Living an unending nightmare

Living an unending nightmare

Thank you for printing the article Liliana, one of the victims
of savagery that devastated E. Timor on Sunday, Feb. 6, 2000.
This matter-of-fact presentation and the heart-rending picture of
the little girl tell the whole story of what it is like to be an
Indonesian today.

Make no mistake, you or I could be the next victim of the
murderous thugs that the military seem to be able to find with
ease. For this kind of killing, the murderers either have had to
be crazed by their own sense of rectitude, that is, absolutely
fanatical, or they have to be psychopathic killers, torturing,
raping and murdering for the pleasure that they get from
it. Needless to say, they are, by any measure of insanity, quite
mad but with a dreadful coldness and calculation in what they do,
which makes them worse than the most feared wild beasts who,
after all, do not kill for pleasure.

An example of their terrible handiwork is a massacre,
reported by a Daily Telegraph reporter in Ambon, on Dec. 22, 1999
and Dec. 23, 1999 at the Wainibe Wood Industry factory on Buru
island, which was carried out by supposed Muslims. About 100
people, who just happened to be Christians, were collected into
the main factory; the total victims comes from questioning the
survivors now in refugee camps, who hid in other parts of the
compound while the killings went on. The police and military on
the island say that they were too few to confront the killers but
some survivors say that there were police and military helping
the killers, and that others who were supposed to be guarding the
workers, disappeared when the killing started.

As we know, to our cost, where the police and military are
involved in any way, it becomes impossible to find people or to
question them or to carry out an investigation. Suddenly the
police become incapable of any action, but it is of the utmost
urgency that the militia be disbanded and their weapons taken
from them. Wiranto insisted that they were necessary
and, despite strong protests from all levels of society, he
recruited them, clothed them and armed them. It then appears he
simply instructed them to go and incite trouble wherever they
wanted to, if we are to judge by all their subsequent actions. It
certainly does not seem that there is any one in charge of them.
However, even if only to prevent themselves being defrauded by
double claims for pay and expenses, the military or police,
whoever are their official paymasters, must have a record of
their names, ID numbers and the addresses according to their ID
cards. With genuine effort, it should be possible to round up
most of these men simply from these records, or when they next
pick up their pay.

To the ordinary person, it seems that we are living in an
unending nightmare of random killing with no one capable of
ending it. Those responsible for keeping it going, however,
should take note from history that those responsible do usually
end up paying for their crimes.

W.Waller

W. WALLER

Cianjur, West Java