Findings on Timor don't jar military
Findings on Timor don't jar military
DILI, East Timor (JP): The local military is not shaken by the National Commission on Human Rights' recent finding that troops violated basic rights when they killed six people in a Jan. 12 operation in Liquisa.
Chief of the Udayana Military Command Maj. Gen. R. Adang Ruchiatna, who oversees security in East Timor, Nusa Tenggara and Bali, said the finding would not inhibit the military from carrying out its day-to-day duties.
"ABRI (the Armed Forces) will not hesitate to decide and act as it believes is necessary in order to protect the people," he told journalists when hosting an Idul Fitri gathering with local officials and community leaders at his residence.
The commission's fact-finding team concluded last week that military personnel intimidated and tortured six villagers in order to extract confessions in the Jan. 12 operation against Fretilin rebels.
ABRI, which has set up its own fact finding team, has found that troops "deviated" from standard procedures during the operation, but insisted that two of the deceased were rebels and the rest were sympathizers.
The Army has set up a 36-member Officers' Honor Council to follow up on ABRI's investigations and recommend the necessary actions.
"What was said by the commission is correct as far as human rights is concerned. They see it from the human rights point of view. ABRI's fact finding team focuses on its military aspect," Ruchiatna said.
"Obviously, the conclusions drawn by the commission and by ABRI will be different because they have different focuses in their investigations," he said.
Ruchiatna said that he would personally be glad if more parties formed their own fact-finding teams so as to obtain more evidence concerning the incident, which has sparked an international outcry.
Ruchiatna said he could not say at the moment what had gone wrong in the operation in Liquisa, an area about 60 kilometers west of here, which the military believes is a stronghold of pro- independence rebels.
The Officers' Honor Council will examine the military aspects of the operation, such as what the orders were and how the troops implemented them in the field, he added.
Ruchiatna said that as whole, security in the former Portuguese colony is well under control. He stressed that ABRI closely monitors Liquisa and areas around Dili.
"It's foolish to assume that rebels stand still at one place. They will do everything they can to operate as close as possible to the capital," he said.
He added that following the Liquisa incident, many citizens have approached and asked him for arms so that they will be able to help ABRI track down rebels in the jungle.
Australia
Meanwhile in Sydney, Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans said yesterday that Indonesia recognized it would have to confront allegations about human rights abuses in East Timor.
The country's recently-established Human Rights Commission issued a report Wednesday contradicting military accounts of the killing of six people on Jan. 12 in the territory's Liquisa regency, AFP reported.
It said Indonesian soldiers killed six non-combatant civilians. The military had said the casualties were two Fretilin guerrillas fighting for independence and four members of a pro- independence clandestine network.
"I think the Indonesians fully recognize that this is an issue they have to confront and deal with head on," Evans told a television interviewer.
He said the situation in East Timor had "obviously been deteriorating, particularly over the last three months or so."
But Evans said Indonesia also seemed "capable of applying this corrective approach," citing the fact that it had established the commission which produced "these rather striking and startling findings."
The foreign minister said the Indonesian army's investigation through the Military Honor Council was still underway.
"The Military Honor Council, although it seems an extraordinarily named institution, is the traditional investigative court-martial type institution in Indonesia and I don't think there is any grounds at all for skepticism at this stage about how that process will work itself out," he said.
Indonesia seized the former Portuguese colony in December 1975 and annexed it the following July in defiance of the United Nations. (yac/pan)