Military intrigue in East Timor widespread

By Aboeprijadi Santoso

DILI, East Timor (JP): The winners did not take all, but instead suffered great pain. The most bizarre and ultimately tragic phenomenon in East Timor is that soon after the people democratically expressed their wish to part ways with Indonesia, it was not the victors, but the losers, who took to the streets to "celebrate" the outcome.

So, how can armed militiamen who support autonomy continue to act freely, if desperately, and do anything they wish, including violently attacking the population, with impunity?

What is happening in East Timor is not, as some media have suggested, a continuing conflict between "two warring factions, the pro and antiautonomy camps".

It is a war of pro-Jakarta gangs sponsored by the Army against a majority -- some 80 percent -- of the population who support independence. It is a war against the people.

Once most media and observers were gone, Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao's National Council for East Timor Resistance (CNRT) and its supporters became targets of terror. But no armed proindependence groups -- Renetil, Impettu students or Falintil -- are reported to be moving around or preparing a counterattack in Dili or elsewhere in East Timor.

Still, thousands are either being slaughtered or becoming internally displaced persons, forced to hide or flee to the hills to survive, creating a refugee crisis inside East Timor which is distinct from the mass evacuation to West Timor.

The East Timor crisis is an anomaly because anarchy is widespread as the military remains dominant -- with martial law its dominance is even greater -- but has completely failed to do its job. The Army and police exercise power without being able or willing to halt the anarchy.

The state and armed gangs continue to collude to sanction the people as if there was a vacuum of power, but in reality the Army is consolidating its grip on power. This collusion continues unabated -- if only because the people humiliated the Army by registering to vote and by gaining victory at the ballot box.

The local administration collapsed as civil servants fled en masse just before the outcome of the ballot was announced. The Peace and Stability Commission left even earlier, followed by the official election team from Jakarta who rushed to an Air Force Hercules, leaving behind UNAMET and the local police, who could do little to prevent the escalating violence.

As a result, it is left to the Army and the criminal gangs of unemployed, illiterate and drunken men and youths of the pro- Jakarta militias to seize the postballot momentum on the streets.

The virtual anarchy, in other words, seems to have been at least partly planned and surely made possible by the protective role of local military leaders. The bloody unrest at Kuluhun, Mataduro and Becora, to take a few examples, which led to diplomatic repercussions demonstrate this collusion.

Each case of unrest was triggered by simple incidents which could have been easily provoked. On Aug. 26, the pro-Jakarta Aitarak militia attacked locals and chased journalists in Kuluhun, a village north of Becora, east Dili, where many proindependence supporters live. Eyewitnesses saw a local police officer shoot dead one of the three victims in the incident. The case was neither disclosed nor investigated.

In Becora, an incident on Aug. 31 took place when a jeep carrying Aitarak militia members stopped on the main road, incited anger and damaged a house. A CNRT sympathizer fatally wounded an Aitarak member named Placido Nemeses. When the police arrived an hour later, they discussed the incident with some militia members, but refused to hear testimony from others involved in the clash. Police later returned with UNAMET civilian police to arrest the CNRT sympathizer. The locals were so angry by the perceived injustice, that all nonlocals -- journalists and armed police included -- were driven out of the area.

The local police were ineffective: too little, too late and sometimes unfair. The case of Mataduro, the site of another postballot militia attack near the UNAMET headquarters, suggests the nature of the threat of the militia actions.

As the fighting broke out, an intelligence agent, presumably directing the attack, succeeded in preventing the militias from killing a foreign television journalist. No UNAMET personnel were hurt; elsewhere most of the victims among its staff were Timorese. Clearly militia actions are not intended to cause greater political repercussions.

A greater tragedy, however, remains unreported. A three-day militia attack following the announcement of ballot results took place on the banks of the Masau river, near Taibesi.

This too confirms the pattern seen elsewhere. A militia gang burned the houses, resulting in deaths and a sea of refugees. Local residents, surely not all of them CNRT sympathizers, fled to the hills only to return the next morning and flee again before dark in order to survive. There was no police presence, probably because the incident happened near a military district office. But once the attack started, rumors of the next "operation" were spread by the village head. Apparently with his consent, the refugees were chased and persecuted. This must have resulted in many deaths.

From Sept. 6 to Sept. 8, with the few remaining journalists and observers in hiding and UNAMET isolated, only dark smoke witnessed the truth as Dili burned. But the collusion throughout recent weeks between agents of local power holders and the pro- Jakarta militias, with the latter acquiring a certain space of free play, is plain.

It was there to be seen by everyone -- from the use of local government facilities, to police helping the proautonomy campaign and the use of automatic weapons by some militia members despite the cantonization agreement. Some police chiefs privately conceded they could do nothing as long as the militias were guarded by the Army.

If the actions of the army and militias are intended to provoke the armed Falintil guerrilla's to come down from the hills, it has so far failed. But it put the Timorese independence supporters, while remaining loyal to the cantonization pact, in a great dilemma as to if it should defend the people. It is this dilemma which creates leverage for the Army to move ahead as long as the UN troops remain away.

With UN troops coming soon, however, the balance of power will change. Indonesia should cooperate with the international community and has to work with the legitimate winners of the Aug. 30 ballot -- Xanana Gusmao and the CNRT -- and UNAMET to achieve peace and stability in East Timor. Other hidden agendas will only destroy the image of the Army and jeopardize the credibility of the government and the economy of Indonesia.

The UN should not leave the people at the mercy of the Army, which has failed both to respect the Aug. 30 ballot and to put Indonesia's national interest before its own. As the Dec. 7, 1975 invasion was initiated by the Army, it is its responsibility to restore peace and order and to prepare the return of the territory to the UN. Now it's time to do both quickly and with dignity, including curbing its so-called "local mafia".

Indeed, the UN peacekeeping force will inevitably have to deal with the military and the local power structure before it can restore peace. For East Timor is neither Kosovo, where the Serbs surrendered orderly to the Western powers, nor Somalia, where anarchy seemed complete when the United States troops arrived a few years ago. Without breaking the military's local network, including the police and militia leaders, and disarming the militias, violence will continue to prevail in East Timor.

The writer, a journalist with Radio Netherlands, was witness to the recent events in East Timor.