| Subject: SMH: Pro-Jakarta
Militia Leader Implicates Generals
Sydney Morning Herald 01/12/99
Militiaman implicates generals
By LINDSAY MURDOCH Herald Correspondent
in Jakarta
A pro-Jakarta militia leader has told
investigators he helped murder an Indonesian journalist, two priests, two
nuns and three other people in East Timor on the orders of a general in
Jakarta.
The admission by John Marquez that
unarmed civilians were killed on orders from Jakarta after the East Timor
ballot on August 30 is the first to directly implicate the Indonesian
military's top command in the atrocities.
An inquiry by Indonesia's Human Rights
Commission has also taken evidence from an Indonesian policeman that he
was ordered by a high-ranking Indonesian military officer to remove bodies
from a church in the seaside town of Suai on September 6 and bury them 20
kilometres away across the border in Indonesian-ruled West Timor.
The bodies of 26 people, including three
priests, were found in three graves and dug up early this week.
Mr Marquez was the leader of a militia
group called Alfa which took part in killings after Indonesian Army
officers gave him and other militiamen pills that made them violent,
according to testimony obtained by investigators from the Jakarta-funded
Human Rights Commission.
Church and human rights groups say they
had heard that the Indonesian military gave drugs to militias to make them
turn violent, but had no evidence.
Mr Marquez has told investigators the
pills he and other militia received were to treat rabies, according to the
Indonesian newspaper Kompas.
Investigators say Mr Marquez alleges that
Indonesian soldiers pressured him to kill the journalist, Agus Mulyawan,
who worked for a Japanese media company.
The killings happened near the town of
Los Palos on September 25 when militia stopped a vehicle carrying Mr
Mulyawan, the priests and nuns and three others five days after troops
from the Australian-led Interfet landed in East Timor. At the time, the
troops had not secured areas outside the capital, Dili.
Mr Marquez, who has been interrogated by
Interfet troops and is in custody, did not name the general whom he said
gave the kill order, investigators said.
All the people in the car were shot dead
from close range.
Commission investigators also revealed
that another witness had testified that East Timor's former police chief,
Colonel Timbul Silaen, ordered Indonesian police in the territory to take
part in killings and destruction.
He has been promoted to Brigadier-General
and now oversees corruption in Jakarta. He told the Herald last month that
he was ''doing the best for his country to uphold the law''.
The Jakarta-based magazine Tempo names
the former military chief of East Timor, then Colonel Tono Suratman, as
one of the targets of the inquiry set up by Indonesia's former president
Dr B.J. Habibie amid international outrage over the East Timor violence.
Tempo says the now Major-General
Suratman's desk at military headquarters in Jakarta is full of files
because he is ''seriously preparing a defence''.
''Right now he's in a dangerous
position,'' the magazine said.
Appointed deputy armed forces spokesman,
Major-General Suratman has refused repeated requests by the Herald to
interview him.
Tempo also names the former military
chief, General Wiranto, the former chief of the Bali-based Udayana
command, Major-General Adam Damiri, former intelligence chief
Major-General Zacky Anwar Makarim and Major-General Syafrie Syamsuddin as
being among commissioned suspects in East Timor atrocities.
Major-General Syafrie and Major-General
Zacky have key jobs at military headquarters reporting to the recently
appointed military chief, Admiral Widodo.
Major-General Syafrie has denied
allegations that he was present when militia attacked the Dili home of
Bishop Carlos Belo, the head of the Catholic Church in East Timor.
The chief armed forces spokesman,
Major-General Sudrajat, is quoted in Tempo denying that the named officers
were guilty of any offence, claiming the commission's investigations were
based on biased witnesses. ''They are from the pro-independence side,'' he
said.
But the commission secretary, Mr Albert
Hasibuan, said the commission always gathered information from more than
one witness.
Mr Hasibuan said if the commission's
evidence showed Indonesian officers failed to order militia to stop the
killing, ''it's enough to take them to court''.
Since the ballot, Major-General Damiri
has been promoted to operational assistant to the army's chief of staff.
General Wiranto resigned as armed forces chief and was appointed
Co-ordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security in Indonesia's
new Cabinet.
The United Nations has appointed its own
five-member team to investigate atrocities in East Timor, expected to make
its initial findings known within days.
--- General denies military ties with
Timor militias: rights team
JAKARTA, Dec 1 (AFP) - The head of an
Indonesian rights commission on East Timor said Wednesday the Indonesian
armed forces (TNI) had denied having close ties with the pro-Jakarta
militia groups which ravaged East Timor.
Chairman of the Commission for the
Investigation of Human Rights Abuses in East Timor, Albert Hasibuan, said
armed forces chief Admiral Widodo Adisucipto denied allegations, made by
rights activists, UN and East Timorese leaders that the armed forces have
ties with the militias.
"He (Widodo) said there is no
organizational link between the TNI and the militia ... and he did not
want to see them use West Timor as their bases," Hasibuan told AFP by
telephone after a meeting with Widodo.
Most of the militias fled to West Timor
after rampaging through East Timor following the territory's vote for
independence from Indonesia.
Hasibuan said Widodo had given the
commission the green light to summon his predecessor, General Wiranto, and
other high-ranking commanders accused of "having the knowledge and
ordering" the September mayhem.
East Timorese leaders Xanana Gusmao and
Jose Ramos Horta said here Monday that Wiranto as the then defence chief
and armed forces commander was responsible for maintaining discipline
among his soldiers.
Ramos Horta also said he had evidence
that several generals and officers were involved in the week of violence
in East Timor that left the territory devastated and forced hundreds of
thousands of people to flee.
"Basically, he doesn't mind us
summoning and talking with Wiranto and the other high-ranking commanders,
to tell us about the brutal incidents in East Timor," Hasibuan said.
The commission has said it planned to
quiz Wiranto in mid-December after the accusations that the military
"directed and assisted" at least 13 militia groups in the orgy
of killings, rape and arson in East Timor.
It will also summon former Jakarta
military commander Major General Syafrie Syamsuddin and former military
intelligence chief Major General Zacky Anwar Makarim, Lubis added.
Former East Timor military commander
Colonel Tono Suratman and his Bali-based superior, Major General Adam
Damiri, will also face questioning.
The commission added that the military
and its militia groups had committed "violence towards women and
children" through torture, murder and rape.
And it accused the military of practicing
a "scorched-earth policy" in East Timor as well as committing
"extra-judicial killings" in the towns of Suai and Los Palos.
The bodies of 26 residents, including
three priests, from Suai slaughtered during a brutal attack on a church
there by the Indonesian military and the Laksaur militia on September 6
have been recovered from a mass grave in West Timor.
Back
to December Menu
World Leaders Contact List
Human Rights Violations in East Timor
Main Postings Menu
Note: For those who would like to fax "the
powers that be" - CallCenter V3.5.8, is a Native 32-bit Voice Telephony software
application integrated with fax and data communications... and it's free of charge!
Download from http://www.v3inc.com/ |
