Subject: RT: Timor's neighbourhood watch - heroes or
villains?
Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 16:48:33 -0400
From: "John M. Miller" <fbp@igc.apc.org>Timor's neighbourhood watch -
heroes or villains? 05:12 a.m. Jul 06, 1999 Eastern
By Tim Johnston
DILI, East Timor, July 6 (Reuters) - To some, East Timor's pro-Jakarta militiamen are
heroes protecting defenceless villagers.
To others, they are military-backed thugs who slaughter unarmed men, women and
children, and are endangering what is perhaps the bloodied territory's only chance to
choose its fate.
Dili-based human rights groups say the militias, with the help of Indonesian soldiers
and police, have killed at least dozens of villagers in recent months in a bloody campaign
that threatens to derail a U.N.-run ballot on independence for the territory due on August
21 or 22.
One church official in the mainly Catholic province says most militiamen are just poor
farmers and workers forced to join.
``Without the military funds and encouragement, the militias would disappear
overnight,'' he told Reuters.
``They are told that if they do not join they must be enemies. They join to protect
themselves,'' he said, adding the militias were also a rich hunting ground for the
corrupt, the power-hungry and those with scores to settle.
The militias are loose, poorly-trained groups of men.
They wear mainly civilian clothes, or a mix of camouflage and civilian, and are armed
with a mish-mash of weapons: military guns, homemade guns, spears, machetes, and bows and
arrows.
Militia leaders say they command tens of thousands of ``warriors.'' Human rights groups
say there are less than 10,000.
Most are ethnic Timorese, although some were born to Indonesian immigrants who arrived
after Jakarta's 1975 invasion.
Locals say the ethnic Timorese head of the fearsome Aitarak (Thorn) militia, Eurico
Guterres, was raised by Indonesian special forces soldiers after his family was killed by
pro-independence guerrillas in the late 1970s.
Few of the leaders were prominent before they formed their militias last year to
counter the growing, and increasingly open, independence movement.
Many leaders of the militias and other loyalist groups have benefitted from their
support of Indonesian rule, but it has made them unpopular with many East Timorese.
``Without the Indonesians...these people have no future in East Timor,'' the church
official said.
Diplomats and defence analysts say rogue elements in the armed forces (ABRI) who oppose
the government's policy to allow independence may be waging a proxy war, fearing a loss of
power and the encouragement to other separatist movements a breakaway East Timor would
give.
``They don't want to let East Timor go,'' said a Jakarta-based Western diplomat. ``Some
senior officers are very angry. They see these (militias) as useful tools.''
But pro-Jakarta leaders say they need the militias to protect ordinary Timorese against
pro-independence groups, including the guerrillas still operating in the hills.
Basilio Araujo, an official with a loyalist umbrella group whose rule the militias come
under, said the militias were formed because the 15,000 Indonesian soldiers and police in
the eastern half of Timor island were not protecting Timorese.
``These groups are voluntary groups who woke up last year without being picked up by
the Indonesian army,'' he told Reuters.
Araujo and militia leaders deny any links to the military. But witnesses say police and
soldiers have joined some attacks and stood by and watched others.
Reporters and United Nations officials in the territory have seen ABRI personnel
training militiamen. The United Nations says its personnel saw soldiers directing militias
as they burned homes and beat an old man in a village two weeks ago.
Some militia cars carry government licence plates and Aitarak is headquartered in a
former hotel locals say is owned by ABRI.
There has been a move over the past two months to give the militias legitimacy by
bringing them into the government fold, something that has been harshly criticised by the
United Nations.
Some of the most notorious militias, notably Aitarak in Dili and Besi Merah Putih (Red
and White Iron), have been given semi-offical status to run civil security in their areas
as members of an official organisation called Pam Swakarsa.
``The government is trying to channel them into legal ways,'' says Araujo. ``What is
known in Indonesia as Pam Swakarsa is known in other societies as Neighbourhood Watch.''
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