Subject: IHT: Indonesia's Benefactors Should Require
It to Disarm the Militias
Date: Sat, 15 May 1999 11:12:32 -0400
From: "John M. Miller" <fbp@igc.apc.org>International Herald Tribune
(Neuilly-sur-Seine, France) May 7, 1999, Friday
Indonesia's Benefactors Should Require It to Disarm the Militias
By Sidney Jones; International Herald Tribune
NEW YORK
The agreement on East Timor signed this Wednesday in New York by Indonesia, Portugal
and the United Nations is a major milestone in international diplomacy. It provides for a
ballot on Aug. 8 that will let all those born in East Timor, or those of East Timorese
descent, decide whether they want to accept autonomy under Indonesian sovereignty or opt
for independence.
The agreement could be the key to ending the conflict between the Indonesian army and
East Timorese pro-independence groups, both armed and unarmed, that has gone on for 23
years and cost at least 200,000 lives.
But despite the New York accord, East Timor is closer to civil war today than it has
been at any time since Indonesia invaded in 1975. The reason is the emergence of civilian
militias backed and armed by the Indonesian army.
The organized assaults by the militias on supporters of independence threaten to
jeopardize the peace process and derail the Aug. 8 vote. Unless that vote takes place in
an atmosphere free of violence and intimidation, it will not fairly reflect the wishes of
the East Timorese.
The United States, Australia, Japan, the European Union and others providing aid and
loans to Indonesia have called for the militias to be disarmed.
But a dangerous element is creeping into some discussions. It is the idea that the
militias and the East Timorese guerrilla army, Falintil, that has been fighting for
independence since the Indondesian invasion should be disarmed simultaneously. This would
be bad politics and bad for human rights.
The counterpart of Falintil in international law is the Indonesian army. The army and
the guerrillas are the two long-standing parties to the East Timor conflict.
Most of the district-level militias, by contrast, were created and armed in the last
four months to support East Timor's integration with Indonesia. They should be disarmed
before, and separately from, any decommissioning of the principal belligerents.
These are not community-based self-defense forces, despite the claims of some militia
leaders. They are a shadow force of the Indonesian military, with whom militia leaders
have long-established ties.
Many of the militias are old paramilitary groupings with new names. To treat them as
distinct from the Indonesian army is to let the army off the hook and obscure its
accountability for militia abuses. Treating the militias on a par with Falintil would
reward lawlessness.
This is not to suggest that Falintil is beyond criticism. When they kill suspected
civilian collaborators and execute captured army personnel, as they have periodically
done, East Timorese guerrillas have been responsible for human rights violations.
In early 1999, pro-independence youths, not necessarily linked to Falintil, were
involved in attacks on Indonesian migrants and others suspected of supporting the
Indonesian government.
In both cases, the Indonesian government has the right, indeed the responsibility, to
arrest and prosecute those involved.What the government does not have the right to do is
encourage the formation of armed groups who operate above and beyond the law and with the
full backing of local army units. It must acknowledge that the militias are responsible
for criminal assaults and mass killings, for example in Dili and Liquica last month.
Giving these groups any official status separate from the Indonesian military, as would be
implied by a parallel militia-Falintil disarmament, would be an endorsement of
state-backed thuggery.
The question now is how to ensure that the militias are disarmed, well before the Aug.
8 vote. It is not enough for the Indonesian military commander, General Wiranto, to go to
Dili, as he did recently, broker a peace pact and piously hope for voluntary disarmament.
The militia leaders will not turn over their guns unless their army patrons force them to
do so.
The international community has been unusually united and vocal in its condemnation of
the militias, but it should go further. Member countries of the consortium that provides
aid to Indonesia, including the European Union, the United States, Australia and Japan,
should exert real pressure on the Indonesian government to undertake the systematic
collection of firearms, prosecute militia leaders responsible for recent human rights
abuses, and withdraw logistical support of any kind for the militias.
The aid consortium should seek a deadline of weeks for the accomplishment of all of the
above, and make clear that further disbursements of international loans to Indonesia will
be halted if nothing happens.
The writer, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, contributed this comment to the
International Herald Tribune.
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