Rupanya milisi pro-integrasi hanya berani bila tidak
ada lawan. Seorang wartawan Irlandiapun mengemukakan
hal senada. Sementara itu pasukan unyil TNI semakin
kelihatan bertambah unyil. ABCNews menyinggung pasukan
unyil yang melongo melihat pasukan raseksa Aussie yang
tinggi besar dengan pakaian tebalnya, sehingga makin
mengesankan keperkasaannya.
Di bawah ini artikel dari Sidney Morning Herald, yang
menyebutkan pasukan TNI sbb:
"...They ran across the dusty tarmac, securing the
perimeter. But waiting and watching were a few dozen
Indonesian soldiers, representatives of a humiliated,
embittered and culsively violent force that is leaving
East Timor in disgrace.
Saya jadi ingat dengan acara dalam 'Animal Planet' yaitu
tentang sekelompok anjing liar (wild dog) di Masai Mara,
Afrika. Mereka kelihatan perkasa dan mengandalkan jumlah
untuk memburu zebra, wildebeast, ataupun kerbau liar.
Hal ini hanya terjadi bila tidak ada Singa atau kucing
besar lainnya di sekitarnya. Sering sekali mangsa yang
diperoleh dengan susah payah harus ditinggalkan saja
bila seekor singa mendekat. Gambaran ini rasanya pas
dengan wajah TNI masa kini.
Pada akhirnya, pasukan TNI makin kehilangan muka.
Rasanya mereka sudah harus mulai latihan senam pagi lagi.
Terlama banyak dan terlalu lama mereka duduk-duduk minum
kopi di belakang meja birokrasi, shg membuat personil TNI yang
seharusnya kekar menjadi berperut buncit karena kurang
olah raga. Sungguh tidak mempunyai kebanggaan diri dan
tidak membanggakan rakyat Indonesia.
Pidato Wiranto tentang Lapangan Ikada tak lebih dari
romantisme sejarah yang dibesar-besarkan. Tekadnya untuk
mempertahankan tanah air serasa terlalu dibesar-besarkan.
Tidak ada real power di dalam tubuh TNI. Yang ada hanya
real loser. Sudah sepantasnya bila mereka minggir teratur
dan memberikan jalan bagi pemimpin sipil untuk tampil.
Sejarah membuktikan pimpinan militer tidak bisa membangun
militer yg disegani. Yang dapat melakukannya justru
pimpinan sipil seperti jaman Sukarno.
Demikian layar pertunjukan secara pelan ditutup, sejalan
dengan selesainya serial cerita 'TNI gugur'.
+anjas
------------------------
Bullies melt away after soldiers hit the
streets
By LINDSAY MURDOCH, Herald Correspondent in
Dili
The thugs of Dili's streets disappeared quickly. When the
first Australian soldiers arrived in full combat dress, their
rifles at the ready, the militiamen pretended they were the
very refugees they had terrorised for weeks.
Some of the killers, rapists and looters walked in small
groups along debris-strewn streets waving at the
Australians who began arriving shortly after dawn
yesterday in huge cargo planes from Townsville and
Darwin in what is likely to be Australia's most significant
military operation since World War II.
But the militias no longer carried the rifles given them by
the Indonesian armed forces or brandished their
machetes, knives or home-made pistols.
A couple of the thugs were confronted by heavily armed
New Zealand soldiers on Dili's docks but handed over
their pistols without argument.
"They are basically cowards," said an Irish journalist,
Robert Carroll, who has spent the past nine days hiding
out in Dili and the surrounding mountains. "They ran
away when real soldiers arrived."
The militia last night emptied their rifles into the air as
they had done every night since the United Nations
announced that the East Timorese had rejected
Indonesia's brutal rule and voted to become the world's
newest independent state.
They set alight or trashed the few buildings still
habitablein the town from which 70,000 people have fled.
But as hundreds of foreign troops arrived, tense and ready
for action, the bullies disappeared and the fires were
burning themselves out.
Major Chip Henriss-Anderssen, of Townsville's 3rd
Brigade, said at Dili wharf that genuine refugees appeared
to be frightened and remained in small groups.
"But after a while they came up, one or two at a time, and
shook our hands," he said. "The little kids were saying,
hey mister! Perhaps after a while we will be able to teach
them to say g'day."
The scene at Dili's airport was surreal. Shortly after dawn
crack Special Air Service troops based in Perth were
among the first Australians to arrive in giant Hercules
transports.
They ran across the dusty tarmac, securing the perimeter.
But waiting and watching were a few dozen Indonesian
soldiers, representatives of a humiliated, embittered and
convulsively violent force that is leaving East Timor in
disgrace.
Indonesia has never suffered so great a humiliation - the
world's fourth most populous nation rejected by people
who had suffered 24 years of repression, most of whom
are now homeless and still living in terror.
The few dozen Indonesian soldiers who remained to
watch wave after wave of troops arriving did not seem too
fussed. Asked about the destruction and looting, one said:
"This incident happened before we arrived." He declined
further comment.
Major-General Peter Cosgrove, the Australian
commander of the multinational peacekeeping force,
described the reception his soldiers received as "benign".
"We have had a cordial reception from the TNI
[Indonesian armed forces]."
Nobody mentioned that it was the TNI which through its
proxy militias had destroyed most of what Indonesia
claimed was its 27th province and stood by and watched
mass killings and other atrocities.
General Cosgrove was not underestimating the risks as
more than 1,000 of his troops sat under the few trees at
the airport with shade. "It is still from my point of view a
very risky environment beyond the sight of the nearest
Australian soldier."
Our group of 40 journalists was ordered not to leave the
airport after we arrived in a crammed Hercules from
Darwin.
The first soldiers who went into the now wrecked
departure lounge found it smeared with excrement. Red
and white banners, the colours of Indonesia's flag, still
hang outside the VIP lounge, one of the few buildings in
Dili not destroyed.
Tonight we will be escorted under armed guard to the
Turismo, the waterfront hotel from where many of us had
fled in fear of our lives.
The hotel is trashed but we will set up a makeshift camp
in the mosquito-infested garden where only a couple of
weeks ago Australia's former deputy prime minister, Mr
Tim Fischer, and an Australian delegation of ballot
observers sat and drank beer and talked confidently of the
birth of a new nation.
There is some good news, though. The UN compound
where we spent six long and scared days before being
evacuated has not been burnt and much of the UN's
equipment is untouched.
But a UN official who has been staying at the fortified
Australian consulate, not far from the airport, said: "It's a
pretty horrific picture overall. There are thousands of
people dying up in the hills without food or water. They
need urgent help. There is nothing left in the town for
people to return to."
Robert Carroll, the Irish journalist, said he had seen
young children with bloated stomachs and families with
nothing to eat but small portions of rice.
"People have been told the peacekeepers are coming but
they don't believe anything any more," he said.
______________________________________________________
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