| Subject: WP: Fight
Is Out Of Militias In Timor; Support Evaporates
Washington Post Friday, December 31, 1999
Fight Is Out Of Militias In Timor
Cut Off From Leaders, Support Evaporates
By Keith B. Richburg Washington Post
Foreign Service
TUAPUKAN REFUGEE CAMP, Indonesia—Zelia
Soares and her family had decided to go home, to leave this refugee camp
in western Timor and take their chances in the newly independent East
Timor.
First, they passed a quiet word to a
relief worker. Next came an urgent morning call crackling through a
walkie-talkie, telling them to get ready. Soon nine people -- an aging
grandmother, the children, and the hard-faced family matriarch with betel
nut stains on her teeth -- were loaded aboard a battered blue-and-white
bus, along with green plastic chairs, rolled straw mats and rice sacks
filled with cooking tins. Policemen armed with automatic weapons rode with
them for protection.
The stealth and caution of the Soares'
departure can be explained by the men in black T-shirts and army fatigues
who lord over the refugees here with cold stares and unspoken threats.
These are the foot soldiers of the militias who rained terror across the
border in East Timor before fleeing to this desolate camp, about 22 miles
northeast of Kupang in western Timor.
Their presence can still spark fear among
the mostly rural refugees, and concern among relief workers. But the old
bravado is gone from their swagger, just as it is from their threats of an
armed insurgency in their homeland. They still wear the militia colors,
but most don't dare admit their affiliation. They are defeated and
leaderless -- abandoned by those who instructed them to kill, cut off from
their Indonesian army backers and wondering whether they, too, might one
day go home.
The sound of defeat is evident in their
voices.
"I want to go back to East
Timor," says Antoniv da Silva, 41, who says he was a member of the
notorious Besi Merah Putih militia, the "Red and White Iron,"
which was responsible for much of the destruction in Dili, the East Timor
capital, after the vote for independence in August. He says he would go
back to fight if ordered by his leaders. But with East Timor now
officially independent, is there still a fight left?
"I have to admit, it is too
late," he says. And where are his leaders? "We haven't seen them
at all, since the last clash," His reply brings nervous laughter from
those listening in.
"The last time we saw them was when
we left Dili on a ship. They were in first class. We were in the lowest
class."
Formed by the Indonesian armed forces as
a counterweight to East Timor's pro-independence guerrillas, the militias
became an undisciplined mob that murdered independence leaders, harassed
villagers and burned houses, shops and marketplaces. In the end they were
defeated by Timorese who defied the terror and voted overwhelmingly for
independence from Indonesia after a 24-year occupation. A new Indonesian
parliament quickly endorsed the result.
Militia members were chased across the
border into western Timor by an Australian-led peacekeeping force, taking
along hundreds of thousands of civilians swept up in their retreat. Their
leaders are now under subpoena by an Indonesian human rights investigating
team, and they face new charges of obstruction of justice for failing to
show up for questioning in Jakarta.
In perhaps the biggest blow to the
militias, there are signs the Indonesian armed forces, isolated
internationally and humiliated by the East Timor debacle, are moving
slowly but deliberately to cut ties with their former proteges.
"We want everybody to go home,"
said Maj. Gen. Sudrajat, the armed forces spokesman in Jakarta. "To
tell you the truth, we just want to get rid of the East Timor problem. We
are tired." He said the armed forces commander has informed militia
leaders in Atambua, the main militia training base: "Be realistic . .
. It's useless."
The militias are in "a bit of a
crisis," said Yusuf Hassan, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR) in Kupang. "Indonesia is no longer showing
enthusiasm in supporting them. Having said that, there is still some
training going on in some of the sites. There are still some elements of
the Indonesian military supporting them."
Some militia members in western Timor
still talk of waging war over East Timor, but for the most part there has
been little action. A few cross-border excursions against the peacekeeping
force have left several militiamen dead and two Australian soldiers
wounded. Now the militias spend their time doing military drills near
Atambua, mostly using sticks in place of rifles.
"The threats have been incessant and
unfulfilled," said Australian Maj. Gen. Peter Cosgrove, commander of
the intervention force known as Interfet, in an interview in Dili.
"We do notice that their level of sponsorship has diminished
markedly. Their unity of purpose is in question. Their morale has been
significantly damaged. I think their financial position is grim. I think
they're homesick.
"The vast majority of them would
like to see a formula for reconciliation. But in some ways they are tied
into a vicious circle of using the IDPs [internally displaced persons] as
a bargaining chip. We know from the overtures we receive that their hearts
and minds are not in it."
"They are pretty good at being
bullies," said Col. Mark Kelly, chief of staff of the intervention
force. "But when they actually faced a well-trained, disciplined
force that came in here with a mandate and rules of engagement . . . they
knew they couldn't get away with what they had been getting away
with."
According to the Indonesian government
and the UNHCR, there may be 170,000 East Timorese refugees still in
western Timor, and tens of thousands may be there against their will,
virtual hostages of the militias. A movement to repatriate the refugees
brought 118,000 people home to East Timor in recent weeks.
But now that movement has slowed to a
trickle, relief workers here say. The number of daily flights has dropped
from five to one, if that many. U.N. refugee officials also complain that
they still do not have free access to all the camps.
Not all the refugees stay because of
intimidation. In fact, relief workers, diplomats and Indonesian government
officials cite a complex series of reasons the refugee return has slowed.
Refugees have access to relief supplies in western Timor, while in
devastated East Timor there are no jobs and food is scarce. Others here
have settled into a new life. At a UNHCR center, one East Timorese man and
his wife said they wanted to go home -- but only after July 2000, because
they had enrolled their son in a local high school and want him to finish
the school year.
Asked how many of the refugees will
become permanent residents of western Timor, the Indonesian army commander
in Kupang, Col. Jurefar, said, "That's a difficult question. Next
month, we'll make a new inventory. . . . If law and order is maintained in
East Timor, I'm sure more refugees will go back. But unfortunately, it is
still difficult to meet your daily needs in East Timor."
However, Maj. Gen. Sudrajat, the armed
forces' spokesman in Jakarta, acknowledged that intimidation by the
militias is an obstacle to the refugees' return. While many of the
refugees stay in western Timor for economic reasons, he said, "Of
course we should admit that some elements of the militia -- the
pro-integration militia -- also discourage them from going home."
Part of the problem, say Indonesian
government officials, military officers and foreign relief workers, is
that many of those still here are rural people, mostly uneducated, who are
waiting for instructions from the village chiefs, family elders and
militia leaders who brought them here.
"A large number of people who are
uneducated or semi-educated are under the grip of the militia," said
Hassan, the UNHCR spokesman. "They don't have access to information.
They would go back if they had the right information, and the intimidation
was not there." The UNHCR has launched its own information campaign,
using fliers and videotapes to counter what it calls the disinformation of
the militias.
No one can give an accurate figure, but
Hassan estimated that the number of people now being held against their
will in western Timor would number "tens of thousands."
Indonesian officials and relief workers
say that the ability of the militias to hang on to their weapons in the
camps, despite the government's call to disband, reflects pockets of
support remaining inside the armed forces.
Marzuki Darusman, Indonesia's attorney
general and chairman of the national human rights commission, said,
"The question is always why doesn't the armed forces move on it?
There are intransigent elements within the armed forces -- that's the only
way to explain it."
A Western diplomat in Jakarta said that
the Indonesian government knows that allowing the refugees to return home
is a necessary condition of resumption of normal relations with the United
States and other Western governments. But he also said that given the
problems of command-and-control in the armed forces, "They can't just
turn it off overnight."
Sudrajat said much the same thing:
"There are some militias in the west that are still carrying arms. We
cannot arrest them because we do not have enough forces. We cannot search,
one-by-one, in the camps. We'd have to declare a military emergency first.
Our method is to try to persuade them."
There are some signs that the message may
be seeping in.
On Dec. 12, one of the most notorious
militia leaders, Joao Tavares, held a meeting in the border town of
Motaain with Xanana Gusmao, the East Timorese independence leader. The
longtime enemies embraced. The next day, Tavares announced that his
militia group, the East Timor Fighters Force, was disbanding. Tavares said
further fighting was futile, and he urged all his men to turn over their
weapons.
Col. Jurefar, who attended the Gusmao-Tavares
meeting, said he saw "a new communication" developing that may
eventually lead the refugees home.
"The atmosphere of that meeting was
peaceful," he said. "There was no hatred at all." He said
the two sides have agreed to have future meetings at the border.
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