Cabinet meets over Atambua killings

Cabinet meets over Atambua killings

JAKARTA (JP); Under international pressure following the
killing of three UN workers in Atambua, East Nusa Tenggara, last
week, President Abdurrahman Wahid called a special Cabinet
meeting to discuss the latest situation in the area shortly after
returning from a week-long overseas trip on Monday morning.

The meeting was attended by Vice President Megawati
Soekarnoputri and top political and security officials including
Coordinating Minister for Political, Social and Security Affairs
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Indonesian Military chief Adm.
Widodo A.S. and the National Police chief Gen. Rusdihardjo.

The two-hour meeting at the Presidential Palace seemed to
produce few breakthroughs however, with Susilo reiterating that
Jakarta, East Timor pro-independence leaders and the UN should
work together on the issues of the militias and refugees in West
Timor.

"We are calling on UNTAET (the United Nations Transitional
Administration in East Timor) and the CNRT (National Resistance
Council of East Timor) to sit together to look for an overall
solution to the problem," Susilo told reporters after the
meeting.

He said the government would "very much like to see that these
(the militia and refugee) problems be solved in the best possible
way."

"Indonesia is not trying to be defensive but (we) would like
to have the problem discussed objectively," the minister said,
adding that a timetable for the proposed talks with UNTAET and
CNRT would be discussed at the next Cabinet meeting.

The statement came in the wake of a UN Security Council
resolution that unanimously called on Indonesia to immediately
disarm and disband the militias in West Timor.

Commenting on the resolution, Susilo said that the government
"has taken steps" to restore order and security in the area.

Susilo had said earlier that a battalion of troops and one
company of the police Mobile Brigade had been dispatched to
Atambua to restore order.

A 10-member investigation team of military and police officers
has also been deployed to the border town to find those
responsible for the violence.

Suspects

Later in the day, head of the investigation team into the West
Timor violence said the team already has the names of the
suspects allegedly responsible for the killing of militia leader
Olivio Mendoza Moruk, 45, whose murder was said to be the trigger
for last Wednesday's violence.

"They number more than five people," Police Senior
Superintendent T.H.L. Tobing was quoted by Antara as saying in
the East Nusa Tenggara capital of Kupang.

"We already have the names of the suspects and we are awaiting
the appropriate time to arrest them."

Tobing said the suspects in Olivio's murder were henchmen of a
local criminal gang leader, Aloysius Bere, who was delivered by
Olivio to the police after he attempted to extort money from
Olivio's driver.

Bere's men killed Olivio in revenge for having handed their
leader to the police, Tobing said.

"The perpetrators are all local men. There is no indication of
involvement by infiltrators from East Timor or of some sort of
international conspiracy," Tobing said.

In the case of the murder of the three UN relief workers -- an
American from Puerto Rico, a Croatian and an Ethiopian -- the
team had yet to find a suspect, Tobing said.

"There is no one arrested yet on suspicion of involvement in
the attack on the UNHCR office in Atambua that left three
international staff members dead."

He said the police were currently questioning 15 people over
the attack.

Tobing added that a total of eight people, including Olivio
and the three UN employees, had been killed in the violence in
and around Atambua last week.

He said four local people were burned to death in their homes
and two others seriously injured after Olivio's supporters set
fire to around 67 houses in Lorotulus village, in the Malaka
Barat sub-district on Tuesday.

"The results of our fact-finding on site says so. Not less,
not more," Tobing said of the toll.

Residents and relief officials have spoken of between 11 and
20 people being killed in the violence in Malaka Barat. (byg)