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)