Liquisa nearly a rebel base
Liquisa nearly a rebel base
JAKARTA (JP): Fretilin, the East Timor armed separatist movement, had been turning the Liquisa regency into its major base camp when the military moved into the area last month, Armed Forces Chief Gen. Feisal Tanjung said yesterday.
Military intelligence reports suggested some Fretilin activities around the regency, including the possibility of an armed attack to capture the area, Feisal told a hearing with Commission I of the House of Representatives.
"They had planned to attack Liquisa. They hadn't set the exact date yet," Feisal said, reading from a report from the East Timor military command.
The rebels had been planning to turn the town into their base camp, he said. "Liquisa is very close to the capital city, Dili," he added.
Feisal said the information about Fretilin's activities in the area came from local people.
He said that, given the situation in the area, the decision by the military command to send in troops to Liquisa had been "correct".
If the military hadn't acted swiftly and thoroughly, he said, Liquisa may have been turned into a base for Fretilin to launch a campaign.
He said that the proximity to Dili made Liquisa a convenient place for Fretilin, in order to maximize exposure to foreigners visiting Dili and, thereby, to gain publicity for their campaign.
The Armed Forces (ABRI) chief was asked by legislators yesterday for an explanation of the killing of six East Timorese by the military on Jan. 12 in Gariana, Liquisa.
Allegations that the six had been unarmed civilians have prompted the Armed Forces headquarters in Jakarta to send a fact- finding team to East Timor.
The National Commission on Human Rights is also conducting its own investigation and plans to announce its findings later this month.
The issue dominated yesterday's hearing between Feisal and the House's Commission I, which deals with security affairs.
Feisal said the ABRI fact-finding team had returned from East Timor and was now writing up its report.
Council
On a separate occasion yesterday, Army Chief of Staff Gen. R. Hartono said that he will announce today the line up of the Officers' Honorary Council who will take up the report and come up with its recommendations regarding the matter.
Hartono also insisted that the six killed were Fretilin members and the investigation is looking into whether the troopers had followed proper procedures in dealing with them during the clash, Antara reported.
He told reporters that the incident in Liquisa was a "regular arm contact" that frequently occurred between troopers and Fretilin.
Feisal yesterday said that, based on the report by East Timor military chief, Col. Kiki Syahnakri, two of the six East Timorese killed were Fretilin members. The other four were civilians who were being recruited by Fretilin.
The report, according to Feisal, underlined that the six were killed during an armed clash with troops. It refuted the suggestion, made in the foreign press, that they had been ordinary and unarmed villagers.
The East Timor military's report stated that the local military command arrested four people in Liquisa on Jan. 10 who were believed to have been supplying the rebels with food they collected from Fretilin supporters in the area.
Subsequent investigations confirmed their suspicion, according to the report.
Military intelligence had extracted information from the four about a mobilization of rebels that had been underway since Jan. 5 in the village of Vatuvuo, Maubara district, in Liquisa.
The military estimated that 45 armed people had been deployed during the mobilization.
Feisal also gave some details of the Jan. 12 clash in Gariana that led to the death of six East Timorese, again based on the report by the local military.
It involved the Parkit unit, a military intelligence team, and rebels numbering about 10 armed people, he said.
During that clash, the military shot dead two rebels.
A soldier was wounded by bullets in his chest and back.
After the first contact, the military search for the rebels' hideout led to the second armed contact, in which four more rebels were shot dead. (swe/emb)