East Timor, Colonel Phil Gibbons, said a short service was held in the southern town of Suai, where the bulk of the New Zealand peacekeepers are based.
The body was flown by Hercules to Darwin last night where it was met by Defence Minister Mark Burton.
Prime Minister Helen Clark said the Government was very upset about Private Manning's death and concerned for his family.
New Zealand had been widely applauded for its contribution to the UN contingent in East Timor.
"Unfortunately, the problems we went there to resolve are still there."
Colonel Gibbons said the troops were grieving and shocked.
"I think all New Zealanders are feeling the loss, but certainly the closer you get to the group Private Manning was part of the more intense it is."
An Australian psychologist would offer counselling to the soldiers.
Colonel Gibbons said the investigation into the death was continuing and troops were searching for the militia believed to be responsible. If found, the protocol would follow the rules of engagement. "We would attempt to arrest or detain them in some way."
At the Te Kauwhata RSA late yesterday, it was left to club secretary and Second World War veteran Jock Cullen to lower the NZ flag to halfmast.
"Back in Europe [and in] the Middle East, I was surrounded by guys his age who didn't make it home. It's sad to see this happening 50 years later."
END
Time To Punish The Usual Suspects In Indonesia
By José Ramos-Horta, International Herald Tribune ~ July 26
BANGKOK - Who is behind the wave of sectarian violence in Ambon and other parts of the Moluccan Islands that has cost hundreds of lives in the past 18 months? Who is responsible for the upsurge in separatist sentiment in Aceh and Irian Jaya, two of the richest provinces of Indonesia?
There is mounting evidence that the same conservative, hard-line nationalist forces (and even some of the same senior Indonesian military officers) who helped alienate East Timorese with their abuses are fomenting unrest in the Moluccas, Aceh and Irian Jaya. Senior members of the civilian government of President Abdurrahman Wahid have said as much in recent days.
In an attempt to terrorize East Timorese into voting for autonomy instead of independence in the plebiscite in August organized by the United Nations, the Indonesian army's special forces and intelligence network mobilized militia gangs and gave them training, arms and directives.
Large numbers of these militiamen were recruited not in East Timor but in neighboring West Timor, in Ambon and from the main Indonesian island of Java. Indonesian police and army personnel in disguise led some of the militia units in East Timor.
What we are seeing in the troubled parts of Indonesia now is a well orchestrated campaign by a faction in the Indonesian army that has strong connections to the family of former President Suharto, former Defense Minister Wiranto, wealthy businessmen and prominent members of the Golkar party that Mr. Suharto used, along with the military, to keep himself and his supporters in power for 32 years.
This group fears the anti-corruption drive and investigations into past abuses of power launched by Mr. Wahid's government. It wants to discredit his attempts to establish the rule of law in Indonesia.
In Ambon, rogue elements in the military and police have taken sides in the fighting. In Irian Jaya, ''pro-Jakarta'' militias are being recruited, trained and funded just as they were in East Timor. In Aceh, despite a cease-fire agreement negotiated by Mr. Wahid's government, the army and police continue to launch sweeps in the countryside, terrorizing villagers.
As a result, Indonesia's fledgling but vibrant democracy is in grave danger.
The hard-liners hope that the Indonesian people, disappointed with the inability of the civilian government to improve the economy and resolve the conflicts, will sooner or later support a Pakistan-style coup.
But as the foreign ministers of the Association of South East Asian Nations and their major trading partners, including the United States, the European Union and Japan, hold their annual meetings in Bangkok this week, they can take action to help prevent Indonesia from sliding into civil war and military takeover.
The international community must intensify its support for Mr. Wahid's government. It should increase economic and financial assistance to the Indonesian economy, write off government debt and channel the money to credit programs to help the poor, as well as small and medium-size businesses, become self-sufficient.
Foreign governments should identify the good elements in the Indonesian armed forces, the pro-reform group, and offer them serious support.
The United States and the European Union should lead efforts to have the foreign assets of the Suharto family frozen. Indonesian military officers known to have been involved in the violence in East Timor, Aceh, the Moluccas and Irian Jaya should be blacklisted and denied entry visas. Their names should be publicized and circulated via Interpol for immediate arrest abroad. Their overseas assets should be seized.
After all, it is the wealth that these anti-reform groups have accumulated that is being used to pay for the current campaign to destroy democracy in the world's fourth most populous nation.
The writer, an East Timorese Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune.
END
East Timor Militia Thugs Stage Protest in Kupang
Indonesian Observer ~ July 26
JAKARTA - About 3,000 pro-Indonesia East Timorese militiamen staged a noisy protest in the West Timor capital of Kupang yesterday against the interrogation of several of their leaders for alleged human rights abuses.
State investigators have been questioning the men over allegations that they ordered the waves of violence that took place before and after East Timor's people in August 1999 overwhelmingly voted to break free of Indonesian rule.
Hundreds of people were killed and thousands of buildings were destroyed or damaged in the rampage, which ended only after international peacekeepers arrived on the half-island territory to restore order last September.
Many of the militia bandits fled to West Timor (East Nusa Tenggara). East Timor is now under temporary UN administration.
The protesters, calling themselves the Children of the Victims of East Timorese Violence, argued that the interrogation of the militia leaders was unfair.
They said anti-Indonesian fighters were guilty of human rights violations and should also be questioned.
Mario Vieira, a spokesman for the group called on the international community to be balanced over the question of human rights in Timor.
"Otherwise there will be no peace and reconciliation," he said.
Under international pressure to prosecute those responsible for last year's mayhem, Indonesia has set up a 79-member team to investigate human abuses in East Timor.
Separate reports by another Indonesian human rights investigation and by the UN have already implicated the Indonesian Defense Forces in the violence.
The UN regional office in Kupang yesterday sent its local staff home because of the protest. Its office is across the street from the state prosecutor's office where the interrogations were taking place.
END
Australian Labor Party Forges Ties With Indonesian Militiary
by D. Sangga Buwana, Dtikworld ~ July 26
JAKARTA - (21/07/00) A new initiative to send Indonesian Defense Force personnel to Australia for training in defense management was announced today by the Indonesian Defense Minister, Juwono Sudarsono. The Australian Labor Party, currently in opposition, has initiated the education program.
The announcement was made after Juwono accompanied Indonesia's President Abdurrahman Wahid to a reception for Australian Shadow Minister for the Defense, Steven Martin, and Australian Ambassador in Indonesia, John McCarthy, at the Presidential Palace Jakarta, today (21/7/2000).
Juwono explained that the Australian government had sent emissaries to Indonesia to discuss the proposal. The military cooperation concentrates on the education of junior officers in the Navy, Airforce and the Army. "The outcome of this exercise is to improve our managerial defense. Currently we are sending 12 junior officers to Australia," Juwono continued.
When questioned over the President's plans to visit Australia, Juwono said he is unable to predict the time. "I can't say the exact date, or if it is going to be before or after the Sydney 2000 Olympics."
The meeting between the President and the Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, has been the focus of much speculation and has been sidelined on numerous occasions. The Australian Prime Minister has insisted President Wahid visit Australia before meeting together with East Timorese leaders, possibly in East Timor.
The initiative by the Australian Labour Party, now in opposition, is a clear attempt to develop relations with Indonesia in anticipation of future developments when they may form government.
Juwono also commented on the audit currently underway into the finances of the Indonesian Defense Force (TNI) and National Police. Juwono said that he had ordered the Ministry's general secretary and the inspector general to investigate all institutions and controlled by his ministry and their respective heads.
An internal audit revealed many irregularities in the 5 enterprises and 2 foundations owned by the ministry, particularly in PT Asabri and the Setya Bhakti Pertiwi foundation. The final results of the audit will be handed over to the Supreme Audit Agency. The Minister himself told the press last month that funds from the official state budget covered a mere 25% of the forces' costs.
These measures are in compliance with the last Letter of Intent (LoI) signed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which has forced the Indonesian government to draw in non-budgetary incomes into the national budget. If it fails to satisfy the IMF, it may again halt the latest installment of the financial package brokered.
Juwono also stated today the US is also planning to indefinitely halt an arms embargo it introduced after the ballot for Independence in east Timor when the TNI was party to the destruction and mass murder of pro- independence supporters. While the arms ban stays in place, western governments- or prospective governments in the case of the Australian Labour Party- are clearly attempting to forge new links with the Indonesian military. Two US battleships are currently harbored in Surabaya and Indonesian military observers and some non-combat personnel are partaking in the latest multi-national 'CARAT' exercises currently underway in Indonesian territory.
END
United States Complicity In Indonesia's Illegal Occupation
Amy Goodman, Democracy Now ~ July 21
Transcription
Amy: You're listening to Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now. I'm Amy Goodman. Scores of East Timorese demonstrated outside the entrance of the US mission in Dili, East Timor last week. Participants sang and lit candles along the street in front of the American Diplomatic Mission in memory of the more than 200,000 East Timorese who died as a result of the Indonesian occupation.
The protesters said they wanted to recall the supporting role the US Government played in what many observers have classified as a genocide in East Timor and to demand justice and accountability for US actions.
The demonstrators distributed pamphlets to all of those going into the Independence Day party at the mission. The protest took place July 4. The pamphlets read, "Honoring the 224th anniversary of American independence, 1776-2000 by remembering 24 years of American support for Indonesia's crimes in East Timor." They detailed the complicity of the United States in Indonesia's illegal occupation, and made five demands of Washington.
1. A release of all US Government documents relating to East Timor.
2. The establishment of an independent commission in the United States to investigate the nature and extent of US complicity with Indonesia's crimes in Timor.
3. They demanded an apology for the US role. 4 Reparations from the US to the people of East Timor.
And finally, active US support for an international tribunal to investigate and prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in East Timor from 1975 to 1999. This weekend I got the chance to speak with Aderito Soares, who is a grass roots activist in East Timor, and asked him to elaborate on the demands. Also on the line was Karen Orenstein, of the East Timor Action Network of Washington.
Adorito Suarez
Aderito: The action actually is the first action after the referendum. We tried to raise the issue to demand that East Timorese people already demand during these 24 years an international tribunal. First we start to demand to the US government to release the documents related to East Timor from '74-1999. Of course this is very important how to find out what's going on before, in appropriation for instance, prepare to invade East Timor.
There is some relation how US back-up, how US support, help Indonesian government Indonesian military to invade East Timor. This is very important how to find out all these documents completely show to the people of East Timor, and of course to show the world, how US support and back-up in re the invasion of East Timor.
The second of course, the demand is to create an independent commission composed of the academic help to investigate the human rights violations that took place during these 24 years with the support of the US government, US foreign policy to Indonesian government, and of course, of course we need, the US Government needs to publicly apologize to the East Timorese people what they have done during these 24 years helping and support Indonesian military during the invasion here. And try to discuss with the Timorese about reparation to the East Timorese people and of course in the end of all these is to establish an international tribunal. Of course we see that now UN still hope that Indonesians can and Indonesians can brings the perpetrators to the court, to the justice. We are very, we lack of trust to Indonesian tribunal, to the Indonesian court, and I think not only are we the Timorese that lack of trust for Indonesian tribunal, like Indonesian experts, or Indonesian lawyers or Indonesian activists they also don't believe, they don't trust their own judicial system.
So how can we perceive this, if you see that UN Commission that came to East Timor in September of last year, they recommend to security council to set up this tribunal, at the same time you see here UNTAET try to set up a, what they call, a panel of judges to bring informational expert, informational judge to sit together with national judge, with Timorese judge. But just only to proceed case those small fish here, not big fish. The time for this is just to start from January to September of last year. The question is how about violation that took place from 1975-1999. that is the question.
Amy: I'm going to bring now Karen Orenstein into the conversation. She is a Washington Representative of the East Timor Action Network and just recently went to West and East Timor. Welcome to Democracy Now, Karen.
Karen: Thank you, Amy.
Amy: Karen, can you lay out what you're doing here in the United States about the situation in East Timor? Of course, with the Indonesian military now forced out, the people of Timor are building their own future. What kind of legislation is going on right now here?
Karen: Well there are a number of issues going on in Congress. In terms of East Timor there's two pieces of legislation, the East Timor Security and Repatriation Act of 2000, which would delay reengagement with Indonesian military, until the territorial integrity is respected , until refugees are allowed to return home safely and until there is complete cooperation with the UN administration in East Timor. What's more troubling right now is what's going on with the refugees.
If you'll allow me to go into that a little bit and that effects what's going on in terms of Congress. As you know, the referendum occurred over 10 months ago and still militias are in control of the camps in West Timor, where more than 100,000 East Timorese refugees remain. Militia incursions into East Timor are on the increase and just two weeks ago there were grenades and ammunition shot at UN peacekeepers. In spite of this right now our Congress, excuse me, not our Congress, the US administration is trying to start a planned phase of reengagement with the Indonesian military, which would send exactly the wrong political message to . Loud screeching noise
Amy: Sorry, go ahead.
Karen: Okay, where should I start off?
Amy: Right there, which would
Karen: Which would send exactly the wrong political message to the Indonesian military of legitimacy.
Amy: Explain the situation in West Timor. How people ended up there, how East Timorese ended up in Indonesia, because West Timor is Indonesia.
Karen: Sure, At the height of violence following the announcement of the results last September over 250,000 East Timorese were forced, mostly at gunpoint, onto planes, ships and trucks to go be taken into Indonesia, mostly in West Timor which borders East Timor, but also throughout the Archipelago. Along with them were the militia leaders who forced them to go and this is all organized by the Indonesian military. Right now the militia leaders are still in clear control of the camps, in spite of pledges by the Indonesian government to disarm and disband the militias months ago, none of that has happened, nor has a single militia leader been arrested for atrocities committed in East Timor.
As part of a Congressional staff delegation in which I participated at the end of April, we actually had a meeting with a militia leader who is accused of raping and killing a number of people, and these are the sort of people who are walking around. There are continuous reports of training by the Indonesian military of militias and they have access to modern weapons, and this has continued now for 10 months.
Amy: And where does the Clinton administration stand on the issue of supporting the Indonesian military and West Timor?
Karen: Well, in September there was a suspension of military ties between Indonesia and the US, and that suspension has been written into law, dependent on certain conditions such as the return of refugees, the disbanding of the militias , the bringing to account those military leaders and militia leaders responsible for the violence in East Timor,, these conditions are still in law, the problem is that some in the Clinton Administration are trying to whittle away the ban. There is right now for the end of July planned a joint military exercise between the US and Indonesian marines, navy and coast guard. Why they are doing this now is a question. Things in the camps in West Timor are getting worse, the militia incursions into East Timor are also increasing. In addition, within Indonesia itself, things seem to be falling apart, hundreds of people have died in the last few weeks in the Maluccas Islands, there is East Timor style militias in West Papua, there are increasing military sweeps in Aceh. Things aren't getting better, they're getting worse and this is exactly the wrong time to start up any sort of military ties with the Indonesian military.
Amy: So why does the Clinton Administration want to? Is it just the standard supporting US arms manufacturers?
Karen: I think so. It's always been the view of the Pentagon to keep a connection to military ties. We don't want to appear anti-military. They believe, they have a line that the Marines, the Air Force and the navy are somehow better than the Army, so that they would want to engage with the Marines, Navy and Air Force. But this is dubious, at best, within East Timor itself, Marines in September handed out weapons to militias, they took people at gunpoint onto Navy ships and air force airplanes, which took East Timorese to other islands in Indonesia. So it's an artificial distinction and it's opposed, this reengagement is opposed, by Indonesian civil society leaders and human rights leaders. For them, the key point of leverage for reform has been our military suspension, and to go back on that now could not only threaten to stop any reforms that have happened, but they could also reverse them.
Amy: Who are you recommending that people call?
Karen: They should call their senators and their representatives, first of all to get them to co-sponsor HR4357 or S2621, which are the East Timor Repatriation and Security Act of 2000. And they should also just voice their opinion that now is not the time to support the Indonesian military in any way, its time to only support the Indonesian civil society, the government and NGOs, and they could call 202-224-3121, that's the Congressional hotline.
Amy: I wanted to bring Aderito Soares back into the conversation, who is on the phone with us from Dili, East Timor. Its quite remarkable now, this different East Timor, not occupied by Indonesia anymore, but Timor after the referendum was raised to the ground by the Indonesian military and militias. Many of the buildings burnt as people were driven out of their homes. What is the state of East Timor today?
Aderito: First of all, I think I'll say that this is a very optimistic society. As you say it, we started from scratch after the military burned down everything and then we started from zero. Of course at the same time you are facing all of the other big giants. Before we faced the Indonesian military as our enemy, but now starting by facing the other enemies. Of course you have, we have UNTAET here , but once you talk about UNTAET and then just take an example of the judicial system.
Amy: Now when you say UNTAET you mean the United Nations Administration?
Aderito: Yes, it's too slow in setting up the justice system here. Except, it seems last year they set up the tribunal, have the judge, but we are still waiting for when we start the process of justice. At the same time the people are demanding the International Tribunal, but it seems that UNTAET tried to make easy how to answer the demands of the people by setting up the panel of judges. As I explained to you, they are going to bring the international judge, and then combined with national just to prosecute the militias, the small fish, the small fish, while the big fish are in Indonesia. How to bring them to the justice, to the court, that is the question. Of course, there is another factor, we are trying to start everything from the beginning, but I think we are very committed to starting a good system, to create an independent, a real independent East Timor in the future, but of course it is not something easy. We need to work harder than before.
Amy: Is the United Nations including Timorese in building your country?
Aderito: Yes that is a very good question. UNTAET used to say that they try to give chance to Timorese to participate in the process, but in reality, I would say that this kind of lip service, talking about the participation of the Timorese in the process. Why? I said, it is kind of lip service because you know just an example of people in the rural area, they don't know even what's going on in the nation, in Dili, that's the lack of information to the people. That's just an example of how they disseminate, the slow dissemination of information to the people, people in the rural areas. They even don't know what's going on in Dili, that's the problem of participation of the people. How people can participate if they have no information on this whole process?
Amy: What can people in the United States do? There has long been a solidarity movement in this country around East Timor, especially since the '91 massacre in which soldiers with US weapons gunned down more than 250,000 East Timorese. Today, what can people do?
Aderito: Yes, that's very important ways. We need to keep the national and international solidarity for East Timor. I think that should be all of our mission as a people, how to help the Timorese people in setting up this country. I think there is another agenda, of course. We need kind of international solidarity talking about volunteers to work here, not only the entire people, but how to bring, how to build the people to people relation in the picture. I think that should be our commitment at an international level for the Timorese.
Amy: Aerito Soares, speaking to us from Dili, East Timor as the country tries to rebuild itself after the Indonesian occupation and the vote for independence that took place that this past August. We are also speaking with Karen Orenstein, of East Timor Action Network in Washington. The number there: 202-544-6911. The website: etan.org. That does it for now.
END
At Least 547 Refugees Have Died in West Timor
Associated Press ~ July 20
JAKARTA - At least 547 East Timorese refugees sheltering in squalid camps throughout Indonesian-controlled West Timor have died in the past nine months, the province's governor said Wednesday.
Most of the deaths were due to malaria, respiratory problems and various natural disasters including massive flooding, the region's governor, Piet Tallo, said in a telephone interview.
More than 250,000 East Timorese were forced to flee their homes after violence broke out there last year. About 150,000 of them have already returned to their half-island homeland, which borders West Timor.
However, the other 100,000 people still remain in the camps despite efforts to encourage them to return home.
Despite the deaths, Tallo praised the efforts of international emergency relief agencies operating in the region, saying that without them many more people would have died.
END
Funding for East Timor: Charity or Justice?
La'o Hamutuk Bulletin ~ July 19
DILI - At the recently concluded meeting in Lisbon of international donors to East Timor, UNTAET asked for an additional US$16 million to fund the East Timorese administration of the evolving civil service. Fortunately, a general commitment to provide the funds was forthcoming from the donor community.
Prior to the meeting's conclusion, Peter Galbraith, chief of UNTAET's Office of Political, Constitutional and Electoral Affairs, explained that donors were "prepared to be generous over the short term." But, he continued, they did not want East Timor "to be a permanent charity case, a place where they will have to be provided aid indefinitely just to sustain the basic functions of government." Donors wanted to be sure that East Timor plans to raise sufficient revenues and to adhere to a strict budget, and hopefully be "charity"-free by 2003 or 2004.
La'o Hamutuk calls upon UNTAET officials to refrain from referring to funds donated to East Timor as "charity"--especially when the vast majority of these funds come from national governments which provided significant economic, military, and diplomatic support to Jakarta and its illegal occupation of East Timor. Rather than seeing these funds as "charity", we should see them largely as a modest beginning at amends from governments who share in the responsibility for the suffering of the East Timorese and the destruction of the country--not only in September 1999, but in the almost-24-year period that preceded it.
East Timor will need substantial funding from outside the territory for the foreseeable future to be able to rebuild successfully, and to lay the foundations of a society in which the basic needs of all of East Timor's citizens are met. In this regard, the role of the international community, and UNTAET more specifically, should not be to advocate merely for a level of development that an impoverished East Timor can afford.
UNTAET and various elements of the international community, for example, frequently argue that East Timor will only be able to support a very limited public sector and, for this reason, UNTAET is constructing a rather modest infrastructure for government services. As an Australian official in Dili stated recently (as reported in The Australian), East Timor cannot afford anything more ambitious. "UNTAET knows it can only establish the basic services that East Timor is then able to maintain," said the official. "This is going to be a very poor country for a very long time and we cannot build what the East Timorese cannot then afford to run."
If, indeed, is going to be "a very poor country for a very long time," it is incumbent on us to ask why. If we ask such a question and honestly strive to find the answer, we will realize that the situation is not of the East Timorese people's making. Indonesia, and its supporters in the "international community" made it impossible for East Timor to develop, effectively laying the foundation for what economists predict will be a country of very modest economic means. Given that the responsibility for East Timor's current plight is collective, the responsibility for ensuring that the East Timor people can realize a level of development East Timor in conformity with international human rights standards must also be collective. This is not charity; it is justice.
* ~ * ~ *
Redistribution with attribution is welcome. For the full text of the La'o Hamutuk Bulletin.
La'o Hamutuk, The East Timor Institute for Reconstruction Monitoring and Analysis Mobile phone: (0408)811373 Dili land phone: 325-013 Email: lhproject@one.net.au International contact: +1-914-428-7299 e-mail: lh@etan.org
END
Xanana Gusmao Hails E. Timor's First Transitional Government
AFP ~ 17/07/00
LISBON - East Timor's first transitional government, comprising resistance leaders and United Nations officials, was hailed on Thursday as a crucial step forward by pro-independence leader Xanana Gusmao, the Portuguese news agency Lusa reported.
Comprising members of the pro-indepence National Resistance Council for East Timor (CNRT) and UN officials, the body unveiled on Wednesday replaces the UN transitional authority in a bid to speed up the "Timorisation" of the territory as a precursor to independence.
Following a meeting here with Timorese political leaders, Gusmao hailed the formation of the new authority as a crucial step forward to full independence.
"I have attempted to create a team spirit in which we can take responsibility for our errors as well as our successes," Gusmao told the Lusa agency.
"This meeting has allowed us to make the first steps along the road to democracy in a spirit of collective responsibility."
Former resistance leaders in the transitional government are Joao Carrascalao from the Timorese Democratic Union, who takes over infrastructure, and Mari Alkatiri from the Revolutionary Front for the Independence of East Timor who is charged with the economy.
Father Filomeno Jacob is responsible for social affairs and Mariano Lopes with the interior.
Mari Alkatiri said the formation of the "government of cohabitation" would focus on creating a political climate for East Timor's eventual full independence.
"It is an important step, but we have to find a way to avoid break-ups... and create a solid cohabitation," he said.
The four international officials named to the body by Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN official responsible for East Timor, were his deputy Jean Christian Cady for emergency services and police, Gita Welsh for justice, Michael Francino for finance and Peter Galbraith for political affairs.
Last month Vieira de Mello announced elections, as a forerunner to the territory's full independence, should take place between August 30 and December 2000.
The Indonesian parliament last month ratified East Timor's August 30 independence vote, formally surrendering its claim to the former Portuguese colony which it invaded in 1975 and formally annexed the following year.
END
No U.S. Military Engagement with Indonesia
ETAN ~ 18/07/00
Stop joint U.S.-Indonesia military exercise scheduled for this week.
National call-in day Wednesday July 19
The Clinton Administration has begun a phased plan of re-engagement with the Indonesian military (TNI) despite congressional and public protest.
A joint U.S. and Indonesian military exercise known as CARAT (Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training) is set to begin on July 20. The exercise, one of the first steps, involves the Indonesian navy, marines, and coast guard training with their U.S. military counterparts. The Administration has also initiated other facets of re-engagement and is now debating the sale of spare parts for C-130 military planes! The State Department and the Pentagon are pursuing these plans despite deteriorating conditions in East Timorese refugee camps in West Timor and throughout Indonesia.
You can help stop these plans.
Now is not the time to resume any military ties with the TNI! Let the State Department and the Pentagon know this!
MAKE TWO PHONE CALLS ON WEDNESDAY JULY 19:
§ Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific Stanley Roth 202-647-9596, 202-647-7350 (fax). E-mail: Secretary of State Albright at secretary@state.gov; 2201 C St., NW, Washington, DC 20520.
§ Secretary of Defense William Cohen 703-692-7100, 703-697-9080 (fax); 1000 Defense Pentagon, Washington, DC 20301-1000. Web form to send comments: http://www.defenselink.mil/faq/comment.html
Tell them:
The CARAT exercise and any additional plans for re-engagement with the Indonesian military should be cancelled immediately. Now is not the time to resume any military ties with the Indonesian military. The U.S. should not send such a premature message of legitimacy to Indonesia's brutally repressive military force. Instead, the administration should obey congressional restrictions and increase pressure on the Indonesian government and military finally resolve East Timor's refugee crisis and to support true democratic reforms in Indonesian civil society.
Thank you for your support. It does make a difference. Please let the East Timor Action Network know the results of your contacts.
Send a blank e-mail to send a blank e-mail to sampltrs@etan.org or go to http://www.etan.org/action/letters.htm, for sample letters which can be adapted for administration officials, members of Congress and letter to the editor.
UPDATE
Up to 125,000 East Timorese remain trapped in militia-controlled refugee camps in Indonesia more than 10 months after East Timor voted overwhelmingly for independence from Indonesia. TNI-supported militia violence in the camps is on the increase. Border incursions into East Timor and militia attacks on UN peacekeepers and civilians continue. Last week, the UNHCR had to indefinitely suspend registration of the refugees because of militia threats and assaults on international and local staff.
Indonesian security forces continue to violate the human rights of Indonesian citizens and cause unrest throughout the archipelago In recent weeks, hundreds of people in Maluku have been killed in fighting between Christians and Muslims, with members of the TNI supporting, if not causing, the violence. The TNI has grossly violated the human rights of the people of West Papua and is now reported to be supporting East Timor style militias there. Further, the TNI has repeatedly broken a cease-fire in Aceh and continues to conduct military sweeps throughout the countryside.
See ETAN's website, for more information or contact Karen Orenstein at ETAN's Washington office, 202-544-6911, or John M. Miller below. For ETAN's latest Congressional Action Alert.
Media & Outreach Coordinator, East Timor Action Network
48 Duffield St., Brooklyn, NY 11201 USA ~ Phone: (718)596-7668 ~ Fax: (718)222-4097 ~ Mobile: (917)690-4391
END
Coalition Government Approved, Ministers Chosen – UN
LUSA ~ 14/07/00
DILI - The National Consultative Council of East Timor has approved the formation of a transition government that will include four ministers from East Timor and four from the international community.
A high-level UN official in Dili told Lusa the proposal was approved at the Wednesday afternoon Council session. The regulation calls for the creation of a cabinet with eight minister-level officers, half of them East Timorese, who are appointed by the territory's chief UN administrator, Sergio Vieira de Mello, after "due consultation with representatives of East Timorese groups." The source also confirmed the list of nominees, whose names are given below.
The East Timorese members of the transition cabinet and their responsibilities as given by the source are as follows:
Infrastructures - Joao Carrascalao, current president of the UDT (Timorese Democratic Union) and a vice president of the CNRT (National Council of Timorese Resistance);
Economy - Mari Alkatiri, secretary of Fretilin (Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor);
Social Affairs - Filomeno Jacob;
Internal Administration - Mariano Lopes, current head of the Territory's Civil Service Commission.
Members of the international community slated for cabinet posts are, according to the source:
Police and Emergency Services - Jean-Christian Cady, current number two in the UNTAET (UN Transition Administration) hierarchy;
Justice - Gita Welsh;
Finance - Michael Francino;
Political Affairs - Peter Galbraith.
The source told Lusa that the list of cabinet members would only be released publicly on Thursday, when the Council is scheduled to debate formation of a National Legislative Council.
CNRT leaders were meeting into the night Wednesday, discussing the final position to take into the Thursday Consultative Council meeting, an East Timorese source said.
Another UN source said the cabinet proposal had been adopted "practically without any major alterations."
The participation in the cabinet of Filomeno Jacob, a Catholic priest, was reportedly authorized by Dili Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, but only "for the transition period."
East Timor, which had been occupied by Indonesia for 24 years, voted for independence in a plebiscite last Aug. 30. It has since October been governed by UNTAET, which has a mandate to prepare the half-island for full independence.
END
Timorese Demand Release Of U.S. Documents
Democracy Now ~ 12/07/00
DILI - Scores of East Timorese demonstrated outside the entrance of the U.S. Mission in Dili, East Timor last week. Participants sang and lit candles along the street in front of the American diplomatic installation in memory of the more than 200,000 East Timorese who died as a result of the Indonesian invasion and occupation.
The demonstrators said they wanted to recall the supporting role the United States government played in what many observers have classified as a genocide in East Timor, and to demand justice and accountability for U.S. actions. The demonstrators distributed pamphlets to all the attendees of the U.S. independence day party at the mission. The pamphlets read:
"Honoring the 224th Anniversary of American Independence, 1776-2000 . . . by Remembering 24 Years of U.S. Support for Indonesia's Crimes in East Timor" They detailed the complicity of the United States in Indonesia's illegal war and occupation.
The demonstrators made five demands of Washington:
1) a release of all U.S. government documents relating to East Timor;
2) the establishment of an independent commission in the United States to investigate the nature and extent of U.S. complicity with Indonesia's crimes in East Timor;
3) an apology for the U.S. role;
4) reparations from the U.S. to the people of East Timor; and
5) active U.S. support for an international tribunal to investigate and prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in East Timor from 1975-1999.
The 1975-1999 Alliance for Justice is made up of human rights activists, women's rights advocates, students, members of families victimized by Indonesia's war, and others. It works to ensure justice and accountability for the suffering and the destruction that took place in East Timor during the Indonesian invasion and occupation.
GUESTS:
• ADERITO SOARES, is a grassroots activist in East Timor. He joins us from Dili.
• KAREN ORENSTEIN, is a representative of the Washington office of the East Timor Action Network. For more information: The East Timor Action Network www.etan.org or by phone: 202-544-6911
To call your Representative: The Congressional Hotline: 202-224-3121
END
IFET Warns of West Papua-East Timor Parallels
By Charles Scheiner, IFET ~ June 13
Warning of ominous parallels between the situation in West Papua and events last year in East Timor, Charles Scheiner, United Nations Representative of the International Federation for East Timor (IFET), urged Indonesia's President Abdurrahman Wahid to "stop militia terror while it can still be controlled" in West Papua. The militias, Scheiner said in a letter sent to President Wahid on his visit today to the United Nations, "operate with the logistical and political support of the Indonesian military."
Writing on behalf of IFET's 39 organizations, Scheiner urged Wahid to "use every nonviolent means at your disposal to assert authority over the military and police in Papua, and to terminate violations of human rights perpetrated with the cooperation or complicity of your government's armed forces."
The letter also urged Wahid to arrest militia leaders and remove them from the refugee camps in West Timor, and thereby allow the 100,000 East Timorese people there to freely choose their future homeland." While taking no position on the West Papuan independence, the letter called the 1969 UN- supervised "Act of Free Choice" "a blot on Indonesian and United Nations history, a fraudulent, unrepresentative charade which should be discarded in the new era of Indonesian democracy, along with other totalitarian policies of the Suharto regime."
Indonesia annexed Dutch New Guinea (West Papua) as Irian Jaya in 1963. The UN recognized Indonesia's claim in 1969, after it and Jakarta administered the so-called Act of Free Choice in which about 1000 Indonesian-selected delegates -- out of a population of of 800,000 Papuans -- agreed under pressure to become a province of Indonesia.
In the months leading up to last August 30 vote in East Timor, the International Federation for East Timor sent 140 non-partisan observers to East Timor to observe the U.N.-administered consultation process. IFET was formed in 1991 to support the self-determination process for East Timor at the United Nations. It now has 39 member groups from 23 countries.
Text of IFET letter on W Papua & E Timor
International Federation for East Timor (IFET)*
U.N. Representative
PO Box 1182, White Plains, NY 10602
USA Tel: 1-914-428-7299 fax: 1-914-428-7383
June 13, 2000
President Abdurrahman Wahid
c/o Mission of the Republic of Indonesia to the United Nations
By fax to 1-212-972-9780
Dear Mr. President:
We are writing you to express our concern about developments in West Papua. Although we appreciate the increase in democratic space that has allowed the Papuan people to express their opinions more openly, we are worried about the escalating activities of pro- Indonesia militia groups, many of whom are linked to the Indonesian Armed Forces.
In the months leading up to last years August 30 vote, the International Federation for East Timor sent 140 non-partisan observers to East Timor to observe the popular consultation process. Our teams, in every district of East Timor, witnessed pro-integration militias killing and terrorizing the people of East Timor in an attempt to sabotage their vote. And after 78.5% of the East Timorese people expressed their pro-independence views in that U.N.-conducted act of self-determination, we were evacuated from East Timor while these militias were destroying East Timor and forcibly displacing its population. It is widely acknowledged that these militias were created, financed, armed and directed by significant elements of the TNI, Polri, and other branches of the Indonesian government.
It is to your predecessor's credit that he began the process to allow the East Timorese people to exercise their legal and moral right to self-determination. It is to his shame that he was unable or unwilling to bring the TNI and its puppet militias under control.
Over the last few weeks, a similar pattern has been emerging in Papua. We urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to stop militia terror while it can still be controlled. In Papua, as in East Timor, the militias operate with the logistical and political support of the Indonesian military. We know that you do not condone illegal violence perpetrated by these militias, but the fact that such violence continues indicates that your government has not done enough to end it. Please use every nonviolent means at your disposal to assert authority over the military and police in Papua, and to terminate violations of human rights perpetrated with the cooperation or complicity of your government's armed forces.
Last week, the Second Papuan People's Congress reiterated West Papua's 1961 declaration of independence and expressed the desire to separate from Indonesia. The International Federation of East Timor neither endorses nor opposes this wish, but believes that the people of West Papua, like those of East Timor and everywhere else in the world, have the legal and moral right to self-determination. We watched the East Timorese people exercise that right last August, but, although the UN acknowledged the Papuan people's right to self-determination, the Papuan people have never had that opportunity. The 1969 "Act of Free Choice" is a blot on Indonesian and United Nations history, a fraudulent, unrepresentative charade which should be discarded in the new era of Indonesian democracy, along with other totalitarian policies of the Suharto regime.
The International Federation for East Timor encourages you to meet with Papuan leaders when you return to Jakarta, and to continue the peaceful discussion of Papua's political future. We hope you will do everything in your power to allow nonviolent political expression and activities to continue in Papua, and to resolve the issues there peacefully, in the best interests of everyone concerned. Violent acts against civilians, whether they be committed by pro-independence forces, pro-Indonesia militia, or the TNI itself, will only undercut this process.
In closing, we welcome your government's interest in good relations with East Timor, and encourage you to continue to work with their leaders to be good neighbors, and to resist those elements trying to disrupt that friendship. Finally, we urge you to arrest militia leaders and remove them from the refugee camps in West Timor, and thereby allow the 100,000 East Timorese people there to freely choose their future homeland.
As a New Yorker, I welcome you to my city and country, hope your visit is enjoyable and productive, and wish you the best of health. And as concerned citizens from countries all over the world, the International Federation for East Timor wishes you success in your efforts to restore human rights and democracy for all people in Indonesia. Although the people of East Timor are no longer under Indonesian jurisdiction, we continue to watch and encourage the growth of freedom for those who are. Thank you for your concern and attention.
Sincerely,
Charles A. Scheiner U.N. Representative
Member Organizations of the International Federation for East Timor
Australia-East Timor Association, Australians for a Free East Timor, Brisbane East Timor Office (Australia), Campaign for an Independent East Timor (South Australia), East Timor International Support Center (Australia), East Timor Relief Association (Australia), Friends of East Timor, Western Australia, Hobart East Timor Committee (Australia), Lismore Friends of East Timor (Australia), Canadian Action for Indonesia and East Timor, East Timor Alert Network (Canada), National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT, East Timor), Pacific Concerns Resource Centre (Fiji), East Timor Group of Committee of 100 (Finland), Agir Pour Timor (France), Association Solidarité Timor-Oriental (France), Gesellschaft fur Bedrohte Volker (Germany), Watch Indonesia! (Germany), East Timor Roundtable (Hong Kong), Indian Society for Human Rights, Forum Solidaritas Untuk Rakyat Timor Lorosae (FORTILOS, Indonesia), East Timor Ireland Solidarity Campaign, Latin American and Mediterranean Coalition for East Timor (Italy), Free East Timor - Japan Coalition, East Timor Information Network (Malaysia), International Platform of Jurists for East Timor (Netherlands), Norwegian Cooperation Council for East Timor and Indonesia, Asia-Pacific Coalition on East Timor (Philippines), A Paz é Possivel em Timor Leste (Port.), Commissão para os Direitos do Povo Maubere (Portugal), Movimento Christão para a Paz (Port.), Paz é Justica para Timor Leste (Portugal), East Timor Scotland Support Group, Instituto de Estudios Políticos para América Latina y Africa (Spain), Östtimor Kommitten (Sweden), TAPOL (U.K.), British Coalition for East Timor, East Timor Action Network (USA), International Secretariat, Parliamentarians for East Timor
Charles Scheiner, U.N. Representative International Federation for East Timor, P.O. Box 1182, White Plains, New York 10602 USA Telephone:1-914-428-7299; fax:1-914-428-7383 hand:1-914-720-9205.
END
Urgent Request for Photographs, Anecdotes, Oral Histories
By Brennon Jones, UNTAET Publications Unit OCPI, June 14
We are writing for your help on a special publication, to be released in late August 2000, on the momentous events of the last year in East Timor. It will be a small, four-color book of anecdotes, oral histories and photographic images that documents, in a highly impressionistic way, last year’s national consultation process and the 30 August 1999 vote; the human and physical dimensions of the ensuing violence and nationwide destruction and the on-going reconstruction of the nation as it moves toward independence.
We are looking to reproduce in the commemorative book exceptional photographic images and personal anecdotes that capture aspects of the past year’s events in East Timor. They might document or be related to the national consultative process, itself, or to the post-election violence and destruction, or provide a unique glimpse of the on-going process of rebuilding lives and livelihoods.
You, or someone you know, may have a particularly poignant or compelling photograph or story that should be considered for inclusion in the book. You may also know of people who have done extensive documentation of events and the destruction. We urge you to send such material or contact names as soon as possible. You should also know that we will be contacting Timorese directly about the project via Tais Timor and Radio UNTAET.
The principal audience for the book will be the Timorese people themselves -- most of whom have had virtually no access to any media during the past nine months. It will provide them, for posterity, an impressionistic history of an extraordinary year in their path to independence. Hopefully, the book will also be of general use in schools and churches and by the international and domestic media as they focus on the first anniversary. As well, we sense it will have a large, foreign audience of people who have worked in East Timor in the past and/or have an on-going concern and affection for the Timorese people and follow closely the events leading to their full independence.
While we are not able to pay a fee for any material that is ultimately published in the book, we will provide a credit and acknowledgement of contributors. If the book, which will be distributed for free in East Timor, should subsequently be sold internationally, any royalties that the publications unit might earn from such distribution will be donated to a Timorese non-profit foundation.
If you have an anecdote or story, you can e-mail it directly Brennon Jones Publications Unit OCPI UNTAET, PO Box 2436 Darwin, NT 0801 Australia. Telephone +61-408-825-969 Fax: +61-8-89-815 157 or +1 212 963 2180 Thanks for your help.
END
Falintil Apologizes to Muslims Around the World"
Surya Timor KUPANG – June 9
As broadcast via the Falintil bulletin, Berliku Ailaran Tuan, that is monitored by UNTAS public relations, Falintil (East Timor Army of Liberation) is making a concerted effort to dam anti-Muslim actions by E. Timorese youth such as the stoning of the Anur mosque in Alor Neighborhood.
The youth accused this minority group in E. Timor of being Indonesian lackeys. Falintil considers this action a violation of human rights for which they have struggled so long in E. Timor. "We have made a concerted effort to hinder their actions and help them understand that Fretelin must show the world that we respect human rights and value the presence of minority groups, like Muslims and pro-integrationists returning to E. Timor although they still have Indonesian citizenship," the bulletin said.
Despite repeated reminders like this, Falintil is experiencing difficulties and anarchy among its youth that is increasingly difficult to stop through regions of E. Timor. Falintil realizes that a lot of its difficulty in stemming these acts is because many of the perpetrators are school drop-outs, or even more sad is that some of them attended university in Jawa but their performance now is very disappointing. "We thought those who had studied in Jawa would be much better, but it is the opposite. They are more stupid than those of us who were guerillas for tens of years in the woods," it said. If the youth view Muslims as Indonesian lackeys it isn’t true.
The proof is that a Muslim, Kamarad Mary Alkatiri was once a member of the Fretelin Central Committee. Concerning the stoning of the mosque, Falintil apologized to Muslims in Indonesia and around the world and asked that Indonesia and the world understand the youths’ brutal action as the action of individuals and not a Fretilin policy.
Falintil asks that E. Timorese pro-integrationists with far better education to return immediately and join in helping to raise the consciousness of under- educated youth. This request follows Falintil’s knowledge that the experience of pro-integrationists is far above pro-independence supporters who only work as thugs in the Tasitolu gambling arena and various other locations.
On the other hand, Falintil also asks the young men and women of E. Timor who now works as young diplomat in the Indonesian foreign affairs dept. to return and join with them to become ambassadors of a free E. Timor in other countries rather than never being given the opportunity by Indonesia to become an ambassador.
For example, says Falintil, consider Mario Carrascalao and Clementino Amaral who have polluted the good name and credibility of E. Timorese in Indonesia so that it will be difficult to trust them to seat in key positions in Indonesia. "Better they come home and become key leaders in E.
Timor rather than on the receiving end of orders in another country." The Falintil letter added that since 1975 they had succeeded in freeing E. Timor from Portuguese colonization and had succeeded in defending independence from the illegal occupation by the Indonesian government.
The letter also said that Falintil is determined to chase UNTAET out of E. Timor if UNTAET continues to treat them inhumanely and doesn’t involve them in having a role in the PKF. "If we aren’t prepared to become the official army of E. Timor, and they always try to take our weapons, we will oppose and chase them from E. Timor. We will do this because we want to enjoy the independence that we have struggled for for 24 years." They promise to protect minority groups: Muslims, Apodete, Mistisu who are pro-Portuguese because all of them are assets to the country.
END
East Timor's Muslims Bemoan New Hostility
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran, International Herald Tribune, June 9
Lured by the opportunity to make it big in the coffee trading business, Abdul Halim moved to this predominantly Roman Catholic territory in 1996 from his largely Islamic hometown on Sumatra island, settling in a small community near the Dili airport filled with fellow Muslim migrants from other parts of the Indonesian archipelago. At the time, going from the religious majority to the minority did not concern Mr. Halim and his neighbors. The Indonesian government, which ruled East Timor with a stiff military fist, encouraged Muslims to move to the territory under a policy aimed at diluting the strength of independence-minded Timorese.
But now that East Timor is no longer part of Indonesia, having voted for independence in a referendum sponsored by the United Nations last summer, the Muslim minority has found the welcome mat yanked away. ''When we go to the market, the Timorese tell us we are not wanted here,'' said Mr. Halim, 51.''They say, 'Go back.' They call us troublemakers even though we have caused no trouble here.''
Many Muslim families in Mr. Halim's neighborhood escaped the wave of violence that erupted after the independence vote by taking sanctuary in the nearby An-Nur Mosque. They have been unable to return home because their houses have been occupied by Timorese squatters. "'We have tried to go back, but when we arrive the people there tell us we cannot have our homes back because we are not Timorese,'' said Jamal Chaniago, a leader of the mosque.
The intimidation is not just verbal. The An-Nur Mosque, which has been transformed into a squalid encampment of 265 people, many of them families with young children, is regularly pelted with stones thrown by young Timorese Catholics, according to Islamic leaders and UN officials.
The persecution of East Timor's Muslim minority is emerging as a key test of religious and political tolerance in the new nation, raising fears that this battle-scarred territory could see a wave of violence spawned by the Timorese, who were the last round's victims, against Muslims, ethnic Chinese businessmen and others who are believed to have initially opposed independence.
UN officials who govern the country have condemned the intimidation and pledged that residents before the vote are free to live there now. The UN also has beefed up security at the mosque compound.
Several key Timorese officials, including an independence leader, Xanana Gusmao, and a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Jose Ramos-Horta, have said that non-Timorese should be allowed to return, but they differ on how that process should take place, voicing fears that unchecked immigration could let Indonesians and other foreigners snatch economic opportunities from the impoverished Timorese. ''Indonesian business people have come back and are injecting enormous amounts of money into the economy,'' said Joao Carrascalo, a vice president of the National Council of Timorese Resistance, the umbrella independence group. ''They have become provocateurs. They are doing it to destabilize the situation.'' Mr. Carrascalo said people who do not have a family connection to Timor, even those who lived in the territory before, should be treated as new migrants and subjected to ''the proper scrutiny'' before residency permits are granted.
The UN's human-rights chief in East Timor, Sidney Jones, said the animosity toward Muslims, Chinese and others was motivated more by political differences than religious ones. ''What you're really seeing is suspicion of people who are still perceived as Indonesian nationals,'' she said.
Several of the mosque dwellers privately say they would have preferred that Timor remain partof Indonesia, but they insist they did not take part in the violence or support the militias that caused it. Because they were not born in Timor, they were not allowed to vote.
Despite the 24-hour presence of armed UN peacekeepers at the mosque compound, the level of fear is still high among those inside. They rarely leave the area during the day and never at night, Mr. Chaniago said. Many of the men are unemployed, he said, because the Timorese will not hire them.
The tension highlights the steep challenges facing the UN as it also tries to integrate in the new nation the tens of thousands of people, most of them Catholic and native-born Timorese, who voted for the territory to remain a part of Indonesia. With UN encouragement, those people have been slowly returning to East Timor from refugee camps in western Timor. In some cases, the repatriation has proceeded smoothly, but in others, the returnees have been threatened and beaten up by independence supporters.
END
Not Independent Yet: East Timor
By Reese Erlich, Christian Science Monitor, June 9
In the shadow of the newly refurbished UN headquarters, Cipriano de Deus is unemployed but trying to survive, selling cigarettes and soft drinks to UN employees.
For 23 years Mr. de Deus worked in a nearby hotel. He fled to the hills last September after militias and elements of the Indonesian military torched Dili and massacred hundreds of civilians throughout East Timor. By the time Mr. de Deus had returned, there was an entirely new workforce at the hotel where he worked. "I make very little money now," says de Deus.
The United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) faces a difficult challenge to rebuild this devastated territory. After the Timorese voted 4 to 1 for independence from Indonesia last August, a campaign of terror and destruction forced an estimated 250,000 people to flee their homes. UNTAET was formed after the Indonesian withdrawal in order to facilitate the transition to Timorese independence in two to three years. While generally thankful for the international presence, many Timorese strongly criticize the UN for failing to alleviate urban unemployment estimated at 80 percent.
(Photo)Work Needed: An influx of foreign businesspeople has provided these men with some customers for their handicrafts. Unemployment in urban East Timor is an estimated 80 percent. Aid groups and locals are rebuilding the territory.
Sergio Vieira de Mello, UNTAET's chief administrator, says last year's destruction was horrific, and the UN has spent the past eight months just restoring electricity, water, port facilities, and other basic services. International agencies have cut red tape in order to speed reconstruction and provide some jobs for Timorese. "Never has the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the IMF, [or] the UN worked as fast as it has here," says Mr. Vieira de Mello. "Unfortunately, it is still too slow."
UNTAET and other international agencies are now funding a crash program to repair schools in time for classes to begin in October. The effort comes on the heels of a US Agency for International Development-sponsored Transitional Employment Program (TEP) in rural areas, designed to keep Timorese from flooding into the cities. The $5.5 million budget for TEP has helped employ 12,000 Timorese for two weeks at a time, according to Cecilio Adorna, director of UNTAET's Department of Social Services. "The program has been a great success," he says.
But in the field, TEP looks less than stellar, according to local administrators and residents.Deflated basketballs sit in a box on the district administrator's porch in Alieu, a town 50 miles south of Dili. Timorese prefer soccer, so local TEP administrator Rainer Frauenfeld canceled plans to refurbish a basketball court. Similarly, rebuilding the town's open-air market would have drained most of the TEP funds allocated for the district, so he canceled that as well.
Mr. Frauenfeld says Dili administrators often don't adequately communicate with people in the field. "Consultation, that's the key thing, as opposed to receiving orders, which are not always intelligent," he says. But he emphasizes that desperately needed money has been pumped into the local economy, and even two weeks' wages for some families is helpful. While grateful for the international aid, Timorese now want to see more than make-work programs. "We'd like UNTAET to spend money on education and not just on clearing roadsides," says farmer Evaristo da Silva. "We're already very good at that."
International agencies are discussing plans for longer- term economic development and job creation so that East Timor can take its place in the emerging global economy. For the next three to four years, UNTAET and eventually the new Timorese government must help "the private sector recapitalize," says Sarah Cliff, the World Bank's chief in East Timor.
Such subsidies could help develop exports in coffee and seafood. In addition, UNTAET and Timorese leaders are negotiating with Australia to receive revenue from an existing oil and gas project in the Timor Gap, an arrangement previously set up between Indonesia and Australia.
Prospects for major foreign investment inside East Timor remain slim, however, until the country becomes independent and shows political stability. Timorese critics say many foreign entrepreneurs these days are just making quick profits providing services to international staff. Dili currently boasts 53 restaurants and even a catamaran cruise, affordable only to the international community. Cipriano de Deus says he sees little benefit so far from the influx of foreign businesspeople.Noting the huge number of Timorese who are out of work.
END
Yohanes Yakob Denies he Planned Solidamor Attack
Surya Timor June 7, KUPANG
Head of an advocacy team for a legal aid organization, Yohanes Yacob, did not design the attack on the Solidamor office that was carried out by a delegation of E. Timor refugees (DPTT) two weeks ago. Yohanes Yacob’s denial was issued through a statement sent to ST at the end of last week, responding to a statement made by UNTAS and former Vice Head of PPI that was issued earlier.
According to Yakob, if viewed in terms of the law, the attack on the Solidamor office was clearly illegal because there was damage and beatings by the refugees. However, DPTT had a logical solution because it is as if this republic allows a country within a country. What more, DPTT feels Solidamor is a provocative organization that has ruined actively free political values including destruction of the source of Indonesia’s economic order. Also, the love of Solidamor activists is totally polluted.
Concerning the problem of his name being mentioned as the mover behind DPTT’s attack on the Solidamor office, Yacob said that matter was very ticklish. "I remind the person who mentioned my name in regard to that attack. As Secretary General of the Informal Institute for Indonesian People’s Training (LIPMI) that has or oversees 153 social organizations throughout Indonesia with a strength of more than 3 million members, if I want to destroy Solidamor, I don’t need to use the strength of DPTT, my 500,000 members who live in Jakarta are enough. That doesn’t include sympathizers," wrote Yakob. This former Soeharto lawyer explained that while in Jakarta, the DPTT program had been sent to various groups, including to the office of the LPBHN Kedsindo Advocacy Team. As DPTT’s legal authority, KPBHN Kedsindo was limited to the legal arena and [had nothing to do with] the political unit. He gave as an example, if a DPTT member was to be processed according to law, then LPBHN Kedsindo as an advocacy organization would give legal services in accordance with the ethical codes of advocacy and the oath of office.
According to Yacob, the existence and role of Solidamor has political interests that play a role in destroying its own nation. He further questioned the presence of Solidamor Director, Bonar Tigor Naipospos who is currently in Dili. Because, according to Yacob, if he wants to demand justice, he doesn’t need to go to Dili because in Indonesia there is also an institution that regulates such matters.
Concerning the UNTAS statement that DPTT still uses an old pattern, Yacob said they may be using an old pattern but at least DPTT members had proved they were ready to sacrifice their lives for their country as compared to continually holding meetings to point the finger at each other with using Pancasila and the 1945 constitution as a shield.
Solidamor Director, Bonar Tigor Naipospos, who was contacted via handy phone, responded to Yakob’s accusation that Solidamor is a provocateur said that Yohanes Yakob knows nothing about Solidamor because Yakob is nothing more than a tool that turns here and there. According to Bonar, the name of the organization is certainly Solidamor, but the mission and vision of its struggle is not just for E. Timor but also for Indonesia in relation to efforts to uphold democracy and Indonesia’s image outside the country. For example, Solidamor greatly cares about the arbitrary arrests of democracy activists during Suharto’s regime. Concerning Yakob’s accusation that Solidamor is also an organization that has ruined the actively free political values of Indonesia, Bonar thinks Yakob as a hired person wants to take advantage of the Indonesian nation. Solidamor is precisely the opposite and wants to fix Indonesia’s image in the eyes of the international world. It has never sought to ruin the Indonesian nation in any way.
Concerning Yakob’s accusation that Solidamor only uses Pancasila and the 1945 constitution as a shield in its daily organizational activities, Bonar said he understood Pancasila and the constitution better than Yakob.
END
Jakarta Police Reluctant to Act Over Militia Attack on Solidamor
TAPOL ~ May 31
As a result of his injuries, Coki Naipospos went to St Carolus Hospital for a medical report on his condition. Along with colleagues from PBHI, he took this report to the police but they refused to accept it because it was from a private hospital and told him to get a report from Cipto Mangungkusumo Hospital (RSCM). Coki then went to the RSCM and while there, he recongised one of the attackers who was getting treatment. He immediately phoned Yeni at the Central Jakarta police station to tell her to urge the police to go immediately to the RSCM. They were slow to respond, but finally agreed to go to the hospital. When the group of eight policemen arrived at the hospital, they didnt seem to be interested in making any arrests although Coki said that, as a witness, he could testify that they had participated in the attack.After an hour during which the police still failed to make any arrests, Coki had to leave in order to make a report to the Central Jakarta police.
The police explained their reluctance to act, saying that they didnt wanted to make a wrongful arrest. Yeni who had remained behind at the hospital to urge the police to attack, reminded them that they had the powers to take people into custody for 24 hours.
Moreover, as she pointed out, the suspects at the hospital made no secret of their role, shouting to people that they were 'pro-integration East Timorese 'who love the Republic of Indonesia'. They poured abuse on Solidamor calling them 'puppets of the CNRT and traitors to the nation'. In the end, after persistent pressure from Yeni, the police took away four men. Solidamor are not sure whether the men were held for investigation or set free.
The next day, 25 May, Coki, Yeni, Tri Agus, and Andryanto with a team from the PBHI visited the national chief of police, General Rusdihardjo to deliver a very strong protest about the attack on the Solidamor office., and expressing their concern at the lack of seriousness on the part of the Central Jakarta police in pursuing the investigation. Solidamor regards this as a very important test case for the Indonesian government to give proof of their willingness to pursue investigations of those involved in the events in East Timor following the ballot last year.
The attack on the Solidamor office was carried out in the same pattern as the acts of violence carried out by the militia/TNI in East Timor following the ballot last year. It was an attack by pro-integration people against pro- independence people, a physical attack aimed at destroying all the contents or carrying off whatever they could take. The only difference was that when attacking the Solidamor office, they took care to carry off all the printout files and disks they could lay their hands on.
It's a very straightforward case, Some of the attackers are now in the hands of the police, evidence is easily available, the men have made no secret of their involvement, and have been identified by Coki as a witness.If the police fail to investigate this case thoroughly, we will have to question the seriousness of the police to investigate the far more serious cases involving Indonesian generals and militia leaders.
Solidamor urges human rights activists around the world to press the Indonesian police to investigate the cases of the four men arrested as the Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital and to investigate the attack. If these clearly identifiable men are allowed to go free, what can we expect will happen to top generals like General Wiranto. The four men were taken to the Central Jakarta police station on the night of 24 May. The number to ring is: 62-21 390-9922/390-9623.
END
Support Ban on U.S.- Indonesia Military Ties
ETAN ~ May 31
Resolve The Refugee Crisis What YOU Can Do - National Call-In Days: June 6-8
Call your Senators and Representative and ask for their foreign policy staffer. The congressional switchboard number is 202-224-3121, or consult http://www.congress.gov for fax or email information. To find out who your members of Congress are, contact your local League of Women Voters. Remember to thank your Senators and Representatives for any previous support.
Tell them: * Now is not the time for normalization of military ties with Indonesia.
Now is the time for the U.S. administration to increase pressure on President Wahid and the Indonesian government to finally resolve East Timor's refugee crisis.
- Request that your Representative and Senators:
* Actively support the inclusion of the current Leahy conditions (see below) pertaining to East Timor in the FY 2001 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill. Let her/him know that the Leahy conditions have not been met.
* Express their opposition to joint military exercises with Indonesia, such as CARAT, until all Congressional conditions have been met.
* Actively support the provision of $25 million in aid for East Timor for FY 2001. President Clinton requested only $10 million for East Timor for 2001, down from $25 million for FY 2000. Current levels must be maintained to support development, reconstruction, and institution building for the next several years.
- Request that your Representative:
* Co-sponsor HR 4357, the East Timor Repatriation and Security Act of 2000, introduced by Representatives James McGovern (D-MA) and Chris Smith (R-NJ). (See explanation below.)
* Co-sponsor HR 1063, the International Military Training Transparency and Accountability Act, introduced by Representatives Chris Smith and Lane Evans (D-IL), if they have not already done so. For a list of current co-sponsors of HR 4357 and HR 1063, please consult the ETAN website ("http://www.etan.org/legislation/sponsor.htm" ).
- Request that your Senators:
* Co-sponsor S 2621, the East Timor Repatriation and Security Act, recently introduced by Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) and others.
Thank you for your support. It does make a difference. Please let the East Timor Action Network know the results of your contacts. For sample letters send a blank e-mail to sampltrs@etan.org or go to http://www.etan.org/action/letters.htm.
BACKGROUND
The Clinton Administration is considering re-engagement with the Indonesian military (TNI) despite continued military and militia intimidation and violence in East Timorese refugee camps in West Timor and activity on the East-West Timor border, and despite continuing military-backed human rights abuses in areas of Indonesia, including Ambon, Aceh and West Papua. While current law prohibits weapons transfers and military training, Pentagon and State Department officials have already authorized exchanges between the U.S. and Indonesian armed forces.
A regional exercise, Cobra Gold, has already gone forward with Indonesian military personnel observing. The administration is also making plans to stage a CARAT (Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training) military exercise with the TNI in July. CARAT is a large-scale exercise involving Navy, Marines, and other forces that stages simulated amphibious invasions of Indonesian islands. Previous CARATs, including one held last August just before East Timor voted, have included patrolling, live fire cross training, and raids. Some Indonesian soldiers went directly from last August's CARAT to East Timor to participate in the worst violence.
Pentagon officials and some in the State Department and Congress are attempting to overturn the current suspension of military training and weapons transfers. Clearly, now is not the time to discuss normalization of military ties with Indonesia. More than 100,000 East Timorese remain in military- and militia-controlled camps in West Timor.
Most want to return home. Conditions in the camps are horrendous, with malnutrition and disease rampant. Healthcare is inadequate. Some 60 refugees were killed and tens of thousands further displaced in recent flash floods. Elements in the State Department are pushing for a June 30 deadline for the start of camp closures and attempting to cut funding for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This is unacceptable until serious progress has been made in securing refugee safety and meeting humanitarian needs. An unknown number who were moved to other areas of Indonesia last year have not returned. It is unacceptable that over nine months after the East Timor voted for independence this refugee crisis continues. The U.S. government must increase pressure on President Wahid and the Indonesian military to resolve this crisis.
LEGISLATION
Foreign Operations Appropriations Act - Leahy Conditions: Last fall, Congress cut off military training and weapons transfers until Indonesia meets certain conditions pertaining to East Timor. This legislation -- the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act, which contains the "Leahy conditions" -- must be renewed every year. Current conditions are far from being met, and others pertaining to civilian control of the Indonesian military should be added. Current conditions stipulate that before normal military ties can be restored between the U.S. and Indonesia, the Indonesian government and military must allow "displaced persons and refugees to return home to East Timor" and bring to justice military and militia members responsible for human rights atrocities in East Timor and Indonesia. They also require Indonesia to actively prevent militia incursions into East Timor and cooperate fully with the UN administration in East Timor. The Leahy conditions reinforce President Clinton's own suspension of military ties with Indonesia - put in place last September as the destruction of East Timor escalated following the overwhelming vote in favor of independence.
HR 4357 and S. 2621, the East Timor Repatriation and Security Act of 2000 - These companion bills would prohibit military relations and assistance to the armed forces of Indonesia until the Indonesian government provides for the territorial integrity of East Timor; the security and safe return of refugees; and has brought to justice those individuals responsible for murder, rape, torture and other crimes against humanity in East Timor and elsewhere. Urge your Senator to co-sponsor S 2621. Urge your Representative to co-sponsor HR 4357. HR 1063, the International Military Training Transparency and Accountability Act, closes loopholes the Pentagon has used to continue to train human rights violators in Indonesia.
Although Congress has banned combat training for Indonesia under the IMET (International Military Education and Training) program, this bill would ban JCET (Joint Combined Education and Training) and all similar programs to Indonesian and other human rights violating militaries. This bill has far-reaching implications for the human rights of all Indonesians and others around the world (including Latin America and Africa).
REFUGEE UPDATE
Over 100,000 East Timorese refugees are living in some 200 refugee sites scattered throughout West Timor. Another 11,000 to 30,000 are believed to be elsewhere in Indonesia. A recent fact-finding mission coordinated by the East Timor Action Network found that the situation for refugees in West Timor and other parts of Indonesia remains dire. East Timorese in camps face ongoing threats and intimidation by Indonesian military (TNI) supported militia leaders, little to no medical care, and malnutrition.
Over 700 people, most children, have died from various illnesses since last September due to inadequate sanitation and medical care. Nearly 100 refugees were killed and tens of thousands further displaced in mid-May in flash floods.Continuous damp and muddy conditions in the camps due to an unusually long rainy season have already exacerbated the health care crisis. A malaria catastrophe looms once the rains stop.Access to many of the camps by humanitarian organizations remains limited, and aid workers are still being threatened.
The Indonesian military, its militia allies and the local media continue to spread disinformation to discourage East Timorese from returning home. Elements in the State Department are now pushing to shut down the camps beginning on the arbitrary date of June 30, ignoring the conditions that prevent free and safe refugee return, in spite of UNHCR's own recommendation to keep the camps open. Elements in the State Department are also threatening to cut off funding to UNHCR.
Steps needed to end the lingering refugee crisis include:
§ An immediate end to Indonesian military support for militias, and the disarming and disbanding of all militia groups.
§ The separation of militia leaders from the civilian refugee population, their arrest by Indonesian police or UN authorities, and their extradition to East Timor.
§ Open and complete access to all refugee camps in West Timor for humanitarian aid workers.
§ Assurance that all refugees who wish to return home can do so without intimidation before any forced closing of camps under arbitrary deadlines.
§ A coordinated effort to track, locate, and safely return East Timorese refugees taken off Timor island.
§ Better preparations in East Timor by UNHCR and others for reintegration and resettlement of returning refugees.
For more information about legislation, ETAN's fact-finding mission to West Timor and other issues, see ETAN's website or contact: Karen Orenstein at ETAN's Washington office, 202-544-6911.
END
Ethnically Mixed Bosnian Police Contingent Working in East Timor
by Daniel Cooney, AP ~ May 30
Five years ago, international peacekeepers had to intervene in Bosnia-Herzegovina to enforce the truce that ended a bitter war among its three main ethnic communities.Today, an ethnically mixed police contingent from that Balkans state is far from home helping keep the peace in East Timor as the new nation recovers from the bloodshed and destruction of its break from Indonesia.
Policing the aftermath of a war is a rare task for most officers. For the Bosnians who arrived in April, it's an all too familiar routine. "Unfortunately, we Bosnians have a lot of experience with the same kind of problems facing East Timor ," said Sgt. Samir Muslic, a Slavic Muslim, his shaved head glistening in the tropical sun as he walks a beat amid the ruins of Dili, East Timor 's capital. "We know how these conflicts start and how to work to resolve them."
Bosnia has made some progress toward rebuilding a unified society, but its Muslims, Serbs and Croats remain deeply divided and reconciliation efforts still face strong resistance from ethnic extremists. About 24,000 peacekeepers remain in Bosnia enforcing the accord that ended the 1992-94 war, which killed 250,000 people.
"When I was told that Bosnia was prepared to contribute policemen, I was truly elated because it was the first such opportunity to see Bosnians from different backgrounds participating in a U.N. operation after having themselves benefited by what the U.N. did in Bosnia," said Sergio Vieira de Mello, the world body's chief representative in East Timor .
The half-island state was devastated last year when pro-Indonesian militias went on a rampage after the territory's people voted for independence. Hundreds were killed and 250,000 fled their homes to seek refuge in other parts of Indonesia.Whole towns and villages were reduced to rubble. Families suffered the horror of rape and murder of loved ones.
Peace was restored with the arrival of an Australian-led multinational military force. Eight months later, 8,300 U.N. soldiers still are stationed here to make sure the violence does not re-ignite. The United Nations is administering the territory while it builds up a government structure, including a new police force.
In the interim, 1,200 police officers from 37 nations are scattered across the mountainous territory, settling property disputes and protecting returning refugees as well as pro-Indonesian sympathizers. Their duties also include mundane police work such as dealing with drunken teen-agers on Saturday nights and enforcing newly introduced traffic regulations.
Life on the tropical island is not exactly paradise for the dozen Bosnian officers. Living accommodations are spartan and the heat is unrelenting. They all miss Bosnian food.
"East Timor is a dangerous place - not because of guns, though, but because of mosquitoes," Muslic said, referring to the malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases already plaguing the peacekeepers and U.N. staff. Still, the 12 men have built strong bonds and feel united in their mission. "Now that we've gotten to know each other, we've come to trust each other," said Mirko Luzic, a Serb. "The problems in our homeland are now mainly between politicians."
In a telephone interview from his office in Sarajevo, Douglas Coffman, a spokesman for the U.N. mission in Bosnia, said that when the police unit was first assembled for training, officers from different ethnic groups sat in separate parts of the classroom. Within a few days, however, they were all mixed up, laughing and joking, he said. "The message for the local people in East Timor is that former enemies can work together, even keep the peace somewhere else," Coffman said.
END
ETISC Deplores Militia Attack on Indonesian NGO, Solidamor
ETISC ~ May 30
East Timor International Support Center (ETISC) deplores the attack on the Jakarta office of Solidamor, the prominent Indonesian NGO which has played a leading role in promoting the cause of justice in East Timor, and in bringing a welcome solution to this tragic and costly regional conflict. The invasion and occupation of East Timor was an adventure of the Indonesian military under the leadership of Soeharto which gave the military a rationale for developing techniques of repression which were well beyond a reasonable interpretation of human rights.
That Solidamor leader Coki Naipospos was stabbed and hospitalised, three others injured, and documents stolen suggests that elements of the Indonesian army are responsible, and that there is a political motive which relates to East Timor. Are there current or former army personnel who still want to take revenge on those who fought for human rights in East Timor? Are there military personnel who wish to disrupt the efforts by President A Wahid, the current Indonesian political elite and civil society organisations such as Solidamor to improve relations between Indonesia and East Timor?
Suspicion naturally points to the involvement of the Indonesian military. ETISC believes that it would enhance the name of Indonesia and its beleaguered military if the Indonesian National Army officially denied its involvement, condemned the attack, and sought immediately, with police help, to bring to justice those responsible. Failure to do so means that their image remains one of intrigue, violence and repression.
END
Update on Solidamor Attack in Jakarta
TAPOL ~ May 29
The Solidamor chair, Coki Naipospos sustained injuries all over his body and suffered wounds on his wrist and forehead. When the attack started, he grabbed hold of a laptop to shield his face from being beaten with sticks and stones. Sapollo was kicked and beaten and was badly bruised . He was taken to hospital for an x-ray. The two other members of Solidamor who were in the building at the time suffered minor injuries.
The material damage is estimated at around 100 million rupiahs (well over $10,000), not including Rp18 million in the cash-box and the Rp1.9 million stolen from Sapollo, the East Timorese who works in the Solidamor office. The attackers also broke into a large box containing documents. Solidamor still has to work out which documents are missing.
There are reasons to believe that the attackers are from the same group which recently launched an action at the MPR (People's Congress) and was responsible for the three-day occupation of the Komnas Ham (National Commission of Human Rights) office. They include some of the Timorese whose names are listed in the KPP Ham report as perpetrators of last year's violence in East Timor.
Recently, Eurico Gutteres, the notorious Aitarak militia leader who is now based in Kupang, was interviewed by El Shinta Radio. He vehemently denied that this group in Jakarta is under his command. He said that they were formerly members of Aitarak but had defected and were now under the control of Yohannes Yacob, one of the lawyers acting for 'Big Daddy' Suharto. They are currently based in a transmigration transition camp in Kali Malang, in the centre of Jakarta.
Two people have been arrested and Solidamor has called on the authorities to keep them in custody until the investigations are complete. Yesterday, members of Solidamor along with Hendardi from PBHI had a meeting with General Rusdihardjo, the National Chief of Police, to demand that there be a comprehensive follow-up of this case. Polda Metro Jaya, the Jakarta Metropolitan Police, will handle the case from now on.
People in the neighbourhood were taken by surprise by the suddennes of the act and were rather slow to react. But when the attackers started trying to burn down the building, they stepped in and were able to prevent further damage.
Our friends estimate that between 40 and 50 people were involved in the attack on the Solidamor office. The attack was reported by all the main newspapers as well as on TV. It was not the lead item however because student protests have escalated in the past two days. Demands for Suharto to be put on trial have intensified and there was a major clash today between the students and the security forces, during which teargas was used. Six army vehicles were reportedly burned by the students.
Apart from tidying up the front room, the Solidamor office has been left as it was after the attack so as to be seen by the press and the authorities. The phone is still working, the fax machine was damaged and it will probably be possible to repair one of the computers. We think that the solidarity movement worldwide should start raising money to help pay for the damage sustained by our friends in Solidamor. The Solidamor staff will start functioning again on Monday 29 May and they wish to convey their thanks to everyone worldwide for their expressions of concern and messages of solidarity.
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Gusmao Condemns Attack on Jakarta Support Office
Lusa ~ May 26
East Timorese independence leader Xanana Gusmao Friday condemned the ransacking of an East Timor support organization in Jakarta as a "brutal and cowardly act" which ran against efforts to normalize relations between Indonesia and its former occupied territory.
In a letter sent to the Solidamor group, Gusmao said the attack Wednesday, which left four activists injured, targeted "the spirit of friendship and cooperation" which the organization and Indonesian President Abdurrahaman Wahid "seek to create between our two countries".
About 50 East Timorese anti-independence militants, who arrived in a truck, ransacked and beat staff at the Solidamor office, which also housed the Jakarta representation of the National Council of Timorese Resistance. Police arrested four attackers. Separately, officials in West Timor earlier this week refused to recognize a new anti-indpendence East Timorese party, the Timorese Peoples Party, founded by militia chief Herminio Silva da Costa. Indonesia had "recognized the results of the (independence) plebiscite and anyone who wished to participate in developing democracy in East Timor should return there", West Timor Vice Governor Pake Pane said of the decision.
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Gusmao: Where is the aid going?
by Mark Dodd, Sydney Morning Herald ~ May 26
The East Timor independence leader Mr Xanana Gusmao has threatened to boycott a key international donors' meeting in Portugal because of concerns over the UN's accountability with donor funds. The Lisbon donors' meeting scheduled for June 23 is expected to hear UN budget proposals for East Timor. The threat is the most serious evidence of the deteriorating relationship between the CNRT (National Council of Timorese Resistance), of which Mr Gusmao is president, and the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor. CNRT sources said Mr Gusmao stormed out of a meeting with UNTAET's Deputy Special Representative for Governance and Public Administration, Mr Jean-Christian Cady, on Wednesday, angered at UN stonewalling over the provision of a breakdown of spending in East Timor.
Mr Gusmao was reported to be furious over reports that UNTAET had spent $US15 million ($26.3 million) of funds pledged by donors at last December's Tokyo conference on motor vehicles for the UN Civilian Police (Civpol). The sight of UN officials driving around in brand new air-conditioned four-wheel-drives has lent itself to a new expression in Dili, "White Car Syndrome".
A total of $US522 million was pledged to East Timor at the December 17 conference in Tokyo convened jointly by the UN and the World Bank. Of this, $US149 million was earmarked for humanitarian activities and $US373.5 million for civil administration, reconstruction and development. "We had asked for a breakdown and we were not given a breakdown. The final report we were given was too generalised. We want to know what was spent," one senior CNRT official told the Herald.
Mr Gusmao told senior CNRT officials it would be immoral to go to Lisbon and ask for additional reconstruction aid to rebuild his shattered country if he was unaware of how the UN had spent previous donor funds.
The threat of a Lisbon boycott by Mr Gusmao follows a request earlier this week to the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, by the CNRT's ambassador at large, Mr Jose Ramos Horta, that UNTAET replace all its district administrators (DAs) with East Timorese by August.
Mr Ramos Horta, a Nobel Peace laureate, says he is unimpressed with the performance and qualifications of many of the DAs, arguing that East Timorese need the experience if they are to run the country themselves, and could do the job just as well.
The DAs themselves have expressed disquiet about the way they have been left out of key decision making by senior Dili-based UN bureaucrats. In a protest note signed on April 4 addressed to Mr Cady, they accused UNTAET of "crisis mode" policy-making and that excluded the concerns of Timorese.
Domestic issues may lie at the root of CNRT's concerns about the disbursement of UN funds. One official, who asked not to be named, said CNRT officials were coming under increasing pressure from local people, particularly those in impoverished rural communities, hearing of generous donations made by the international community to East Timor but receiving little or nothing themselves.
Mr Gusmao's sudden interest in bookkeeping may also be linked to allegations that certain CNRT officials and supporters have siphoned funds. Nobody at the CNRT seems to know what happened to a $US100,000 donation from the Chinese Government given to a Macau-based official last December.
END
Solidamor Office Attacked, Activists Injured
TAPOL ~ May 26
A group of about fifty pro-integration East Timorese carried out a vicious attack today on the office of SOLIDAMOR in Jakarta. The gang , which according to an eye-witness, was accompanied by a group of Indonesian soldiers who watched the attack from a distance, entered the office at around 4 pm on Wednesday, 24 May and immediately set about destroying all the office equipment and smashing the windows. Four men who were in the office at the time were physically attacked and sustained injuries.
SOLIDAMOR has for years played a critical role in disseminating information about East Timor in Indonesia and has been in the forefront of efforts to build solidarity in Indonesia for the people of East Timor. It played an active role in monitoring the situation in East Timor before and during the UN ballot in August last year and was recently appointed as the liaison office in Indonesia of the CNRT, the National Council of Timorese Resistance. It has also become a centre for solidarity with people’s movements in other countries of South East Asia.
The four injured activists were Bonar Tigor Naipospos, Chairperson of Solidamor, Sudarman of the Division of Publications and Documentation, Sapolo and Iden, both on the staff of the organisation. Bonar Tigor Naipospos recently returned from a visit to Europe where he attended a conference on democratisation in South East Asia in Helsinki and an international meeting of East Timor solidarity groups in the Netherlands.
In what eye-witnesses described as a very professional operation, the attackers who wore red-and-white headbands (the colours of the Indonesian flag), drove up to the office in trucks and within minutes had destroyed every piece of office equipment, including two computers, a scanner, a fax-machine, a television set and a video machine. They then fled from the scene, taking a cash-box containing Rp18 million (US$2,200), two telephones, a number of documents and the personal belongings of several activists and members of staff. The severity of the destruction is reminiscent of the wanton destruction inflicted on persons and property in East Timor by army-back militias, which reached a climax in September 1999 after the results of the UN ballot were made public. The attack has left SOLIDAMOR penniless and bereft of all its property. The local police were called to the scene and four persons were later taken into custody on suspicion of having been involved in the attack.
Background
The attack, conducted in broad daylight in a busy part in the centre of the Indonesian capital, is a sign that forces who feel humiliated and bitter at having been driven from East Timor, are intent on hampering the growth of civil society in Indonesia, preventing the development of ties of friendship between Indonesia and East Timor, and trying to sabotage efforts to investigate the crimes against humanity committed in East Timor and punish those responsible.
The attack was launched as a number of Indonesian generals and senior officers have been undergoing investigation for their role in the orgy of atrocities and destruction which swept across East Timor during and after the UN ballot when nearly eighty per cent of the people of East Timor voted in favour of independence from Indonesia. A number of East Timorese collaborators and leaders of the militia gangs have failed to turn up for investigation.
While most East Timorese who were studying or working in Indonesia have now returned to East Timor, a small number of pro-integration East Timorese have remained behind in various parts of Java and have started harassing some East Timorese who have returned to Indonesia in order to complete their studies.
Please take the following actions
1. Call on your governments to press the Indonesian authorities for a thorough investigation of the attack and for firm action to be taken against the perpetrators and instigators of the attack.
2. Send an appeal to the Indonesian Chief of Police, calling for the attack to be thoroughly investigated and for firm action to be taken against the perpetrators and instigators of the attack. Address the appeal to:
General (Pol) Rusdihardjo, Fax: 62-21 726-0306/720-7277 Markas Besar Kepolisian RI, Jalan Trunojoyo 13, Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta Selatan, Indonesia
3. Send a message of solidarity to SOLIDAMOR. Or send tokens of support to SOLIDAMOR, Jalan Pramuka Jayasari No 9, Jakarta Pusat, Indonesia.
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UN Condemns Attacks on East Timorese Muslim Minority
by Daniel Cooney, AP ~ May 26
DILI - East Timor 's U.N. administrators on Thursday strongly condemned a series of attacks on the half island nation's small Muslim community. Sergio Vieira de Mello, the U.N.'s chief representative in the newly independent territory, said East Timor 's 265-strong Muslim community was being forced to "live in a ghetto" due to weeks of stone throwing and intimidation by the Catholic majority. He said the attacks must be stopped immediately. "We have reinforced the protection around the Mosque compound," De Mello said in an interview. Renewed violence would be a bitter blow for the territory as it struggles to rebuild after last year's wave of murder and destruction that erupted following an overwhelming vote to break away from Indonesia.
Outside Dili's only Muslim place of worship, An-Nur mosque, several heavily armed U.N. peacekeepers stood guard as an American-made Humvee armored vehicle cruised around the block looking for troublemakers. "I'm scared to talk about the violence as it will only get worse," said Muslim community leader, Tarikhat Al Mufarridiyyah. "All day and night the Catholics in the neighborhood throw stones at us and the mosque."
He said many East Timorese accuse them of siding with pro-Jakarta militias, responsible for the much of the violence last year. "Many people still see us as citizens of Indonesia, but our hearts are in East Timor ."
Tarikhat criticized East Timor 's U.N. administrators, accusing them of turning their backs on the violence and intimidation. "The U.N. is doing very little to help us," he said. "There are so many bosses and leaders in the U.N. here, but nothing happens."
But De Mello rejected the criticism, saying the conflict would soon be resolved. "I am confident that we can rebuild trust between the very small Muslim community and the East Timorese population."
U.N. human rights worker Sidney Jones said the attacks were motivated more by political differences that religious ones. She said nearly all of East Timor 's Muslims had migrated from other parts of Indonesia less than 10 years ago and were regarded by many East Timorese as still being of Indonesian nationality. But she said that "legally there's no question that these people have a right to stay."
East Timor 's independence leader Jose "Xanana" Gusmao recently condemned the attacks, urging his followers to accept the Muslims and allow them to become a part of East Timorese society. In February, Dili's Islamic cleric spoke on U.N.-sponsored public radio, calling for religious tolerance. Portuguese peacekeepers tasked with protecting the mosque from attack, said there was real animosity in the community towards the Muslims. "Throwing stones at the mosque is normal, that goes on all day," said Corp. Marco Correia. "I just hope things don't escalate even further."
END
by Jim Randle, Voice of America ~ May 25
US officials say the Pentagon is making small, cautious steps toward renewing relations with Indonesia's military. All military ties between Washington and Jakarta were severed eight months ago, following massacres in East Timor that left hundreds of people dead.
V-O-A's Jim Randle reports, human rights groups say it is too soon for Washington to resume relations with Indonesia's forces.
A Pentagon official calls the process `phased reengagement' and says the slight thaw in relations follows improvements in Indonesia's human rights practices. The first step was an invitation to 10 Indonesian Air Force officers to observe U-S, Thai and other forces in a major military exercise in Thailand last month. In July, a larger number of Indonesian personnel will join - not just watch - a large exercise in South East Asia with U-S troops.
State Department spokesman Phil Reeker says the Indonesian government is working to establish civilian control of the military and hold top officers accountable for human rights abuses in East Timor. After the province voted for independence from Indonesia last September, Army units were blamed for allowing -- and even encouraging -- armed groups to attack independence supporters and burn their homes.
After taking office late last year, Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid fired powerful Armed Forces Chief, General Wiranto, who is now under investigation. But human rights activists, including John Miller of the East Timor Action Network say that's not enough. Every time the U-S moves to reward, and that's how the Indonesian military sees it, reward the Indonesian military, they take it as a signal to continue their human rights abuses. Mr. Miller says he welcomes the improved human rights climate in Indonesia, but says most of the conditions that prompted Washington cut ties have not changed.
Refugees (from East Timor) are still lingering in West Timor, there are still threats along the border. Human rights abuses by the Indonesian military continue, throughout Indonesia, and the Indonesian military remains heavily involved in politics. Mr. Miller says a bill to block renewed ties is pending in the U-S Congress, and a similar measure will be introduced soon in the U-S Senate.
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East Timor Action Network Opposes Resumption of Military Ties with Indonesia
John M. Miller, ETAN ~May 25
The East Timor Action Network (ETAN) today called on the U.S. government to cancel plans to conduct a joint military exercise with the Indonesian military (TNI) this summer. This training is part of a proposed program to gradually restore military relations frozen since early September, when Indonesian troops rampaged through East Timor. "The administration says it must reward TNI for modest reforms imposed on it by popular opposition in Indonesia. But the suspension of U.S.-Indonesia military ties has helped the
Indonesian government make progress in bringing its military under control. Resuming military cooperation now will only hurt efforts to get the armed forces out of politics," said John M. Miller, spokesperson for the ETAN. "Any resumption of military engagement sends a signal to the Indonesian armed forces that the U.S. government believes they have been rehabilitated, legitimizing the human rights abuses and terror tactics they continue to practice in Aceh, West Papua and elsewhere in Indonesia.
Militias with TNI support continue to harass East Timorese refugees in West Timor and elsewhere in Indonesia. Prosecutions of human rights abuses in East Timor and elsewhere are moving slowly and military investigators are playing a prominent role in what are supposed to be civilian investigations. Indonesia's human rights law remains stalled in parliament," said Miller. "We are working with members of Congress and others to make sure that U.S.-Indonesian relations promote human rights and democracy rather than return to old habits of coddling a military whose commitment to reform is tenuous at best. In the past, whenever Congress or the administration has blocked military training or certain weapons transfers the Indonesian military has taken notice. Each time the U.S. has moved to resume or reinforce military ties, TNI has taken it as approval for business as usual, not as a reward for any reforms or good behavior," said Miller.
"The Clinton administration is focusing first on the navy and air force, arguing that their human rights records are better than the army's. But air force planes and navy ships were integral to the massive, well-planned Indonesian military and militia operation which systematically destroyed and looted East Timor and forcibly transported a third of the population out of the territory following its pro-independence vote," he added.
The administration is planning to stage a CARAT (Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training) military exercise with the TNI next July or August. CARAT is a large-scale, high prestige exercise involving navy, marines, and air force that stages simulated amphibious invasions of Indonesian islands. Previous CARATs, including one held last August just before the East Timor vote, have included patrolling, live fire training, and raids. Some Indonesian officers went directly from last August's CARAT to East Timor and participated in the worst violence there.
Journalist Allan Nairn, speaking before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Human Rights, May 11, said "One of these officers, Lt. Col. (later Col.) Willem, helped coordinate the Indonesian naval forces in CARAT and then went to Dili where he served as a senior official in KOREM military headquarters, the very base from which the Aitarak militias staged their terror raids during late September. I saw this first hand since I was a prisoner in KOREM and was interrogated by Col. Willem." Willem has since been promoted to head the personal staff of Admiral Widodo, the national TNI commander.
On September 9, President Clinton suspended all U.S. ties with Indonesia. Soon after, the Indonesian military began to pull out of East Timor and Indonesia gave permission for an international peacekeeping force to enter the territory.
Late last year Congress put part of this ban into law. The FY 2000 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act stipulates conditions which must be met before normal military ties can be restored. These include refugee return to East Timor and accountability for military and militia members responsible for human rights atrocities in East Timor and Indonesia. They also require Indonesia to actively prevent militia incursions into East Timor and to cooperate fully with the UN administration in East Timor.
The Repatriation and Security Act of 2000 (HR 4357) recently introduced in the House of Representatives by Jim McGovern (D-MA), Chris Smith (R-NJ) and others, would prohibit relations and assistance to the armed forces of Indonesia until the Indonesian government provides for the territorial integrity of East Timor, the security and safe return of refugees, and prosecution of those individuals responsible for crimes against humanity in East Timor and elsewhere. A similar bill is expected in the Senate.
The 1998 CARAT was cancelled after the congressional uproar over JCET (Joint Combined Exchange Training), the program under which the U.S. taught urban warfare and sniper technique in circumvention of the congressional ban on U.S. military training for Indonesia.
John M. Miller Media & Outreach Coordinator, East Timor Action Network 48 Duffield St., Brooklyn, NY 11201 USA Phone: (718)596-7668 Fax: (718)222-4097 Web site:
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East Timorese Asking to Be Returned Home
Dow Jones Newswires ~ May 24
DILI - Some of the East Timorese refugees who have been living in exile in Indonesian-held West Timor for the past eight months are asking to be returned to their homeland, a U.N. spokesman said Monday.
A quarter of a million people fled to West Timor to escape the campaign of terror that erupted when East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia last August. About 90,000 still remain there. "Ninety-seven refugee families have asked for our help to return to East Timor," said Jake Morland, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in West Timor. "This is one good thing to come out of this (flooding) crisis."
The mass appeals follow a call from U.N. chief representative in East Timor, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and the territory's independence leader, Jose "Xanana" Gusmao, for the refugees to return home.
In West Timor, two people were swept away and drowned as they tried to wade across a river in the southern Belu region, only a few kilometers west of the East Timor-Indonesian border, Morland said. At least 148 people have died so far in the flooding. The death toll will likely rise if monsoon rains continue to drench West Timor, Morland said. "The damage to the area is horrific," said Morland from the West Timor capital, Kupang. "So many people are in up to their knees in mud."
He said helicopters had airlifted enough food into the area on Sunday to feed about 20,000 people, but a much larger number of victims were still in desperate need of emergency supplies.In video footage shot by one of the U.N. pilots, hundreds of people could be seen dashing through knee-deep water to collect bags of rice and other supplies.
A large road bridge had collapsed, with sections completely washed away. Vast tracts of land were totally submerged under water. Morland said several minor scuffles had broken out as thousands of wet and hungry people fought for emergency supplies.
END
by Niurka Piñeiro, International Organization for Migration ~ May 24
DILI - IOM teams working around the clock the past six days have evacuated over 5,000 people from areas affected by deadly flooding around Betun near the West Timor border. The number of confirmed dead now stands at 124. At least half were East Timorese refugees, mostly women and children. Fifty-three persons were buried on Friday, 19 May.
IOM now has 32 trucks operating in Malaka Tengah, 10 of them deployed from relief operations in neighbouring East Timor. Three are being used to ferry relief supplies for other agencies and the remainder for evacuations. Malaka Barat remains cut off by floodwaters and only accessible by helicopter.
The Bermai river burst its banks on the night of Tuesday May 16th, flooding villages and East Timorese refugee camps around Betun in the Melaka Tengah and Melaka Barat Belu sub-districts.
The IOM office in Atambua was the first agency to begin evacuating refugees to relocation sites on higher ground on Wednesday, just hours after the disaster struck. On Friday 19 May, IOM Dili joined the operation, sending 10 additional trucks across the border loaded with UNHCR relief supplies.
Families lined the roads to be evacuated from flooded refugee camps including Angkaes, Kletek, Bolan, Bakateu, Manumuti, Naimana, Atukama and Malai. Relocation sites on higher ground included Kamanasa, the Pertamina oil company depot, Pemancar, Solo, Tubaki, Weboa and Wemasa. The flooding is believed to have displaced some 20,000 people and affected at least 30,000 more. The two sub-districts have a total population of about 116,000, of whom 16,000 are East Timorese refugees.
The border area is now virtually cut off from the rest of West Timor by flooding and landslides, which have made all main roads impassible to anything other than four wheel-drive vehicles. An IOM relief team travelling from Kupang on Monday in a 2x2 vehicle failed to reach the area.
A WFP official who flew over the area shortly after the disaster described it as "a sea of mud." Other agencies have reported the virtual destruction of all infrastructure, including government institutions, hospitals and schools. Crops and food stocks have also been destroyed, and WHO has warned of a serious risk of epidemics. Malaria is endemic in the area.
Five key bridges in the area have been destroyed and buildings that survived the flood are partially buried in deep mud. Most of the East Timorese refugee camps in the area were washed away due to their makeshift construction and poor building materials. The Indonesian government on Saturday declared a state of emergency in the area for the next two weeks and is coordinating relief efforts. UNHCR is coordinating the international response.
But despite the floods, the IOM-organized family reunion at the Motaain-Batugade border this past Saturday 20 May attracted 10,642 people, making it the biggest event of its kind for more than two months. Roughly half of the participants came from East Timor and half from West Timor. Forty-four people were reunited with families and friends and went home to East Timor from the reunion. Two people went in the opposite direction from East to West.
On Monday, 22 May, IOM transported 118 people across the border at Batugade, the largest number during the past week. The successful reunion may have contributed to the increase in numbers. No other cross border movements have taken place since May 17th, when 7 people arrived in Dili on a flight from Jakarta.
International Organization for Migration (IOM) 17 Route des Morillons * C.P. 71 * CH-1211 Geneva 19 * Switzerland Tel: +41-22-7179111 * Fax: +41-22-7986150 * Email: info@iom.int
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Ramos Horta - Remove District Administrators by August
by Mark Riley, Sydney Morning Herald ~ May 24
The East Timorese leadership has demanded the United Nations remove all its district administrators by August and replace them with local leaders, in the first significant step towards achieving full control of the territory. The plea, issued by Nobel laureate Mr Jose Ramos Horta in a private meeting with the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, in New York on Monday, comes amid welling discontent with the pace of rebuilding under the UN Transitional Administration in Dili. "I told the Secretary-General there is a growing level of frustration and disillusionment with the UN in East Timor, particularly among the young," Mr Ramos Horta said. "But he knows there is still time for him to take decisive leadership action to correct the problems. If there is one place where the UN can be seen to succeed it is East Timor. There would simply be no reason, no justification, for the UN to fail."
The East Timorese leadership wants a higher level of involvement in the administration of the territory and sees the appointment of local district managers as a key way of achieving that end. "At the moment, there is not one single East Timorese among the district administrators," Mr Ramos Horta said. "The Secretary-General has agreed that this is not acceptable and that East Timorese people should take over where possible."
The UN's head of district administration, Professor Jarat Chopra, left his post in March, complaining that senior UN officials were putting the territory's future second to their own careers.
A fortnight ago, all 13 UN district administrators signed a letter of complaint in which they said autocratic decision-making by the same senior UN officials was threatening the development of democracy. However, Mr Ramos Horta said the greater problem was that many of the district commanders were under-qualified. "I know many of them have no experience, no expertise, no academic qualifications at all," he said, after delivering the keynote address to the annual peace awards in New York on Monday night. "I asked one of them - an American lady - what her qualifications were, and she said only that she had worked in Yosemite National Park."
Mr Ramos Horta said he had told Mr Annan there were many East Timorese who were better qualified for the positions and asked him to deliver by August a clear timetable for the territory's move to independence, so it could be considered at the planned general meeting of the National Council for Timorese Resistance.
The pair discussed the possibility of conducting the territory's first national elections as early as August next year, on the second anniversary of last year's historic independence ballot. Mr Ramos Horta said Mr Annan had given tacit support for East Timor's Falintil independence fighters to be allowed to form the nucleus of the territory's first national army. "Initially, the UN was not favourable to us having our own national forces, but now it has realised that it is legitimate and fair that we do," he said. The East Timorese leader has already conducted a round of discussions with the Clinton Administration in Washington and will speak with key diplomats and foreign relations experts before leaving tomorrow.
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U.S. and U.N. Must Support an International Tribunal on East Timor
by John M. Miller, ETAN ~ May 23
The reports issued this week by the U.N.'s International Commission of Inquiry on East Timor and the Indonesian National Commission of Inquiry on East Timor both confirm what has been long known Indonesian military officials at the highest levels -- working with militia leaders and civilian officials -- were responsible for the violence surrounding the U.N.'s plebiscite in East Timor. Their mandates, however, limited the investigations to events since January 1999, rather than the entire period of Indonesia's illegal occupation since 1975. The individuals named must be further investigated, prosecuted and, if convicted, punished. Individuals who suffered human rights abuses should receive reparations.
The special UN panel has recommended that an international tribunal be established. The Indonesian government, however, insists that an international tribunal is unnecessary and that the international community should wait and see if Indonesia can prosecute its own.
The Indonesian government's stance is problematic. While an Indonesian commission has investigated the most recent violence in East Timor, Indonesia has yet to demonstrate its ability to follow through with credible prosecutions. The commission's investigation is only the first step of a long process, and there is no guarantee that later stages will meet international standards. Too many uncertainties about the independence, quality and ability of Indonesia's courts exist.
The democratic Indonesian government has yet to show that it can hold its military to account. Despite repeated pledges by Indonesia's civilian leadership, the Indonesian military and its militia allies continue to block East Timorese refugees from returning home and incursions continue into East Timor's Oecusse enclave. Indonesia's failure to remedy these ongoing problems do not inspire confidence in pledges to hold the military accountable for past activities in East Timor. In addition, Indonesia has a long record of reneging on commitments to the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Efforts by members of the military to "deny accountability" and "obstruct" the Indonesian investigations trouble U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Richard Holbrooke, among many others.
Indonesia has yet to adopt the necessary legislation to create a human rights court able to try crimes against humanity. While the Indonesian parliament is now working on setting up a human rights court, its mandate as currently conceived will not be retroactive. It leaves past crimes to an undefined truth and reconciliation commission. The grave human rights violations committed against the people of East Timor could go unpunished. While he plans to remove General Wiranto from his cabinet, Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid has already said that he will pardon Wiranto, if found guilty. Justice will have been delayed and likely denied for the East Timorese should Indonesia fail to credibly prosecute and punish.
The atrocities committed against the people of East Timor are an international issue, not just an Indonesian one. An international tribunal is needed to deal with crimes committed against the international community, as well as against East Timorese. Both must actively participate in the prosecution and sentencing of those responsible. While most of those accused are Indonesian, their alleged crimes were part of a systematic attempt to undermine and then overturn a U.N.-conducted vote. The East Timorese who participated in the plebiscite received public promises from both the U.N. and Indonesia that their vote would be respected. They voted in the defiance of overt and covert threats, knowing these pledges might turn out to be hollow. Nearly all of the victims of the violence were East Timorese, not Indonesian. In the words of the U.N. report, they must "not be forgotten in the rush of events." East Timorese at all levels of society have long called for an international tribunal.
ETAN calls on the U.S. government and the U.N. to work with the Indonesian government to establish a joint Indonesian, East Timorese and international tribunal as recommended by the U.N. commission's report. However, the U.N. must move forward with an international tribunal, even if Indonesia refuses to cooperate. The operation of the panel must be totally transparent.
Any tribunal's mandate must be expanded to include atrocities and rights violations committed as a result of the entire period of Indonesia's invasion and occupation of East Timor since1975. Both the U.N. and Indonesian reports are preliminary; the U.S. government (and other U.N. members) can support further investigations by releasing all relevant files and intelligence information both to any tribunals and to the general public. While Indonesia bears the greatest responsibility for events in East Timor over the last 25 years, governments -- such as the U.S. -- which supported Indonesia's occupation of East Timor by providing weapons, training and other assistance, should publicly examine their own complicity.
Note: Full U.N. report can be found at http//www.un.org/News/ossg
Contact John M. Miller (718) 596-7668
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Marzuki to Force Ex-Officials to Testify on Timor Violence
Indonesian Observer ~ May 18
Attorney General Marzuki Darusman said yesterday in Jakarta, that it is possible that he will force former East Timor governor Jose Abilio Osorio Soares and former regents in the region, to testify in the case of last year’s human rights violations.
For the last two weeks, a joint investigative team for human rights violations in East Timor has been gathering data related to post ballot-violence after the territory voted for independence on August 30, 1998. Indonesia was condemned by others countries for failing to prevent violence by pro-Jakarta militias after the ballot.
The Attorney General’s Office has sent letters to five officials namely Jose Abilio Osorio Soares, the former Governor, Dominggos Soares, former Dili Regent, Suprapto Tarman, former Aileu Regent, Guilermo dos Santos, former Bobonaro Regent and Edmundo da Silva, former Lautem Regent, urging them come to the office However,no one came.
"Legal efforts will be taken in order to urge them all to come to the office to testify. If they do not come here after the third warning letters, they may be legally sanctioned. They have to give their accountability reports in connection with the alleged violations," he said. He said he could accept their reasons for being unable to appear at the office. "Nevertheless, it is their obligation to come here, otherwise they will be legally sanctioned." Today, the teams are still gathering information in connection with the alleged atrocities in East Timor even though the region is now an independent nation.
END
General Wiranto Grilled for 7 Hours
Jakarta Post ~ May 17
Former Indonesian Military chief Gen. (ret) Wiranto said he was relieved to "spell out the truth" of last year's violence in East Timor while being interrogated on Tuesday by a special Attorney General's Office investigative team. Wiranto was questioned for nearly seven hours over his alleged role in the East Timor mayhem as the then military chief/minister of defense and security before, after and during the historic Aug. 30 ballot.
Speaking to journalists after the questioning, a coy Wiranto spoke about the questioning, which was conducted in a "relaxed" atmosphere. Wiranto admitted that the violence which occurred was not totally unexpected but was almost unavoidable. "It had been estimated that whichever party lost in the ballot there would be dissatisfaction and outrage at the result. I had warned the government of this critical risk given the situation in the restive area," he said.
While the destruction in East Timor following the ballot was immense, Wiranto maintained that he had largely done what was required as spelled out in the May 1999 New York Agreement which laid the grounds for the UN-supervised ballot and obliged the National Police to insure a secure climate for the ballot to take place. "Truthfully speaking, the Indonesian government, in this case the military and police, did its job successfully in safeguarding the ballot and in taking full responsibility for the United Nations (UN) personnel's safety there."
During the questioning led by Deputy Attorney General for General Crimes M.A. Rahman, Wiranto was asked 14 questions. "After waiting for months, I am relieved because today I have spelled out the truth," Wiranto remarked. Wiranto is among 21 officers and officials to be summoned in the case.
This is the first time Wiranto has been summoned by the Attorney General's Office investigative team. He was previously questioned in December by an inquiry established by the government-sanctioned National Commission on Human Rights. The inquiry's final report alleged that Wiranto and several senior officers should be held accountable for the violence in East Timor. Wiranto is due to be questioned again on Tuesday.
Wiranto's alleged involvement resulted in his suspension in February as coordinating minister for political affairs and security. Wiranto himself on Tuesday also confirmed that he had no intention of retaining the Cabinet post. "After contemplating for the last four months, I've decided to leave the Cabinet for good. I will tell this to the President the first chance I get to meet him," he said reading a written statement, which he later admitted had been prepared a day before.
One of the consultants of the legal defense team employed by Wiranto and other military officers to represent them, former minister of justice Muladi, said the resignation was Wiranto's own personal decision and not taken under duress. "He considers that this country needs a solid ministry to stabilize the political and security situation. That is the reason for his resignation," Muladi announced. "He will become an ordinary person and will abandon his official residence and other facilities provided," he added.
END
East Timor Leader Notes Resistance's Past Mistakes
by Jose Ramos Horta, RDP ~ May 16
[Presenter] Fretilin [Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor ] is holding its first congress in East Timor . More than 2,000 members will discuss until Friday [19th May] the restructuring of the party. The new leadership also says that Fretilin's work in the last 26 years must be assessed. Xanana Gusmao [president of the National Council of the Timorese Resistance, CNRT], who succeeded the historic Nicolau Lobato, has said that Fretilin must be able to be accountable for the mistakes of the past.
[Gusmao] I tried to open the door to an awareness that we made mistakes and also to an awareness that, inexperienced as we were in 1974, in the process we conducted despite many difficulties, many mistakes, and isolated from the world, we tried to correct our mistakes and learn from them. As a member of Fretilin I tried to honour our inheritance but also tried to honour a more open Fretilin, more democratic in nature. As president of the CNRT, I called on them - with regard to the party view they have of the problems of today and of the future - to try to always place national interests above everything so that our skills can be consolidated, our intellectual efforts and energy consolidated so we can see this process to the end.
[Presenter] That was Gusmao's message now that he is no longer part of Fretilin's leadership as he is the president of the CNRT which is above party politics. Fretilin was created in September 1974, it emerged from the Democratic Social Association, founded by Jose Ramos Horta [vice-president of the National Council of the Timorese Resistance and Nobel Peace laureate in 1996].
END
Workers Confront Discrimination, Poor Conditions
by Akara Reis, Green Left Weekly ~ May 15
As workers prepare to celebrate their first May Day in a free East Timor, their pay and conditions of work remain very low, especially compared with the vast sums paid to foreign workers employed by the United Nations Transitional Authority in East Timor (UNTAET).
Outbursts of worker unrest are increasing, as are protests by job seekers dissatisfied by the lack of available work for them. Timorese workers at the charity World Vision went on strike for a day on April 3, followed on April 7 by workers at the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR); both sets of workers were demanding better conditions and treatment by their employers.
Personal disputes between employees and their bosses and between foreign and local employees are also becoming increasingly common. Organisations such as the East Timor Human Rights Commission are now frequently being asked to mediate, in the absence of enforceable labour laws.
Workers' bargaining position is relatively weak. Unemployment is high and employers are using this as a threat; many workers are afraid that strike action or any other challenge will cost them their jobs.
The economic chaos in East Timor, which make UNTAET, foreign non-government organisations and a handful of foreign-owned businesses the main employers, has created a new form of dependency. This may even worsen when the emergency period ends in June and then worsen again when the UN transitional period ends, which is anticipated to occur in October 2001. Then the economy, now so dependent on the foreign NGOs and UNTAET, will be hit hard if a strong local economy is not built up quickly.
A major source of worker dissatisfaction is the disparity in working conditions between local and international labour. The guidelines for the employment of local workers by humanitarian agencies specify that the wage range for a worker deemed "unskilled" should be between 20-25,000 rupiah per day (approximately $5-6). Imported workers are paid far more.
"Unskilled" workers include those employed as wharf labourers, security guards, distribution workers, cleaners and office "boys". The wages they receive are insufficient, especially in Dili where the cost of living is very high. Wharf labourers, for example, enjoy little job security. They are hired on a first-come-first-served basis each day and depend entirely on the schedule of ships requiring loading and unloading. On the wharves, workers are expected to carry 50 kilogram bags of rice, which are then distributed as humanitarian aid by agencies such as CARE. These workers are paid Rp 20,000 per day. Those employed to clean roads by UNTAET are paid daily rates of Rp 25-30,000. Whilst they work a full eight hours, they are not provided any meal and transport allowance.
One reason for the massive gap between earnings for local and imported workers is that the local Timorese workers are deemed "unskilled". Computer skills and English are considered a prerequisite for the better-paying jobs. Such skills were difficult to learn when there was a war being fought against Indonesia; educational opportunities were strictly limited. Even in spite of that, there are still many Timorese students and graduates who could be trained to perform some of this work; they're just not being given the opportunity.
There are many other jobs that Timorese could perform which are being given to imported workers, such as driving earthmoving machines, painting, construction work and security. There are even cases where two security guards are being paid different rates, because one is local and one is imported.
Discrimination also seems to stretch to management treatment of workers. On April 8 a disagreement between two workers at an UNTAET warehouse led to management immediately suspending the local worker -- without even investigating whether it was him or the imported worker who was at fault.
Timorese workers will need to organise themselves in each workplace if they are to stop this discrimination and win better wages and conditions. This is now starting to happen in a number of enterprises and offices in Dili and trade unions are beginning to form. Meetings are now occurring in many workplaces, discussing unionism and what a union should do.
Workers' knowledge and consciousness will need to be raised even further than this, though, to understand the need for a workers' political party which can fight to replace the system of workers' oppression with another system, socialism, under which workers are in control of their own lives.
END
Leandro Isaac Criticizes UN Performance
by Francisco Mangas, Diario de Noticias ~ May 15
Interview with Timorese leader, Leandro Isaac
['Diario de Noticias'] How do you see the reconstruction process?
[Isaac] It is far, far behind. As I have said, what the people feel is the slowness of the UN machinery. In six months we have not seen signs of the reconstruction.
[Q] And the Timorese are starting to lose confidence?
[A] Exactly. And worse, the people do not feel it. I have not yet felt that I am being prepared to live in a new country. This is very bad.
[Q] What don't you feel?
[A] There is no transparency. People do not know what this UN transition government is doing. And because they do not know they feel they are not being prepared.
[Q] What are the main problems?
[A] At the beginning we needed food. Today that problem has been overcome. But man does not live on bread alone: we want to feel that we are already a country.
[Q] Does unemployment worry you... [ellipsis as published]
[A] It is the most important problem, we have 95 per cent unemployment. And there is no sign from the government of any initiative to resolve this problem.
[Q] Falintil's [East Timor National Liberation Armed Forces] situation is delicate.
[A] It is regrettable that Falintil, a symbol of our struggle for 24 years, has been abandoned.
UNTAET [UN Transitional Administration in East Timor ] has not promoted any initiative to resolve this situation. It was a good thing that on this occasion Portugal gave us a hand. With this help, for which we are very grateful, we can manage for a while. It is better for the Falintil men to die of hunger in the mountains than to die of hunger in cantonments, in a devastated country.
[Q] Even Sergio Vieira de Mello [head of UNTAET] has recognized that reconstruction is slow.
[A] It is just as well he has recognized this, because until now he had not recognized this transition government's mistake. The UN knew that Timor had to undergo this transition process, but it was not prepared. I welcome this recognition, but it is not enough to recognized in the newspapers, we want something done about it.
[Q] How do you see Mello's performance?
[A] I do not know it, there is no transparency. People do not know what Sergio Vieira de Mello is doing.
[Q] Is there no dialogue with the CNRT [National Council for Timorese Resistance]?
[A] I do not know how he talks to the CNRT. I have been a member of the National political Commission since its creation, and I still do not know how this is done. If it is through the National Consultative Council, a UNTAET organ, because the decisions are taken by consensus, this is through an illegitimate body.
[Q] Should the Timorese already be in senior posts, is that it?
[A] I think that the transition model should be us, or we should be in the executive and not just in the consultative council. It is not enough. It is not in this council that we should be preparing to rebuild our country.
[Q] The question of the refugees also remains to be resolved?
[A] We knew very well that the refugees were forced by the Indonesian army, we know very well they want to return - but the militias and the army do not allow them. This is known to the UN, which has not yet tried to resolve the problem or press Indonesia. "My ambition is to be a good opposition"
[Q]When do you think elections will be held?
[A] The CNRT has already decided that six months before the end of the transitional government, electoral and party legislation should be prepared. And three months before that the parties will start preparing the electorate politically. Once this process is complete we will choose our legitimate representatives in democracy.
[Q] Leandro Isaac is a member of UDT [ Timorese Democratic Union], which marks its 26th anniversary today (yesterday). Can this party win the elections?
[A] Personally, that is not my ambition. My ambition is to prepare and educate myself to become a good opposition in a democratic country. That is my ambition, as for the rest we will wait and see.
[Q] Is Fretilin [Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor ] more likely to win?
[A] It all depends. The last word obviously rests with the Timorese people.
[Q] What are your predictions?
[A] In 24 years of intense struggle, the people have been through and witnessed various experiences. Today, the people can look and see what is behind a hill. Today, the political agents, especially them, must be transparent, honest, sincere and simple towards the people.
[Q] As for the presidency, is everything easier, no major doubts... [ellipsis as published]
[A] There is no doubt at all. The first president will be Xanana Gusmao [president of CNRT, who has repeatedly said he does not wish to be the new country's president]. We will vote for him.
[Q] Other than UDT and Fretilin, what other political forces are there?
[A] We have the Timorese Socialist Party, the Democratic Christian Union and the traditional parties such as the Monarchist Party and the Labour Party. The CNRT has already asked all these forces to organize themselves. After that we will see.
[Q] But the real contest will be between UDT and Fretilin... [ellipsis as published]
[A] Yes, they are the main forces. The others are still getting organized.
[Q] What will Timor 's official language be?
[A] The CNRT as is known advocates the Portuguese language as the official language for Timor . Therefore we will work towards this.
END
CNRT to be Disbanded After Independence
Kyodo News ~ May 15
DILI - East Timor leader Xanana Gusmao told Japanese reporters Friday the National Council of the Timorese Resistance ( CNRT ) will be disbanded after the territory gains independence. Gusmao said a multiparty political system will be introduced to East Timor, which is in the process of nation-building under the U.N. Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET).The CNRT an independence umbrella body of various political parties and organizations will break up, he added. "Entities comprising the CNRT will pursue their own interests."
The CNRT , headed by Gusmao, is expected to decide on its post-independence policy at a general meeting set for August. Gusmao said trust from the international community is pivotal for the territory to become politically and economically successful as an independent country and that CNRT will conduct organizational reform to form an effective partnership with UNTAET.
Gusmao also said he has contacted leaders of pro-Jakarta militias, who favored East Timor's annexation by Indonesia, to set up public meetings among residents and provincial leaders to promote reconciliation and social reconstruction. The meeting is aimed at realizing complete return of some 100,000 East Timor refugees from Indonesia's West Timor, he added.
Many of the refugees fled or were herded into West Timor amid a rampage of looting, arson and killings by militias and some parts of the Indonesian military that devastated the territory after the Aug. 30 referendum in which an overwhelming majority of East Timorese voted to become independent. "I have been asked by (Indonesian) House of Representatives Speaker Akbar Tanjung what I seek (as compensation) and I said I will forget all to form new relationship," Gusmao told reporters. Indonesia invaded East Timor, a former Portuguese colony, in 1975 and annexed it as its 27th province July 17, 1976.
END
Allan Nairn's Statement to Congressional Subcommittee on Human Right
Contact: John Miller, East Timor Action Network ~ May 11
US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Human Rights May 11, 2000
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, my name is Allan Nairn. Last fall I testified before this committee after witnessing the final days of the physical destruction of East Timor by the Indonesian armed forces (TNI). I recently returned to a free East Timor, and also managed to enter Indonesia and examine military operations in the rural zones.
The Indonesian military and security forces are now politically discredited, and the movement against them -- that began in the streets -- has now reached the Jakarta elites. Freedom and democracy are now within realistic reach in Indonesia, but only if the illegitimate power of the armed and security forces can be broken. The key determining factors in this struggle will be continued protest on the ground and action by the US Congress to maintain and strengthen the current military aid ban.
Pro-democracy action will have to come from Congress, though, because the Clinton administration is now attempting to shore up the politically fading TNI. Unbeknownst to the public and to many in Congress they are looking for ways to aid a military that still pursues a policy of terror against civilians.
In Aceh, where I visited, the Army and National Police (POLRI) [backed by the Air Force and Navy], are sweeping through rural villages, sometimes killing civilians at a rate of three to six per day. Some of the units leading this campaign, including the POLRI's Gegana and BRIMOB have now been slated for new lethal training from Washington.
In several areas, including West Kalimantan, where I also was, military and police intelligence have been stirring and exacerbating ethnic fighting. Near one town I visited, the POLRI were actually handing out a printed hit list of eight individuals who were being hunted by a lynch mob of armed young men who had seized the town. The police stood back and watched as they burned buses and ran wild. Local residents said that this was a common occurrence in the zone.
These tactics are consistent with the policy enunciated in secret TNI documents recently left behind after the TNI quit East Timor. The documents, many recovered by Yayasan Hak, the Timorese human rights group, include a covert operations manual for the notorious Kopassus red berets.
This classified manual (Buku Petunjuk tentang Sandi Yudha TNI AD, Nomor: 43-B-01; issued June 30, 1999) states that Kopassus personnel are to be prepared in the "tactic and technique" of "terror" and "kidnapping." It is signed and authorized by numerous senior officers including Gen. Johny Lumintang, the longtime US protege touted by the State Department as a "moderate," who was recently served with a crimes against humanity lawsuit shortly after attending a gathering at the US National Defense University
(After the suit was filed, US Ambassador Gelbard expressed regret and praised Gen. Lumintang as a "friend" of the United States). The Kopassus manual meshes with other recovered documents which make it clear that violence against civilians is still a core doctrine of TNI. Yet, despite this, the administration is now trying to move on several fronts to restore material US support for the Indonesian armed forces.
Unbeknownst to the public and to many in Congress the administration is now going forward with plans to stage a CARAT (Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training) military exercise with the TNI this summer. CARAT is a large scale exercise involving Navy, Marines, and other forces that stages simulated amphibious invasions of Indonesian islands. According to a Pentagon memo ("Response to Congressman Lane Evans et. al," July 15, 1998) previous CARATs have included: "Amphibious landing, patrolling, live fire cross training, parachute training, fast rope, small boat ops, reconnaissance surveillance, [and] raids."
The 1998 CARAT was cancelled after the Congressional uproar over JCET (Joint Combined Exchange Training), the program under which the US taught urban warfare and sniper technique in circumvention of the congressional ban on US military training for Indonesia. But last year, in 1999, as the Timor terror built toward a climax, the
Pentagon went ahead with another CARAT just before the independence vote (CARAT was August 11-25. The vote was on August 30.). Not only, by this timing, did the US reaffirm faith in TNI at the crucial moment, but it also explicitly prepared Indonesian officers who immediately after CARAT went straight into East Timor for the final weeks of the terror campaign.
One of these officers, Lt. Col. (later Col.) Willem, helped coordinate the Indonesian naval forces in CARAT and then went to Dili where he served as a senior official in KOREM military hedquarters, the very base from which the Aitarak militias staged their terror raids during late September. I saw this first hand since I was a prisoner in KOREM and was interrogated by Col Willem, who , since his Timor stint, has been promoted to head the personal staff of Admiral Widodo, the new national TNI commander.
If the Pentagon and TNI hold another CARAT this summer they will not have missed a beat: Exercise in August, 1999. Move on to destroy East Timor. Then exercise again in summer 2000, as if nothing untoward had happened. In addition to CARAT the administration has also approved TNI attendance at a US-Thai exercise, Cobra Gold, that is underway right now (May 9-23). In the recent past, according to the Pentagon's Asia-Pacific Defense FORUM (Spring, 1998 issue) Cobra Gold has involved "combined air assault," "combined amphibious assault," infantry insertion, "unconventional warfare," "weapons training, [and] camouflage techniques," simulated "guerrilla" bases, "direct action, special reconaissance, foreign internal defense and counter terrorism." If Congress lets the administration get away with this attempt to shore up the TNI, they then intend to move forward with a multi-phased plan to restore other types of aid.
On another bureaucratic track, the US Embassy in Jakarta, the CIA and other agencies are already planning new lethal training for the POLRI, including their notorious Gegana and BRIMOB special units. The Police were an integral part of the Timor terror. They took the lead in the mass abuctions. And they are at the forefront of the sweeps killing civilians in Aceh. A 1999 US Marine Corps intelligence seminar (The Indonesia Joint
Cultural Intelligence Seminar, Wargaming Division, Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory. Seminar held January 14, 1999) concluded that "The Indonesian Police Force is one of the most disliked/hated organizations in the country -- on a daily basis the Police are the most visible instrument of government oppression." The categorized the POLRI as being among the "Groups to Avoid" in Indonesia.
Yet POLRI documents indicate that the Police have in the recent past received training from the FBI and other US agencies in topics including "explosive incident and counter measures." Now the administration is privately planning to resume police counter-terrorism training with a specific eye to what Ambassador Gelbard has called Muslim extremists in Aceh.
Since there is little dispute that POLRI kills civilians for political ends -- and since such a use of violence is, of course, the definition of terrorism -- the Clinton administration is now, in effect, planning to train terrorists in anti-terrorism. These are lethal skills that up to now have been applied not to defend civilians but rather to abduct and kill them if the military and police do not like their views.
John M. Miller, Media & Outreach Coordinator, East Timor Action Network 48 Duffield St., Brooklyn, NY 11201 USA Phone: (718)596-7668 Fax: (718)222-4097
END
Calls for U.S. and Indonesia to End East Timor Refugee Crisis
by John M. Miller, East Timor Action Network ~ May 11
A delegation recently returned from a fact-finding mission to East Timorese refugee camps in West Timor found that East Timorese refugees remain under threat from militia leaders and members of the Indonesian armed forces (TNI), who are preventing the refugees from returning to East Timor. The delegation of congressional staffers, human rights advocates, journalists, and a noted filmmaker returned on May 1from the week-long mission. The delegation also visited Jakarta and Dili, East Timor, meeting with Indonesian NGOs, church leaders, government and military officials, as well as East Timorese NGO leaders and international aid workers.
"Despite Indonesian government and military denial of militia presence in West Timor's refugee camps, there was obvious fear on the faces of most East Timorese in the camps. Intimidation and tension created by militia leaders was palpable," said Karen Orenstein of the East Timor Action Network (ETAN), co-leader of the delegation. TNI-backed militias continue to carry out a widespread disinformation campaign alleging horrific conditions and abuse by international forces in East Timor.
Continued discovery of modern weapons in the camps points to direct TNI collusion with militia leaders. Several separate reports of a low-level training plan, based on the continuous drilling of fifteen militia members by the TNI with five men rotated in and out at a time, further connect TNI to militia repression. After an unplanned encounter involving a meeting of militia leaders in the Cassa camp in Belu, delegation members were informed by reliable sources of a large cache of weapons buried near the militia meeting house. Several other such caches are believed to be buried in three areas of the Belu region, each the property of a militia leader. The militia meeting was led by Cancio Lopes De Carvalho, head of the Mahidi militia, a known murderer widely believed responsible for the killing and disembowelment of a pregnant woman. Delegation members were not able to enter the Naibonat camp, located on a military base in Kupang, due to unsafe conditions.
Over 200 refugee sites are scattered throughout West Timor, with more than 100,000 total refugees in the province and 11,000 to 30,000 still elsewhere in Indonesia. "While food distribution to large camps is basic, access to food is sub-standard at the many smaller sites, some of which consist of only five or six families," noted Indonesia specialist Loren Ryter, a delegation participant. "We also noticed many children with reddish hair a sign of malnutrition," added Orenstein. Members of the delegation observed men in pro-Indonesia t-shirts controlling the allocation of food brought into the Belu area by Catholic Relief Services.
"The health care situation is extremely troubling. Continuous damp and muddy conditions in the camps due to an unusually long rainy season have exacerbated health problems. A malaria catastrophe looms once the rains stop," said Ryter. The normal environmental malaria prophylactic of fumigation will not work in the camps because spraying cannot be done on plastic sheeting, and mosquito netting is in short supply. There is an urgent need to increase the capacity of local health care facilities, which
were already taxed before the arrival of tens of thousands of refugees. The April 1 cut in Indonesian government support and subsequent withdrawal of the Indonesian Red Cross from the camps has had a harsh impact on the health of refugees. Further, the recent termination of a government program sending newly graduated medical students to work in rural areas has hit communities with refugee camps particularly hard. Shortage of vital medicines remains a severe problem.
"The East Timorese refugee crisis is also hurting the people of West Timor. In some areas, the refugee population outnumbers the indigenous community," stated Orenstein. Land for the camps has been taken by the government of Indonesia with no compensation for local residents, and aid to refugees is creating resentment among local West Timorese. This may contribute to the destabilization of one of the poorest areas of Indonesia.
"The best solution to the refugee crisis, repeatedly voiced by humanitarian aid workers, is repatriation," said Orenstein. "The only way to increase the rate of repatriation is to remove militia intimidation and control of the camps. Militia leaders must be arrested so people can feel safe to choose to return to their homes in East Timor." The UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) last week reported that the rate of repatriation has slowed to a trickle.
Genuine accountability for events in East Timor is crucial to achieve full repatriation, as well as justice and reconciliation for the people of East Timor. "Without exception, Indonesian and East Timorese NGO leaders with whom we spoke had no faith in the newly forming Indonesian process of justice. Overwhelmingly, East Timorese felt that East Timor should not be the test case for the process of Indonesian accountability. Many East Timorese suggested that cases within Indonesia should be the test of Indonesia's justice system. They argue that trying and convicting those responsible for ordering and committing military and militia terror in East Timor is an international, not strictly Indonesian, issue and should be treated as such," added Orenstein. Human rights legislation does not yet exist in the Indonesian criminal code, and its creation is being opposed by many factions of the Indonesian government and military.
"Continued U.S. pressure on the Indonesian government is critical to both resolving the refugee crisis and realizing genuine accountability for human rights abuses. The U.S. must maintain its current ban on military ties with Indonesia, and strengthen conditions for lifting the ban. U.S. officials should cease making public or private statements about resuming military ties. Members of the Indonesian NGO community stated repeatedly that the ban is the most critical point of leverage for reform forces in Indonesia," said Orenstein. "The U.S. must also support the establishment of an international tribunal in East Timor with significant East Timorese and Indonesian participation."
The delegation was composed of congressional staffers Jaron Bourke from the office of Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Daniel McGlinchey from the office of Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA), and Jeannette Windon from the office of Congressman John Porter (R-IL); novelist, screenwriter and filmmaker John Sayles; human rights advocates Karen Orenstein from the East Timor Action Network, and Pamela Sexton and Charmain Mohamed from Peace Brigades International; Indonesian politics and history researcher Loren Ryter; and freelance journalists Carolyn Robinson (CNN International and Reuters Television) and Lisa Upton (Australian Broadcasting Corporation and SBS). The East Timor Action Network/ U.S. (ETAN), founded following the November 1991 Santa Cruz massacre, supports a genuine democratic and peaceful transition to an independent East Timor. ETAN has 28 local chapters throughout the U.S.
END
Former Militias Form Party to Contest First East Timor Election
Antara ~ May 11
The Timorese People's Party (PPT) intends to soon register itself with UNTAET [UN Transitional Authority in East Timor ] and become one of the political parties to contest the first East Timor elections, expected to be held at the beginning of 2001. "We don't know the exact timetable for the elections yet, but we are making preparations to be one of the parties contesting those elections," Herminio da Silva da Costa [former deputy commander of the pro-Indonesian PPI, Integration Fighters Force], now general chairman of the PPT, told reporters in Kupang on Wednesday [10th May]. PPT would send a delegation to East Timor in June to register the party with UNTAET and also to form local party branches in all the districts, Herminio said...
Herminio said he was optimistic that the party would be able to win seats in the [new] parliament in East Timor because he had more than 300,000 [as received] supporters there. These supporters, he said, were people previously loyal to Indonesia and young people under their guidance while they were living in East Timor , who were ready to campaign for the party throughout East Timor .
He said that the UN would not be opening any polling booths outside East Timor so he would be discussing the matter with UNTAET and the UN peacekeeping force, to seek guarantees for the security of East Timorese living in NTT [neighbouring Indonesian territory] wishing to return to East Timor to exercise their right to vote.
Herminio said that, if his party was able to get a majority of the votes and take power in East Timor , they would give three choices to the East Timorese through which to determine their future. The choices were: to become an independent country and work day and night [to repay the national debt], to become "half independent" and cooperate with neighbouring countries, or to revert to being part of the Republic of Indonesia...
The PPT, whose symbols are red and white as in the Indonesian flag, was declared in Kupang on 7th May 2000.
END
Australian Minister Rejects Ramos-Horta Timor Treaty Proposal
AAP ~ May 10
Northern Territory Chief Minister Denis Burke today cast aside any suggestion the
Timor Gap Treaty be renegotiated to better serve the people of East Timor. East Timorese leader Jose Ramos-Horta called for a change on the grounds the new nation was entitled to up to 90 per cent of millions of dollars of royalties from oil and gas operations. The treaty, signed between Australia and Indonesia in 1989 and updated this year when the East Timorese gained independence after last year's ballot, currently splits royalties 50:50.
Mr Ramos-Horta told Radio National's Background Briefing the agreement was unfair.
"I believe that Australia is an enormously rich country and I am confident it is prepared to take the initiative itself, so that the East Timorese can benefit much better from the treaty itself," Mr Ramos-Horta said.
But Mr Burke did not accept the argument. "The negotiations that were done when the Indonesians had control was a very good deal for Indonesia at the time," he told ABC radio. "That deal passed directly through to East Timor and is probably the best deal they would get. I would be fearful if I was Timorese about loss of revenue. I'd simply be hoping the Australian government did everything possible to assist industry to get that field up, because frankly when it comes to gas worldwide there are plenty of alternate suppliers beside Timor Sea."
END
Indonesian Activists Lash Out at East Timor Probe
Jakarta Post ~ May 9
Leading human rights groups on Friday blasted the government's tedious approach in
investigating last year's violence in East Timor, saying that the investigation does not meet international standards. The government was also reproached for its tendency to handle investigations into the violence in the territory as "ordinary crimes".
The rights groups argued that the violent clashes which erupted after the August 30 ballot in the former Indonesian province were "political crimes and crimes against humanity" and were not being well-addressed in the Indonesian Criminal Code, which has so far been the basis for the attorney general's investigation.
Leading the criticism were groups such as the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI), the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI) and the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (ELSAM). "By questioning the witnesses, whether they were physically present at the scene or not, has shown that the attorney general's office uses an approach similar to that of a criminal investigation," Kontras' founder, Munir, said. He was referring to the ongoing questioning of several military and police officers who were allegedly involved in the East Timor catastrophe.
Munir said he feared this method would only incriminate soldiers and low ranking officers, while senior officers who were not "directly on the ground" would not be implicated and would remain free of prosecution. He also said the investigation should not be "started all over again" because the findings from the Commission of Inquiry into Human Rights Violations (KPP HAM) in East Timor should be admissible as "preliminary evidence".
KPP HAM implicated earlier this year former Indonesian military Gen. (ret) Wiranto and 32 other military and civilian officers in the East Timor violence. Wiranto, who has been suspended as coordinating minister for political affairs and security by President Abdurrahman Wahid pending the investigation, has denied any wrongdoing.
The attorney general's office will have three months from April to report its findings, with the possibility of a further three-month extension. Deputy Attorney General for Special Crimes M. Rahman, who leads a 64-member team of investigators, has said that some 21 military and civilian officers would be questioned in the investigation. He said the prosecutors have yet to name any suspect but added that the status of each would be decided after the investigators return from East Timor.
Marzuki said last month the team would travel to the territory sometime this month. Initially the investigation will focus on five cases which will be considered for prosecution. They are: an April 17 attack on proindependence leader Manuel Carrascalao's house in Dili which killed at least 12; the Sept. 6 attack at the home of Dili Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo; a massacre of refugees in a church in Liquica in April; a massacre in a church in Suai in September where at least 26 people died; and the killing of Financial Times correspondent Sander Thoenes in the East Dili area of Becora on Sept. 21.
END
Former Indonesian Minister Killed Journalists
by Marianne Kearney, Straits Times ~ May 3
Former Information Minister Yunus Yosfiah has been accused of murdering five Western journalists in East Timor in 1975 by a new witness who gave evidence on an Australian television show. The accusations by Mr. Tomas Goncalves -- a former East Timorese partisan soldier, and the only known witness to the event -- contradict Indonesian and Australian government reports which said Timorese soldiers accidentally killed the journalists in cross-fighting. The show was aired on Australia's Dateline programme on Wednesday.
Mr Goncalves, who headed the Timorese-trained forces accompanying Indonesian soldiers as they invaded East Timor from West Timor, said the five journalists had tried to surrender but were shot in cold blood.
"They came out, three at the back, one at the front, with their hands up. Their intention in coming out [of the house] was to survive. They thought they would get protection. Yunus had other ideas, his reaction was to fire straight away. He started first...he started shooting and then everyone joined in. You know it's war and they all wanted promotion," Mr Goncalves said on the programme.
He claimed Mr Yunus had to shoot the five journalists -- two Australian, one New Zealander and two British, all working for Australian television stations -- "so they would not publicise what they saw to the outside world". Mr Yunus has previously denied being at Balibo when the journalists were killed and this week refused to respond to the allegations made by Mr Goncalves.
The five journalists were in the border town of Balibo, then part of Portuguese Timor, to report on whether it was true that Indonesia was planning to invade East Timor and had launched sorties into the province.
With already strained relations between Australia and Indonesia, Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer said his government would not lodge a complaint or propose a further inquiry. "There will be no judicial inquiry, we've already had two. At the moment we've done all that we can," he said.
Commentators, such as a former Australian consul to East Timor, Mr James Dunne, say East Timor's fate may have been significantly different if the journalists had survived to report on the Indonesian invasion, and there had been Western opposition to Indonesia's plans.
Despite quite good intelligence material to the contrary, the Australian, American and British governments claimed no knowledge of Indonesia having sent troops into East Timor in preparation for their invasion. Ms Shirley Shackleton, widow of one of the Australian journalists, called on the government to hold a full judicial inquiry into the journalists' deaths based on new evidence.
END
Labour Issues Discussed by UNTAET, Timorese Representatives
UNTAET ~ April 28
The first tri-partite consultation on labour issues and the future labour law was concluded on Wednesday in Dili. Organized by UNTAET, the workshop gathered representatives of East Timorese labour organizations, experts from the International Labour Organization, UNTAET and participants from human rights organizations, student groups and the Church. Regrettably, no representatives of employers attended the workshop.
The event was organized with the aim of securing participation and input from East Timorese in drafting of the future labour law. A working group comprised of representatives of seven different organizations was formed to prepare the final report on the workshop. This report will be then distributed to all relevant stakeholders and should provide substantive input to the labour legislation which is to be drafted by UNTAET Legal Affairs Department and presented to the National Consultative Council for approval.
The regulation is expected to be passed by the end of June. In the meantime, the International Labour Organization will prepare a set of general guidelines which will be discussed by the Working Group and passed for signature to the Transitional Administrator within a month. In a related development, an official notification was issued today by UNTAET establishing 1 May a public holiday in East Timor.
END
50,000 Timorese Refugees Still Living Under Thumb
by Joanna Jolly, South China Morning Post ~ April 7
Throughout the border region of West Timor, tattered red and white Indonesian flags mark the location of refugee camps dominated by former East Timorese militiamen. From their makeshift shelters of bamboo and blue plastic tarpaulins, the militias still continue to wield influence over the 50,000 refugees still living in this area of Indonesian West Timor.
The refugees look towards their leaders to tell them whether they should return or not - the same men who led the militias in East Timor. "People are still controlled by the militia leaders," a local aid worker, Vincent, said. "It is in their culture to follow a leader. Seventy per cent are farmers, they are not very sophisticated people. You can prove that those who return are doing it because someone tells them to."
The refugee camps are hostile to foreigners. On several occasions officials from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) - who organise the return of refugees - have come under attack from men in the camps. During one visit to a camp in February, an IOM doctor was stabbed in the arm.
On a recent visit to Haliwen camp near Atambua, I was told I would be beaten if I stayed.
White faces are not welcome because of the anger still felt by the militias towards the United Nations, which they blame for taking their country away.
Sometimes this anger spills out into the local population and fights start. Large refugee camps mean that militia and their supporters outnumber villagers, who now feel threatened by the camps. But the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Atambua says that despite not having ready access to the camps, the security situation is improving.
The agency is now concentrating on providing information on the condition of specific villages in East Timor to encourage the leaders of refugee groups to return. "Not all leaders are militia and we are organising meetings with these people," the UNHCR's
head in Atambua, Alias Bin Ahmad, said. "The level of decision-making is now based on leaders. If these leaders want we can move 300 people in a day. It is a process of reconciliation at village level in East Timor."
END
Uncovering Indonesia's Cemeteries of Truth
by Kusnanto Anggoro, Jakarta Post ~ April 7
During Soeharto's New Order era, thousands of citizens were persecuted, forced into exile, murdered and tortured. Official lists compiled by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reported thousands of cases.
This already is a large amount, relative to the post-military regime in South America. The case of East Timor is comparable to that of the Balkans and Rwanda who have their own international tribunals. Aceh would certainly surpass Chechnya, already posing serious trouble to Russia's relations with the West. Families of victims and survivors continue to seek the truth and draw attention to the numerous atrocities carried out by the past government.
The momentum of this upward cycle is now with the victims and survivors. Commissions of enquiries are burgeoning, initiated by the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas Ham). We already have commissions on alleged atrocities in East Timor and Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta. There are also those working on the cases of violence in Aceh, and the shooting of demonstrators at Trisakti University and around the Semanggi cloverleaf in the heart of the capital. Many more will follow suit, all sharing in three-in-one objectives: a demand for informationabout what happened to their loved ones; a need for official acknowledgement; and a quest for justice against those responsible for the atrocities. For decades, repression took away the rights of victims, their relatives and survivors to speak out, forcing them to withstand their pain themselves.
The commissions reflect a departure from past practices, when all of us became hostages in ourown past, looking blithely at the cemeteries of truth and the fallacies of history.
Society no longer seems to be in a collective amnesia. Revealing the truth is indeed necessary for society to come to terms with itself. It is healthy and liberating.
So is rewriting history, a first step to enable society to develop creative and constructive collective memories. Truth and history are forgotten components of nation building, which had in the past relied more on coercion rather than justice and common interests between state and the society.
Endeavors of struggles for justice are not only a matter of urgency. They are also a matter of principle, that "survivors should be relieved, victims must be mourned and perpetrators must be punished". Hideous crimes keep generations in a vicious circle of denial. Ignorance strengthens impunity and inspires and encourages further, worse crimes.
Survivors may not be raising questions, but sleeping dogs do not lie -- past traumas do not simply disappear with the passage of time. Perpetrators may argue, "let's not talk about it and blot this past from history as if nothing had happened", as Brazilian generals did in the early 1980s.
Yet, restoration and healing can only occur through providing the space for the survivors of violence to feel heard and for every detail of traumatic events to be reexperienced.
There will never be a shortcut to bridge the troubled, conflict-ridden and violent past to the hopefully democratic and peaceful future.
Power dynamics and power processes differ from one setting of violence to another. In some cases, private motivations and political concerns are generally interwoven, and these need to be recognized as motivational factors in any violence. In others, conflicts are intersected by political changes, economic challenges and a range of other forces. Forms of violence are diverse, but not entirely deep-rooted and self-perpetuating.
The problems of Aceh are hardly similar to that of Maluku, Irian Jaya and East Timor. It will be almost impossible to level Gestapu with Lampung and Tanjung Priok.
If there is something in common, that is that the security apparatus has always been center stage. A regime of terror could never have been survived without the armed forces -- either in the communist countries of Eastern Europe, the colonial style of apartheid in South Africa or in military dictatorships of Latin America. Soeharto's Indonesia was hardly an exception.
There was no conflict without the involvement of the military. Sadly, they have been hiding behind legalism, saying that what they did was an unavoidable obligation. The notion of individual responsibility, as required by a human rights tribunal, did not exist.
Therefore, revealing the cemeteries of truth and rewriting history must be contextual and creative. Desirable as it may be, it will be far from simple to think on the logical lines of "to pardon or punish" and "forgetting or remembering".
The challenge is how to find legitimate pardoning and to democratize the process of remembering. Even this minimalist approach could be problematic. The regime of Abdurrahman Wahid is not an outright victor, unlike Germany after the World War II, and, more recently, Ethiopia.
Perpetrators continue to hold significant power in the security forces. Many of them would have liked to see mercy emphasized in the form of a blanket general amnesty.
As such, principles would be all too easily sacrificed in political horse-trading, within the wider context of civil-military relations. We may have to experience the nemesis of transitional justice -- or all the noise will have been for nothing.
END
Indonesia's Gen. Lumintang Labels U.S. Rights Group's Lawsuit 'Strange'
AFP ~ April 6
An Indonesian general named in a lawsuit filed by US human rights groups on behalf of East Timorese victims, has labelled the move "strange," but said he was prepared to face it, a report said Wednesday. "The suit is strange, because at that time I was only the deputy army chief of staff," Lieutenant General Johnny Lumintang was reported saying by the Antara news agency.
Lumintang said he was "very prepared" to face the suit, but said the decision would have to come from his superiors, including armed forces chief Admiral Widodo and Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono. "We (the Indonesian armed forces) will study it first and we will have to discuss it further," before any decision is taken, he said.
Lumintang was served a subpoena in Washington as he prepared to board a flight home form the United States on March 28. The suit was filed by the East Timor Action Network (ETAN), and US groups the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the Centre for Justice and Accountability (CJA) on behalf of several East Timorese victims of the destruction and violence carried out by the Indonesian army and militias in East Timor.
Lumintang was targetted because he was one of the generals who signed a contingency plan for the evacuation of the Indonesian military and pro-integration supporters from East Timor if the UN-held ballot favoured independence from Indonesia.
He said that the Indonesian armed forces, like any organization, always devised contingency plans in anticipation of emergencies or unexpected conditions.
"As on board any airplane, we are usually shown how to use equipment in the case of emergency. If we are without a contingency for emergency situation, we (the military) will be at fault," Lumintang said.
The result of the ballot last August, which was three to one in favour of independence, unleashed a wave of violence by angry pro-Jakarta militias backed by the Indonesian army which razed much of the territory. Hundreds of thousands of people fled or were forced to flee at gunpoint to Indonesian-controlled West Timor.
ETAN spokesman John Miller said the suit was necessary because the United Nations had put an international tribunal on hold and Indonesia's attorney general was planning to focus his efforts on a handful of the best-known incidents and a small number of Indonesian military commanders.
The plaintiffs are three East Timorese: A mother whose young son was killed, a man who was bashed and amputed after being injured and a third whose brother was killed and father injured in East Timor. The New York-based CCR and San Fransisco-based CJA said the plaintiffs wished to remain anonymous at this time because East Timor remains subject to Indonesian military and militia attacks.
Lumintang, who was Vice chief of Staff of the Indonesian Army at the time is one of the most senior members of the Indonesian armed forces. He is now the governor of Indonesia's prestigious military and political institution, the National Defence Institute (Lemhannas).
END
Jakarta Troops 'Train Militias for Invasion' in Timor
by Joanna Jolly, South China Morning Post ~April 4
The Indonesian army is training militias in West Timor for an invasion into East Timor next month despite its continued denials, according to a West Timorese church leader and a human rights organisation. Both sources warned that Indonesian military (TNI) troops were training militias in areas around the refugee camps close to the border with East Timor. Yosep Lega Laot, co-ordinator of LAP Timoris (the Council for Timorese Advocacy and Research), said the group had found evidence the TNI was planning to arm the militiamen for a possible mass incursion into East Timor.
"There are about 5,000 militiamen who will infiltrate East Timor. "They plan to go in a month's time, but we don't know the exact date." LAP Timoris' allegations are backed up by reports from Benjamin Bria, the Vice-Bishop of Atambua.
During regular aid visits to refugee camps, Vice-Bishop Bria said, he had seen TNI soldiers organising training sessions. "It is no secret here. I have seen TNI training.
"They gather militias together and give them instructions," he said following visits to Betun and camps at Sesekoe and Matabuik near Atambua.
Sources close to the United Nations in West Timor said the allegations supported what the UN had been saying in meetings with President Abdurrahman Wahid and Indonesian officials. Following 16 militia incursions across the border into East Timor in early March, the UN told the Indonesian Government that it had evidence the TNI was backing militia activities. "We sent two people to the areas to investigate," said Mr Laot. "Our investigators saw militias were trained and facilitated by Kostrad [Strategic Army Reserve] troops."
The allegations come despite recent denials by Indonesian area commander Kiki Syahnakri that the military is providing support to former East Timorese militiamen in any way. The LAP Timoris team visited East Timorese refugee camps around the border town of Atambua for three days at the end of March. During this visit they saw soldiers in Kostrad uniforms organising military parades of about 30 militiamen. They also reported seeing the Kostrad soldiers teaching the militiamen to use guns.
"Our team saw the guns during the training session. They picked them up to have a look at them and saw they were automatic weapons from the TNI," Mr Laot said.
The team's investigation focused on two sites, one near the refugee camp at Haliwen close to Atambua's airport. Here the team found that the militiamen were given training by the TNI every Friday behind the local stadium.
The second site was at Halilulik, at the southern end of the border, near to the town of Betun, where they also observed training by TNI.
The team says the TNI is telling the militias it is training them to take back East Timor. The pro-Indonesian militias fled East Timor last September following the UN-sponsored referendum which resulted in an overwhelming vote for independence.
According to Vice-Bishop Bria, wooden guns are used during training. But he has also seen modern automatic weapons and home-made guns during the sessions.
END
East Timor's Gusmao Opposes Sanctions on Indonesia
Reuters ~ April 3
East Timorese independence leader Xanana Gusmao, raising funds in Brazil to help reconstruct his war-ravaged country, said on Friday that he did not favor international sanctions against former occupier Indonesia. The Indonesian people are not to blame, Gusmao told a news conference in Brasilia, referring to almost 23 years of often brutal Indonesian occupation and last year's bloodshed after an East Timorese referendum favored independence.
Brazil, like East Timor, is a former Portuguese colony. Both countries speak Portuguese. We are not asking for any sanctions against Indonesia. ... We know that the Indonesian people would suffer if there are international sanctions. ... The new Indonesian president (Abdurrahman Wahid) has asked for forgiveness, and it is enough for us, Gusmao said.
East Timor plunged into chaos last year after voters rejected a plan for autonomous status under Jakarta's control. The former territory is now under U.N. administration, with Gusmao widely seen as the popular favorite to become its first president when full independence is achieved.
Commenting on the future of East Timor, Gusmao, who has said before he will not run for the presidency, recommended a firm administration to unify the nation after its years of foreign occupation. The independence leader has a busy schedule in Brazil, where he will stay until Thursday, meeting top politicians, prominent entrepreneurs and celebrities. He saw President Fernando Henrique Cardoso soon after arriving on Thursday.
Gusmao made clear he was not asking Brazil alone for funds with which to rebuild East Timor. International financial bodies estimate that reconstruction will cost about $322 million. Brazil sent several dozen peacekeepers to East Timor when fighting flared up last year. Some East Timor officials have accused Brazil of not helping enough, particularly given its historical and linguistic ties with Timor. Brazil's Foreign Minister Luiz Felipe Lampreia said in recent newspaper comments that Brazil had little to offer East Timor financially.
END
Former Australian PM Appeased Indonesian Brutality
AFP ~ April 3
East Timorese leader Jose Ramos-Horta accused former Australian prime minister Paul Keating Sunday of appeasing Indonesia during its brutal occupation of East Timor.
The Nobel laureate who was the East Timorese independence movement's chief spokesman at the United Nations throughout Indonesia's 24-year occupation, said Keating had been seeking to maintain his international profile and relevance.
"They would do better to do things like walk naked in the streets," Ramos-Horta told a Rotary conference here. "We all know how the previous Labor government went out of its way to treat the dictatorship with civility, which allowed the dictatorship to think it could get away with total impunity." But he said it amounted to appeasement of the sort which had encouraged Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait resulting in the Gulf War.
Ramos-Horta said Keating, to whom he referred only as "that former prime minister" had maintained a touching father-son relationship with former Indonesian president Suharto, in which Keating was the junior. Keating had also publicly attacked his successor as prime minister, John Howard, for pressuring Indonesia into last year's ballot in East Timor which voted overwhelmingly for independence.
It was not Ramos-Horta's first attack on the Labor leader who ruled Australia from 1991-1996, and who has been back in the limelight recently to promote a new book and comment on his relationship with Britain's Queen Elizabeth II.
Last October, Ramos-Horta accused Keating of betraying the people of East Timor. His attack followed criticism by Keating of Howard, whom he blamed for creating the East Timorese disaster to gain domestic political advantage and votes.
But in a strong defence of Howard, Ramos Horta, joint winner of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize for his work as international spokesman for the East Timorese, said he found Keating's words "nauseating." "He never said a word of criticism about the brutality during his time," Ramos Horta said last year.
END
Indonesia Hands Over East Timorese Refugees to UNHCR
Jakarta Post ~ April 3
Indonesia handed over responsibility for some 140,000 East Timorese refugees in the western half of Timor island to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Friday, saying that the cost of caring for them has become too expensive.
East Nusa Tenggara Governor Piet A. Tallo gave notice to UNHCR senior officer Craig Sanders in Kupang to take charge of the refugees.
"The Indonesian government will only assist the UNHCR in the administration and facilitation of certain procedures," Vice Governor Johanes Pake Pani told The Jakarta Post by phone from the provincial capital Kupang. "The main responsibility from now on will be in the UN's hands," he added.
But the UNHCR headquarters in Geneva said Jakarta had agreed to give East Timorese refugees in West Timor another three months to decide whether to return home or to stay in Indonesia. "There will be a three-month transition period beginning April 1 to allow refugees to decide and take action on their future -- whether to remain or return to East Timor," UNHCR said in a statement sent to AFP.
The government had earlier decided to cut further aid to the East Timorese refugees as of April 1. The refugees had been given until March 31 to either return to the new independent East Timor or accept Indonesia's offer of citizenship and be resettled elsewhere in the country.
While more than 100,000 East Timorese have been repatriated in recent months, hundreds of thousands of others remain in refugee camps in the western half of Timor island because they have no home or job to return to. In Jakarta, Sergio Viera de Mello, Chief of the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET), made an eleventh hour appeal to Indonesia to extend the deadline.
"I have appealed to the Indonesian government not to discontinue the assistance," de Mello said after meeting with Indonesian foreign minister Alwi Shihab. "These people need support and information to help them make the right choice -- whether to remain in Indonesia or go back to East Timor," he said.
A local officer at the UNHCR office in Kupang told Antara that the UN agency did not have the means to support all the refugees if the Indonesian government stopped the assistance on Saturday. "It is impossible for us to take over full responsibility for the refugees if the East Nusa Tenggara administration does not provide things like hospitals, clean water and shelter," Nusya Margono was quoted as saying. Nusya cited an Oct. 14 agreement between Indonesia and UNHCR which stipulated that Indonesia would take responsibility over the refugees.
Most of the refugees were forced to evacuate East Timor in September by pro-Indonesia militias. The campaign of terror and destruction was conducted after it became apparent that the majority of East Timorese had rejected Indonesia's offer to remain as part of the republic in an Aug. 30 vote.
Foreign minister Alwi Shihab said a Cabinet meeting on Saturday would discuss the refugee situation. "Our stance with regard to the deadline is firm, not because we wish to be irresponsible but because we cannot afford further assistance," Alwi told the Post.
He said Indonesia was terminating further aid to force the United Nations to think about the fate of the refugees instead of leaving the burden on Indonesia. "Maybe we can talk about an extension, but for how long we just cannot say," he added.
Meanwhile, a senior Indonesian Military officer warned the UN Peacekeeping Force in East Timor against further border intrusions into Indonesia. "If such acts of provocation happen again, it is possible that Indonesian troops and UN forces will clash," Udayana Military Command Chief Maj. Gen. Kiki Syahnakri said in Denpasar, capital of Bali, on Friday.
Kiki said he had proposed to the chief of the UN force, Lt. Gen. Jaime De Los Santos, to appoint liaison officers to address border problems and to conduct joint-security patrols along the border. "But I was informed on March 30 that all of our proposals were rejected," Kiki said.
END
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