| Subject: Bishop
Accuses Wiranto of Lying
Associated Press December 25, 1999
E. Timor Bishop Accuses Chief
By HEATHER PATERSON
DILI, East Timor (AP) - Nobel laureate
Bishop Carlos Belo has accused Indonesia's former military chief, Gen.
Wiranto, of lying about the army's involvement in the destruction of East
Timor following its independence vote.
``Wiranto said that (the Indonesian
military) as an institution didn't kill or make bad things happen for us,
but he lied,'' East Timor's spiritual leader said at a Christmas Mass late
Friday.
Earlier in the day, during testimony in
Jakarta before a state-appointed panel investigating human rights abuses,
Wiranto denied that army commanders had instigated the destruction of East
Timor after the Aug. 30 vote.
He said, ``there was absolutely no such
policy or planning process by (army) leaders.''
Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese
colony in 1975 and ruled it with an iron hand for 24 years. Days after
East Timorese voted for independence in the U.N.-sponsored referendum,
anti-independence militia - reportedly with army backing - went on a
rampage, killing residents, burning and looting houses and driving
hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.
Members of the Indonesia's Investigative
Commission for Human Rights Abuses in East Timor have said that top
generals should be held accountable because they knew about the violence
but failed to stop it.
A U.N. team probing the atrocities has
recommended that the Security Council establish an international war
crimes tribunal to try the generals unless Jakarta acts quickly to bring
them to justice.
Wiranto, who like many Indonesians uses
only one name, blamed the violence on groups ``dissatisfied'' by the
outcome of the ballot, saying the military leadership had been powerless
to prevent it.
``The burning occurred after the
referendum because there were some factions who lost,'' he said after the
two-hour hearing. ``They became emotional and disappointed and reacted
with destruction.''
In Dili, Bishop Belo urged a congregation
of almost 2,000 people, who had crowded into the courtyard of his burned
residence, to forgive Wiranto and others responsible for the violence.
``We know very well that many of our
friends, East Timorese people, killed us, they burnt our houses, they
denied their blood and they denied their country, but we must forgive
them, we must bring peace to our country,'' he said.
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