Received from Joyo Indonesian News

Courier Mail May 29, 2002

Soldiers 'watched rape'

JAKARTA: [AP] Indonesian forces stood by while militiamen attacked a church and then raped her daughter in a military headquarters, a woman told a court yesterday.

She was giving the first testimony by an East Timorese on violence that swept through the territory three years ago.

"The military allowed this to happen," Dominggas dos Santos Mouzinho told the Central Jakarta District Court. "The soldiers were there but they did nothing."

Mouzinho, 44, was testifying in the trial of five Indonesian military and police officers charged with allowing a massacre of 27 pro-independence refugees at the Ave Maria Catholic Church in Suai, on September 6, 1999.

The accused are among 18 Indonesian officials and middle-ranking military and police officers charged over killings in East Timor when the former Indonesian province voted for independence in August 1999.

Mouzinho's was the first testimony given by an East Timorese witness.

Others have reportedly ignored summonses to appear at earlier court sessions because they fear for their safety in Indonesia.

Around 1000 people were killed during a rampage by pro-Jakarta gangs and elements of the Indonesian military after the independence vote.

Prosecutors and rights activists say the militia gangs were established and trained by Indonesian soldiers. The violence only stopped when peacekeepers arrived.

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