Subject: Newsweek: A New Kind of Hell
Date: Sat, 29 May 1999 11:42:18 -0400
From: "John M. Miller" <fbp@igc.apc.org>Newsweek May 31, 1999, Atlantic
Edition
A New Kind of Hell By Ron Moreau
A U.N. team will work for a fair vote in East Timor, but political thugs and killers
also have a voice
I'm free, reads some of the graffiti in a poor neighborhood in Dili, East Timor's
capital. Not yet. Early this month progovernment militiamen showed up with AK-47s to
silence all calls for the province's independence from Indonesia. When Elizia dos Reis, a
17-year-old high-school student, rushed out to help a wounded friend, he took a round in
the back and another in the chest--and finally a knife in the back of the head. The next
day Elizia's body lay on a table in his parents' concrete-block house, his face streaked
with dried blood, a rosary draped around his crossed hands. As his mother and sisters
wailed, neighbors took turns digging his grave in the rocky soil of his own front yard.
Elizia's family would have preferred the Roman Catholic cemetery--but they were too afraid
of ambushes to take him there.
Just about everybody in East Timor lives in such fear. Late last year more than a dozen
militia groups sprang up to defend the status quo in the former Portuguese colony occupied
by Indonesia since 1975. At first they were enraged by President B. J. Habibie's plan to
give the province its autonomy. Then in January, Habibie further pledged to grant East
Timor its full independence if the province rejects autonomy in a U.N.-sponsored
referendum scheduled for August. That is when the militias, with firm backing from the
Indonesian Army, turned from agitation to violence. As the vote nears, many East Timorese
worry, the blood may flow even more freely. I feel the ballot will throw us into a new
hell, says Domingos Saldanha, editor of Dili's only daily newspaper.
The present hell is bad enough. Militiamen have driven thousands of coffee growers and
other peasants into makeshift refugee camps. There they must pledge allegiance to the
Indonesian flag and are told they may support autonomy but not full nationhood for East
Timor. In addition, able-bodied men often are forced to join the pro-Indonesian diehards
and thugs who form the militias--and long have cooperated with the Army's war against
pro-independence Falintil guerrillas. The militias themselves rarely fight guerrillas,
however; they prefer soft civilian targets. In April, they hacked to death 25 worshipers
in a Catholic church. Days later they killed 15 people at the home of independence leader
Manuel Carrascalo, including his son. Surviving activists have gone into hiding, leaving
the militias to romp at will.
East Timorese have little faith in the coming U.N. referendum. Moral leaders like
Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, the Nobel peace laureate, have tried to set the tone. I pray
that God will illuminate our leaders to sit down and talk and end the violence, Bishop
Belo told NEWSWEEK. But heaven's instruments will include only about 1,000 U.N. election
administrators, monitors and police advisers (who may be allowed to carry sidearms). As
symbols of world interest, the U.N. monitors may ensure a peaceful process--or at least
some Western diplomats in Jakarta hope so. But in Dili, militia leaders are still
swaggering. We expect the U.N. to be neutral, says Basilio Araujo, the militias'
spokesman. If we think they are taking sides, we will fight them.
The one way to ensure a peaceful election is to disarm the militias; if that happens,
Western diplomats believe the Falintil guerrillas would also put down their arms. The
Indonesian Army, of course, could relieve the militias of their automatic weapons in short
order. But East Timor's 15,000-strong Army garrison is widely suspected of giving the
militiamen money, arms and advice--all in an attempt to keep the Army's hard-won
territorial prize. Entrusting the Indonesian Army to keep security is like hiring a thief
to guard your house when you go on vacation, says independence leader David Ximenes, who
spoke to NEWSWEEK by phone from hiding.
The national armed-forces commander, General Wiranto, continues to have it both ways:
he supports Habibie's referendum on autonomy, but he also has allowed the militias to go
on with their dirty work. After the April massacre at Carrascalo's house, Wiranto rushed
to Dili to broker a temporary truce among the militias and two independence leaders.
Within days, both independence leaders had to flee for their lives. Once again, the men
with the guns are vowing to dictate peace in East Timor--no matter that they have failed
to keep that promise for nearly a quarter century.
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: War cries: A Dili youth killed in a battle over independence
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