| Subject: SCMP Feature: Militias
Vow To Rise From The Ashes South
China Morning Post Friday, November 19, 1999
Militias vow to rise from the ashes
PHOTO: Band wagon: many pro-Jakarta militiamen have been
named as war criminals by international human rights organisations.
JOANNA JOLLY
Basilio Araujo is subdued. Over breakfast in a modest hotel
in south Jakarta, the former spokesman of the East Timorese pro-integration forces is less
than his usual talkative self as he contemplates the future for the defeated militias.
It is a long way from how things used to be. The former
East Timorese civil servant, who studied psychology at Manchester Polytechnic on a British
Council scholarship, has lost his authority.
Attempting to explain away the violence, murder and
destruction visited on East Timor by the militias, the one-time spin-doctor and
intellectual face of the integration movement is sounding worn and tired.
The arguments are still there, but the privileges are gone.
With Indonesia formally washing its hands of East Timor, the business-class tickets and
five-star accommodation once provided by patrons in the Indonesian administration have
disappeared.
Now the future is uncertain for East Timorese militia and
integration leaders who have renamed themselves The Forum for National Unity. Although
many have been named as war criminals by international human rights organisations, they
say they are determined to continue the struggle for integration with Indonesia in the
newly-independent country.
"If [resistance movement] Fretilin can resist in the
jungle for 23 years and they are Timorese, we are also Timorese and we also know our
jungle and we know what our nature can provide us to eat, so we can also resist in the
jungle," says Mr Araujo.
"For a person who might be listed as a war criminal,
of course, they will choose to die in the battle rather than be humiliated."
These East Timorese will tell you their culture is based on
violence. During the 400 years of Portuguese colonisation, the Portuguese backed local
leaders in regular wars between clans and tribes.
"We are born heroes and we die warriors," says Mr
Araujo, quoting an East Timorese saying which he uses to explain the outbreaks of militia
violence before and after the referendum.
The militias trace their history to the beginning of
Indonesian rule. When Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975, a number of East Timorese
supported the Indonesian army working as guides, porters and intelligence gatherers.
"Militia commanders say the militias already existed
before 1998," said East Timorese human rights campaigner Aniceto Guterres in Dili in
August. "The first time the militias were formed was to help the Indonesian military
who didn't know what the ground was like in intelligence operations in the jungle."
These East Timorese were generously rewarded for their
help, often with positions of power and influence.
But it was only after the United Nations-sponsored
referendum was announced in January that distinct militia groups began to grow in force
and take shape as an anti-independence movement, backed by elements within the Indonesian
army which provided arms and training.
The link between militias and the Indonesian military has
been well-documented. Indonesia's former foreign minister, Ali Alatas, admitted recently
that the military was culpable in the violence that followed the vote for independence.
Elite special forces (Kopassus) are known to have had a long involvement in the territory.
As early as November last year, according to reports by an
Australian East Timorese support group, Kopassus agents were working undercover at a
pro-independence rally near the East Timorese town of Alas.
The crowd at the rally discovered and killed two of them,
leading to brutal reprisals by the army and the disappearance of several East Timorese
youths.
"The military was making preparations ever since the
incident in Alas," said Mr Gutteres. "At that time it created new militias such
as the Mahidi [Live or Die for Integration] and Besi Merah Puti [Red and White Iron]. They
were supplied with weapons by the military and they were also allowed to create new
hand-made weapons."
Since their departure to West Timor following the arrival
of international peacekeepers (Interfet), the strength and commitment of the defeated
militia forces has been difficult to gauge.
Mr Araujo says there are 47,000 militiamen in West Timor
and 5,000 still in East Timor waiting "to kill or be killed". Interfet has
detained and disarmed an undisclosed number in East Timor, though it has no authority to
charge them, and at least five have been killed in border skirmishes.
With training sessions on view to Indonesian television
cameras in West Timor, militias say they are grouping in preparation for a possible attack
on Interfet. Militia leader Joao Tavares boasts he has a force of 50,000 ready to strike
across the border.
But according to East Timorese journalist Mehta Guterres,
the number of hard-core devoted militiamen is much smaller. "The real hardliners are
only about 5,000," he says. "They are the ones who have supported Indonesia
forever, since the partisan days. They are old hands. There is no support among the young
people. The rest are trying to save themselves as they will be killed if they don't remain
in the militias."
In the past few weeks, a fresh battalion of troops from
Sulawesi has been sent to the West Timorese border to disarm the militias.
However, in a visit last week to the West Timorese capital,
Kupang, American ambassador Robert Gelbard said it was obvious some elements of the army
were still supporting armed activity. Indonesian human rights group Kontras has reported
that militias are openly operating under the watch of Indonesian police in refugee camps
in Kupang and border town Atambua.
But this local level of support may not be enough to
sustain the guerilla movement threatened by militia leaders in Jakarta. The Indonesian
chain of command previously directing militia activity no longer exists.
Army and police commanders who operated in East Timor have
moved on, in many cases rewarded for their work. Former regional commander General Adam
Damiri has been promoted to assistant to the army chief on operational affairs. Former
Dili chief of police, Colonel Timbul Silaen, is now brigadier-general of the police
headquarters' anti-corruption force.
Over the next few weeks, the Forum for National Unity will
decide whether to continue armed-resistance or work through political channels for a voice
in the independent East Timor. Under the threat of a possible war crimes tribunal and
lacking popular support in Indonesia, there is a feeling among the pro-integration forces
that they have been abandoned.
"I think Indonesia owes us an apology because like
Portugal, they have washed their hands as well," says Mr Araujo. "I think that
was what they wanted to do because I think Indonesia does not want to be accused any more.
Now everything is finished. Now they are gone, leaving the East Timorese alone."
The East Timorese who were drawn into militia organisations
can be grouped into three distinct categories.
Of these the most prominent were those East Timorese who
were already members of civilian security forces, operating alongside the Indonesian
military and police to provide intelligence on independence activists and the Falintil
guerilla army.
Among them were militia leaders like Eurico Guterres,
formerly a small-time gambling boss in Dili who headed the group Aitarak (Thorn).
Although Mr Guterres claimed he was a people's leader who
took orders from no one, he told journalists early this year that he answered directly to
General Damiri.
For a small-time player, he had influential friends.
Photographs found in his headquarters after international troops arrived in Dili show him
with former president Suharto.
Then there were those recruited under pressure as the
militias established themselves. Many were threatened with death or the burning of their
houses if they did not join. In the period before the referendum, it was not unusual to
find men who wore the uniform of the militias and attended mass rallies, but privately
expressed their wish to vote for independence.
The third group was made up of thieves and thugs who saw
opportunity in joining with the dominant military force. These people were amply rewarded
in the three-week looting and burning spree that followed the result.
For months before the referendum, militia groups terrorised
the population, threatening and killing pro-independence supporters. After the
overwhelmingly pro-independence result was announced, militias took over the territory,
backed and supported by the army.
It is not known how many died in the violence. Numbers have
been estimated in the hundreds, rather than the thousands first feared. But every village,
town and city in East Timor has a tale of horror to tell and more than a third of the
population was forced across the border to be held in refugee camps in West Timor and
around Indonesia.
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