Re east Timor- part 1 of 3- IMO Inodnesia's territorial integrity has been permanently compromised by events in East Timor...
Island of Death
Thugs supported by the Indonesian military lay
waste to East Timor--killing hundreds, rocking
the government in Jakarta and ruining the
country's reputation in the eyes of the world
By NISID HAJARI
The faint message picked up by
an Australian ham radio operator
on Dec. 7, 1975 echoes loudly a
quarter-century later. The signal
came from the former
Portuguese colony of East
Timor, 700 km to the north,
which had been invaded before
dawn by a force of Indonesian
marines and paratroopers.
"Women and children are being
shot in the streets," an
anguished voice said. "We are
going to be killed. Please help
us. Please... "
Last week that plea again
burned the ears of the world.
Within hours of the
announcement that the vast
majority of East Timorese had voted for independence from Indonesia, militias
trained and supported by elements of the Indonesian armed forces had turned
the tiny half-island into a tropical hell. Concerted attacks on churches and other
places of refuge killed scores and terrified anyone who favored breaking away
from Indonesia. An estimated 200,000 East Timorese (out of a population of
850,000) either fled or were forced from their homes. Gangs emptied and looted
the capital, Dili, where columns of smoke choked skies all week long. The
rampage drove nearly all foreign journalists from the territory, and by the end of
the week, the United Nations Assistance Mission in East Timor (UNAMET),
which organized the Aug. 30 referendum, had dwindled to a skeleton crew of 84
staff. All week long U.N. offices in New York fielded horrified calls from Dili. "A
lot of these people had been on missions in Bosnia, Sierra Leone and Liberia,"
reports a New York-based U.N. diplomat. "They said this was the worst."
The death toll almost certainly reaches into the hundreds, perhaps the
thousands. The pace of the attacks seemed to slow by the weekend--either
because of Jakarta's reassertion of control or for lack of additional targets. But
East Timor is now a blasted land, emptied of as much as a quarter of its
population, and scarred by a nightmare that refuses to end. Its people can only
cling to the hard equation that has defined their tragedy since 1975: that what
they have paid in lives, Jakarta will suffer in the death of its reputation.
That slender consolation relies on the world's
outrage, which has been stoked by reports
emerging out of Dili. (To blunt that outrage,
Indonesia hinted at week's end that it may allow in
foreign peacekeeping troops.) With most aid
workers and election observers forced out of East
Timor, the cramped UNAMET compound became
even more of a nerve center. It was the only place
that could communicate with the outside world
(using U.N. and journalists' satellite phones) and
the only safe ground for more than 2,000 refugees
who clambered over razor-wire fencing to escape
the militias outside. On Wednesday morning, after
a U.N. convoy sent to retrieve supplies from a
nearby warehouse came under fire, officials in New
York decided to pull their people out. "These are
supposed to be peacekeeping missions," says the
U.N. diplomat. "You're not supposed to get killed."
Dozens of staff members and journalists rebelled,
fearing that in their absence militia members would
massacre the East Timorese who had sheltered in
the compound. Ultimately a crew of volunteers
remained to fly the blue flag; almost immediately,
they faced a mob of militiamen who bullied their
way into the compound, threatened the 1,000
remaining refugees with hand grenades, and drove
off with several vehicles.
Outside the U.N. compound there was a silence
frightening in its completeness.
Other sanctuaries had shut their doors, including
Dili's traditional safe havens--the home of Nobel
Peace Prize winner Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo
and the headquarters of the Red Cross, both of
which were overrun by militias on Monday. Sister
Merrilyn Lee, working with the aid group Caritas
Australia, helped 400 mostly women and children
hide in a Dili convent for a day before militiamen
threatened to burn down the shelter. "So we told
them they had to go," she says. "It was the worst
thing I've had to do in my life. Women with babies
at the breast, pregnant women: they had to go
back to their homes, alone, with no food."
Rumors of mass killings filtered in, although
individual tragedies proved easier to confirm. The
U.N. reported that at least 100 people were killed
in a grenade attack on a church in Suai, while
more than a dozen priests and nuns in Dili and
Baucau have reportedly been murdered. Caritas
Australia says that its East Timor office head, the
Rev. Francisco Barreto, and "most" of his
40-member staff are dead. On Thursday night
independence leader Xanana GusmÆo learned that
his father had been killed in Dili. Many others could
only fear the worst: in several cases militia
members, with the connivance or open disregard of
Indonesian troops, culled suspected independence
supporters from groups of refugees being forced
out of the territory. Their fate remains unknown.
The world knows where those pushed out have
gone--mostly to neighboring West Timor--but not
why. Many of those who fled were among the
21.5% of East Timorese who voted to accept
autonomy within the Republic of Indonesia and who
may fear retribution in an independent East Timor.
In the West Timorese capital of Kupang, former
government officials and their families fill the town's
hotel rooms. Less well-off refugees are housed in
large camps outside the city, controlled by Aitarak
and Besi Merah Putih militiamen who have barred
access to journalists and international aid workers.
Those East Timorese thought to support
independence have been picked out and confined
in separate camps, where their condition cannot be
monitored. |
