Subject: AU: Timor: rock, shock and smoking barrels
Date: Sat, 15 May 1999 11:24:09 -0400
From: "John M. Miller" <fbp@igc.apc.org> Received from Joyo Indonesian
News:
The Australian 14 May 99
Timor: rock, shock and smoking barrels
THERE was a party in Dili the other night; some say the most splendid party in East
Timor since 1975.
The hosts were chuffed when the local paper gave it a bigger write-up than the gunplay
that turned the city centre into a no-go zone the following day.
On the flat concrete roof of the Mahkota Hotel, rock music, downloaded from the
Internet, boomed into the humid night.
Conversation rarely strayed from conventional, neutral topics. The quarter-century
legacy of an entrenched security apparatus constructed from such materials as military
occupation, the guerilla war, brazen daylight massacres and early morning raids is a kind
of professional paranoia that expresses itself in one rule: don't trust anyone.
Instead, everybody talked about how pretty Dili was and what a marvellous tourist spot
it would be if it wasn't the capital of one of the world's most dangerous places.
The danger, like the smog over Jakarta, is ever-present and the violence, at its
militia-driven worst, can be quite random. But to simply brand the pro-Indonesia militias
as thugs and looters who enjoy almost total immunity from the law is to misjudge the
situation.
Think of them more as well-organised death squads, unleashed by a hidden, or partly
hidden, hand – the public expression of a private and calculated intelligence.
The militias claim their primary role is to raise a structured civilian defence against
raids by combat-experienced, pro-independent Falintil guerillas. But this year's militia
activity has three purposes.
One is to raid known or suspected pro-independence properties, to threaten, kidnap or
kill elected independent activists.
Another is to generally terrorise the populace.
The third is to inflate, largely through intimidation and public display, the real
strength of pro-integration sentiment.
All have the same political objective, which is to suppress an expression of the
popular will that would assuredly lead to an independent East Timor.
Despite the international pressure on Indonesia to end the Timorese agony, the
persistent terrorism makes it possible for the UN to rethink its plan to send forces to
monitor the referendum.
On some attacks, people riding with the militias carry photographs of intended targets.
Journalists are kept well away from these scenes through the use of roadblocks, threats
and harassment.
But it is possible to pierce the often unreliable accounts of numerous witnesses and
survivors to discern much of what happened. There also is evidence that cannot be hidden
– physical evidence, such as spent army issue cartridges, and material evidence, such
as watching who is on the vehicles that enter and leave.
The amity between the militias and the uniformed services is obvious, as is the refusal
of the police to intervene against serious crimes that occur in front of their noses. The
careful planning and use of intelligence gathering in these attacks shows the Indonesian
security forces have the capacity to use the militias as their tool – as does the
employment of uniformed units such as Brimob, the mobile police, to escort the militias in
and out of areas selected for attack.
Villagers also allege units of ABRI, the Indonesian army, have on occasion moved in to
retrieve dead bodies for secret disposal, although a reporter from The Australian has been
unable to find substantive evidence of this.
Why, then, if the connections are so blatant, have the security forces bothered to
raise a militia organisation? Why not do the dirty work themselves? Three reasons suggest
themselves. One, the militias serve the useful purpose of deniability. When their outrages
become too excessive for the international community to stomach, their victims too
obviously innocent, the authorities can pretend it has nothing to do with them.
Two, the militias can be used to convey the impression East Timor is a province at war
with itself.
Their members and nominal leaders are Timorese. If Timorese are fighting each other
this hands the Indonesians more options for addressing the international aspect of the
crisis. Three, the militias are ultimately dispensable. Were the security forces to
seriously withdraw their support, the militias would be drained overnight of most of their
recruitment incentives, such as money, food, weapons, transport and accommodation.
Only the fear of retribution from the military wing of an ascendant independent
movement could keep the diehards together as a hostile force. But they would revert to
being bandits outside the law, rather than bandits above the law, as they are now.
Back to May Menu
Human Rights Violations in East Timor
Main Postings Menu
June '98 through February '99 |
