ASIET News Updates - September 7, 1999 ====================================== * Race against genocide! * Bishop attacked as army take over Timor * Surge of nationalistic, anti-foreigner posturing * Australian unions imposes sanctions on Indonesia * Timor's political cleansing * Army conspires with militias to force out foreigners * Indonesia imposes marshall law in East Timor ------------------------------------------------------------- Race against genocide! ====================== Sydney Morning Herald - September 7, 1999 Lindsay Murdoch, Bernard Lagan and Peter Cole-Adams -- Australia said last night it was prepared to "play the leadership role" in an international peacekeeping force in East Timor as Indonesia's military continued to watch over worsening violence and the disappearance of thousands of independence supporters. As pressure mounted on the Government to act, the Prime Minister, key Cabinet ministers and senior security advisers met in an emergency session of the national security committee. The Foreign Minister, Mr Downer, said before the meeting: "It would not take long to put together a very basic force because Australia, for its part, is prepared to make a very major contribution." Meanwhile, thousands of Timorese refugees -- many rounded up from churches, schools and United Nations offices that have been havens for the past month -- were being taken from Dili by truck or bus to unknown destinations. East Timorese sources fear they are being removed to military holding camps well away from international eyes -- possibly in Indonesian controlled West Timor. RAAF aircraft evacuated 300 foreigners -- including Australians -- from Dili to Darwin in five flights yesterday as the militias stepped up their indiscriminate shootings and attacks. In Dili, entire suburbs were deserted and bodies were reported to be decomposing in streets blockaded by militia. Pro-independence leaders have fled into the mountains. The car of Australia's Ambassador to Indonesia, Mr John McCarthy, was fired at as he was driven through the beleaguered capital. In Jakarta, youths burnt a home-made Australian flag outside the embassy. An Australian Defence Force spokesman in Darwin said that the evacuation would continue today. The Navy's high-speed catamaran, HMAS Jervis Bay, which can carry 500 people, remainedon standby in Darwin. All eyes turned to Australia yesterday, with at least two urgent calls to the Prime Minister from the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan. Indonesia's President Habibie said last night that Mr Annan had also called him, asking him "about how we are going to solve it". Only the UN or Indonesia can clear the way for intervention by an armed peacekeeping force -- and only Australia has the forces and equipment capable of moving in at short notice. Mr Downer said last night that the only way to fulfil his promise that Australia would stand by the people of East Timor was to get an international force into the territory as quickly as possible. But he added that this would depend ultimately on decisions made in Jakarta and at UN headquarters in New York. He said the Government was "absolutely outraged" that Mr McCarthy's car had been shot at and that the Australian consulate had also come under fire. Mr Downer indicated that several countries had expressed a readiness to join an international force, and that numbers were not a problem. "We are prepared to play the leadership role in such a force." Malaysia and Thailand said last night they were prepared to send troops to East Timor as part of a peacekeeping force if asked by the UN. The Howard Government is under increasing pressure to act, with a groundswell yesterday for some form of intervention. The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal Clancy, called on Mr Howard to send in armed troops, warning that a failure to do so would leave a scar on Australia's reputation. Angry and sometimes violent demonstrations were held in capital cities. In Darwin, the Indonesian consulate was stoned and windows were broken. In Sydney, outside the Garuda airlines office, unions told other protesters a trade boycott was planned. In Jakarta, demonstrators -- mostly students -- gathered to denounce Australia's criticism of Indonesia over security before and after the UN supervised vote which saw Timorese opt for independence. The mock Australian flag was burnt and the Australian crest defaced on the embassy. Armed militia, watched by Indonesian police and troops, attacked the home of Bishop Carlos Belo, the spiritual leader of East Timor, and a nearby International Committee of the Red Cross compound where about 4,000 East Timorese had sought refuge. The former Australian consul to East Timor Mr James Dunn, who was evacuated by the RAAF from Dili to Darwin yesterday, said there was no question that in the past 24 hours the militias had expanded their activities because they felt impunity with the departure of journalists and United Nations staff. "The militias are free to roam the country and they have taken over large areas," he said. "It is a carefully orchestrated operation and, according to my assesments, it is being orchestrated by two military generals, probably located in West Timor. It is designed partly as an act of revenge for the fact that the Timorese, after 24 years, do not want to stay with Indonesia." Bishop attacked as army take over Timor ======================================= Reuters - September 7, 1999 (abridged) Jonathan Thatcher, Jakarta -- Rampaging pro-Jakarta gangs on eMonday broke one of the last taboos in mostly Catholic East Timor, firing on the home of Bishop Carlos Belo as Indonesia spurned international pleas to stop the violence. United Nations and diplomatic sources said the militias, operating with impunity in the former Portuguese colony, had also attacked a UN convoy going to the airport and the Dili offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Scores, possibly hundreds, have already been killed in recent days as the militia violence has intensified. "They have attacked the bishop's residence. Last I heard the militia were in the compound shooting at the house," one UN official told Reuters by phone from the East Timor capital Dili. "They have crossed all the lines, and having crossed those lines I don't know where they are going to stop." One diplomat said the object of the attack on Nobel laureate Belo's home was to force out some 6,000 refugees who had gone there to escape the violence engulfing East Timor and which the Indonesian military and police have done nothing to prevent. Thousands of refugees have already spilled across the border into West Timor. The United Nations, which organised last week's independence referendum, plans to evacuate half its staff there. Most local and foreign journalists have also been forced to leave. "The strategy is get the world's ears and eyes out. That is very disturbing," one Western diplomat said. Some observers say that if that were to happen, the militias, could embark on a campaign of mass slaughter to force pro-independence supporters to flee the territory. Joao Carrascalao, Australia's senior East Timorese resistance officer, told Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio he had received a report of mutilated bodies along the road to Dili. "One person who travelled from Dili to Atanbua [in West Timor] reported that alongside the road there were hundreds of heads on sticks and bodies everywhere," Carrascalao said. "I've been told they could count at least 145 dead bodies on the outskirts of Dili," Alfredo Ferreira, the National Council for Timorese Resistance representative in Darwin, told Reuters. The fate of jailed rebel leader, Xanana Gusmao, is also uncertain, with Indonesia at the weekend saying he would be released on Wednesday in East Timor. But diplomats said that would be effectively mean the murder of Gusmao, the man most expect to become the first president of a new East Timor. "I do not want my client to be sent to Dili without a clear explanation from the government," his lawyer Hendardi said. Indonesia has offered no clear explanation why it is allowing the violence to go unchecked. Asked about the issue on Monday morning, Habibie would only stress the success of last week's ballot, which was held in an almost total absence of violence. "Come on! What we have achieved right now is one thing. We have achieved the fact that we have a transparent, peaceful ballot," he said. Surge of nationalistic, anti-foreigner posturing ================================================ Australian Financial Review - September 7, 1999 Greg Earl, Jakarta -- Indonesia's loss of East Timor is likely to spark a surge of nationalistic, anti-foreign posturing in the run-up to a bitterly-contested presidential election in November. While President B.J. Habibie moved quickly to calm emotions with a conciliatory nationally televised address after the results were announced, the man who may replace him lashed out at Australia's role in the independence vote. The country's highest profile Muslim leader, Mr Abdurrahman Wahid, said Australia was biased and he regretted independence for East Timor "because I am a person who loves integration with Indonesia". The leading opposition figure and potential presidential candidate, Mrs Megawati Soekarnoputri, said she was saddened by the results because she had hoped East Timor would remain part of Indonesia. Dr Habibie called for calm in his address and said he understood that many people could be embittered that East Timor had rejected Indonesia's offer of wide-ranging autonomy as an alternative to independence. Military spokesman Brigadier General Soedarjat said the military accepted the result as the aspiration of the East Timor people, but the reported critical reaction from a group of military veterans who served in East Timor underlined the difficult domestic political implications of the vote for an already fragmented government. Mrs Megawati and Mr Abdurrahman are generally seen as campaigners for democratic reform in Indonesia against the remainder of the Soeharto establishment in the Habibie government, but they may now use the Timor vote to attack the Government. Mr Abdurrahman was quoted in The Jakarta Post yesterday as saying Indonesia should maintain only minimal diplomatic relations with East Timor because it [Indonesia] was not a cockroach nation. Mr Abdurrahman attacked Australia's role in the independence process describing it as "mad" and calling for all Australian staff to be removed from the United Nations mission because they were biased. Mr Abdurrahman, a notoriously contradictory but revered leader of Indonesia's largest Muslim social organisation, appeared last week to step up his campaign to become the country's next president by encouraging his supporters to back away from Mrs Megawati. Academic commentators quoted in the Indonesian media have predicted continuing violence in East Timor and encouraged the Government to immediately divert spending from the province to looking after refugees. Australian unions imposes sanctions on Indonesia ================================================ Sydney Morning Herald - September 7, 1999 Mark Metherell, Phil Cornford and Joseph Kerr -- Protesters burnt flags at rallies across Australia and begged for armed intervention in East Timor yesterday as unions threatened to slap industrial bans on Indonesia's missions throughout Australia in protest over the latest bloodshed. "Howard Howard you can't hide, you're in bed with genocide", about 600 protesters shouted at one of several rallies held yesterday in Sydney, Darwin, Victoria and Perth. "Save East Timor NOW" was the central message from the protesters as they called on the Federal Government to have the "guts" to stand up to Indonesia and impose economic sanctions. The union black ban by the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Workers Union (CEPU), came amid rising community outrage. At least two Australian aid organisations, Caritas and CARE Australia, evacuated staff from East Timor yesterday, saying they were no longer prepared to put their lives at risk. The union ban -- starting with mail and telecommunications -- is the first shot in a union campaign being co-ordinated by the ACTU. It is expected to spread to bans on Indonesian shipping and Garuda airline. In Sydney yesterday, 300 union protesters gathered outside the Garuda offices before marching to the Prime Minister's office block. The secretary of the Labor Council, Mr Michael Costa, called for the international community to step in and said the labour movement would start imposing bans on Indonesian businesses. In Victoria, more than 600 demonstrators marched on a meeting of the Federal Cabinet. While Australia dithered with diplomacy, the speakers said, people were dying. The secretary of the Australia East Timor Association, Mr John Sinnot, said yesterday: "Why are we so scared of Indonesia? It's bankrupt -- morally and economically." The ACTU president, Ms Jennie George, said the Government's actions had been "seriously inadequate". The national vice-president of CEPU, Mr Len Cooper, said bans imposed on mail deliveries and telecommunications repairs at Indonesian organisations in Victoria yesterday would be imposed nationally from today. Mr Cooper said this would eventually lead to a total communications block on the Indonesian embassy and consulates throughout Australia. The Australian Red Cross said an attack yesterday on a Red Cross compound in Dili, where 2,000 displaced people were sheltering, was a tragic and serious violation of the Red Cross mandate. The RAAF yesterday flew five Caritas and two CARE workers to Darwin from Dili after CARE evacuated its 71 Timorese and Indonesian workers, most of them by bus to West Timor. Timor's political cleansing =========================== South China Morning Post - September 7, 1999 Joanna Jolly, Dili and Agencies -- Indonesian troops openly joined pro-Jakarta militias' reign of terror in East Timor yesterday in what appeared to be a campaign to force thousands of people to flee the territory. Forces were moving through the capital, Dili, shooting anyone who refused to leave and setting fire to their homes, a journalist said. Amid reports of hundreds of deaths and atrocities, witnesses said soldiers and militiamen were marching screaming refugees at gunpoint and herding them out of East Timor on trucks and ships. Western sources in Jakarta said the army, having lost its battle to retain East Timor through the ballot box following last week's 78.5 per cent vote in favour of independence, was enacting a "Plan B" of mass evacuation and mass murder. Filipino doctor Lenin Pascual, who got out of Dili on Sunday, said his team treated 300 people, many with gunshot wounds, in 11 days. "The militia carry only home-made guns and machetes but the people we were treating had been shot with [automatic assault rifles]. That's how we knew the military was shooting them and no longer the militia," he said. "Some of those wearing the black shirts of the militia had military bearing ... at the airport, even soldiers were saluting one of those in black shirts." David Wimhurst, chief spokesman for the United Nations in Dili, said before his own evacuation to Darwin that East Timorese were being "rounded up by the armed forces and trucked to West Timor". In another context such action would be called ethnic cleansing, he said, adding it was "political cleansing". Besieged UN officials ordered the evacuation to Australia of 200 of the election workers who organised the referendum. UN staff were pulled out of two more provincial towns, but 231 remained in Dili and four other towns. UN staff still in Dili met last night to consider whether to withdraw. UN Assistance Mission in East Timor (Unamet) chief Ian Martin said later: "I can't completely preclude the possibility that Unamet would have to pull out if the security situation made it completely irresponsible to stay." All day gunfire rang through the capital, where witnesses reported seeing piles of corpses. International officials and aid workers evacuated for their own safety described Dili as a "ghost town", while Indonesia's chief of police admitted security was "out of control" and "the Government there is no longer functioning". Armed forces chief General Wiranto said ministers would consider whether to place East Timor under military rule. In the meantime, still more troops would be sent. "Violence is not allowed ... We will not tolerate any brutal acts, whatever the reason," he said. Hours earlier, armed thugs backed by the military attacked and set fire to the Red Cross compound and the adjoining house of Nobel peace laureate Bishop Carlos Belo, driving out 8,000 terrified refugees. A military spokesman said 20 of the refugees had been found shot dead on a beach. The state Antara news agency said 30 had been killed. Witnesses said shots were fired into the air and into the ground outside the bishop's house, forcing him out into his garden. He tried to negotiate with the military for some time before being evacuated by police to Baucau. The bishop said: "Everybody is leaving their houses because they are being threatened and their houses have been burned down. The military, the militia, they are occupying the city." Baucau Bishop Basilio da Nascimento said Bishop Belo was "deeply hurt, especially psychologically. He's in a state of shock". Church and pro-independence sources said they had heard the 8,000 refugees from Bishop Belo's house and the Red Cross compound were loaded on to two navy vessels in Dili harbour. Authorities said nearly 28,000 "supporters of integration within Indonesia" had sought refuge at police and military posts. Most had been sent to West Timor, they said. Refugees were streaming into West Timor at a rate of 1,000 per hour, the Red Cross said. One UN official in Dili said after the attack on Bishop Belo: "The [pro-Jakarta militias] have crossed all the lines, and having crossed those lines I don't know where they are going to stop." Joao Carrascalao, the East Timorese resistance chief in Australia, said: "One person who travelled from Dili to Atambua [in West Timor] reported that alongside the road there were hundreds of heads on sticks and bodies." Britain and the United States said Indonesia had to deal with the violence in East Timor or let the international community help. Australian combat troops were placed on heightened alert. The UN Security Council is sending a mission to Jakarta this week to discuss "concrete steps to allow the peaceful implementation" of last week's vote. Army conspires with militias to force out foreigners ==================================================== South China Morning Post -- September 7, 1999 Joanna Jolly -- A frightening pattern has developed throughout East Timor, with the Indonesian army using intimidation to force out foreigners. The pattern involves foreigners first being told they will soon be attacked and that the police are unable to protect them. Militias are then used to attack foreign offices and missions, often firing into the air and not directly at the foreign workers. The army then has an excuse to come in and evacuate foreigners. In Suai, where the United Nations evacuated 55 local and international staff on Sunday, the pattern was no different. The situation in Suai had been calm. UN staff were told there would be an attack on Saturday night. However, the attack began about midday on Sunday. Members of the Laksau militia rampaged through the streets, setting fire to houses and killing two people. UN officials were threatened for a day before the assault, which forced the locals from their homes. One UN official said this was a deliberate strategy to create the impression that a large proportion of East Timorese wanted to remain with Indonesia. As UN staff evacuated from Suai there were reports that two people had been hacked to death outside the church compound, where as many as 3,000 people had been sheltering during the past few weeks. UN staff were extremely concerned for the safety of up to 1,000 people still in the compound. Unconfirmed reports yesterday from Suai said that 100 people were massacred in the church compound, with many more fleeing to the hills. When the decision was made to evacuate the UN personnel, Laksau militiamen obstructed the UN for one hour, shouting and yelling. Police kept the militia metres away from the car but did nothing to intervene. "The militia have been unleashed and are doing the dirty work with the TNI [Indonesian military] and the police in the background," said a UN official. Before the attack the bupati (district head) had met UN officials, who thanked him for the calm situation in the district. But the bupati said that many people were unhappy with the result of the referendum. He said the population was distraught at the result and wanted to be evacuated. But there was no evidence that this was the case. Indonesia imposes marshall law in East Timor ============================================ Agence France Presse - September 7, 1999 Jakarta -- Indonesia has imposed martial law on East Timor following the collapse of law and order after the troubled territory voted overwhelmingly for independence. "Yes, East Timor has been put under a military emergency status as of 00:00 Western Indonesian Time," military spokesman Brigadier General Sudrajat told AFP on the telephone. Indonesian police had said the security situation in East timor was "out of control," and sought additional troops reinforcement to beef up security. On Monday, military chief General Wiranto said he would seek a review of the security status of East Timor at a cabinet meeting. The review would be to establish whether there was a need to declare a status that would give "firmer legal authority to take action against anyone carrying arms, who shoot on people at will," he said. "I will propose or give consideration so that authority is vested in the security personnel so that they do not hesitate to act," he said. An MP of the Moslem United development Party was quoted by the Kompas daily as saying President B J Habibie had sought parliament's approval on monday to declare martial law. Witnesses have said Indonesian soldiers and pro-Jakarta militiamen were Monday marching screaming refugees at gunpoint and herding them onto trucks to drive them out of East Timor, as reports spoke of hundreds of deaths and gruesome atrocities. ********************************************************** Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET) PO Box 458, Broadway NSW 2007 Australia Phone: 61-(0)2-96901230 Fax : 61-(0)2-96901381 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW : http://www.peg.apc.org/~asiet/ **********************************************************
