Subject: AFP: Deported American says military chief
behind Timor killings
Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 09:34:16 -0400Deported American activist says military chief
behind Timor killings
SINGAPORE, Sept 20 (AFP) - An American journalist and activist deported from Indonesia
said Monday he was convinced armed forces chief General Wiranto was behind the militia
killings in East Timor.
Allan Nairn was in Dili for about two weeks before Indonesian authorities detained him
for violating visa regulations by entering the country as a tourist.
He said here Monday that during his detention at the military headquarters in East
Timor, he saw pro-Jakarta Aitarak militiamen living and working out of there.
"While I was being held there and questioned there, you could see that the whole
back-half of the base was full of uniformed Aitarak militia, with their black tee-shirts
and red and white headbands," added the 43-year-old journalist, who is also an
activist on East Timor affairs.
He said one of the officers who questioned him told him the militiamen "live here,
they work out of here."
"You can see them going out on their motorbikes and their trucks, fully armed to
do their attacks on Dili," said Nairn, adding it was the same situation in the police
headquarters in Dili where he was also held.
Asked whether he was convinced Wiranto was behind the militia actions, Nairn said:
"Yes, definitely.
"Organisationally in the Indonesian military, the only person that both the army
and police report to is General Wiranto."
But Wiranto, speaking in a parliamentary hearing Monday in Jakarta, catagorically
denied he was behind violence in East Timor.
"It doesn't make sense and it has never even crossed my mind. There's convincing
evidence that TNI (the Indonesian military) wish to do good in East Timor," he said,
adding the military had mediated peace pacts between involving rival groups in the
territory.
"How bad and sinful I would be as a religious person if I had done that, and
that's impossible."
Wiranto said deep-rooted hatred between the rival groups made it hard for the military
to reconcile them.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan Sunday accused the Indonesian army of cooperating with
East Timor militias in committing atrocities against the territory's people.
Nairn said he saw militiamen inside a plane in which he was flown from East Timor to
West Timor last Wednesday, wearing black T-shirts and carrying pistols, knives and swords.
"I actually recognised by face some of them from the streets of Dili as being
among the street-level militia leaders. But it turns out all these men were police
intelligence and they were being rotated back .. after having fulfilled their assignments
in Dili."
Nairn also said he saw a police intelligence document referring to a specific operation
which had moved out a total of 323,564 people from East Timor.
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