Our moment of shame

For a nation that prides itself on being one of the few in the world to constitutionally enshrine the principle of "just and civilized humanity", Indonesians should be appalled by events currently taking place in East Timor.

After two weeks of death and destruction in the wake of the Aug. 30 referendum, United Nations officials believe there are presently some 200,000 displaced persons attempting to find refuge in the hills of East Timor. This is a conservative estimate. The aid group East Timor International Support Center (ETISC) puts the number of refugees much higher, at some 300,000 to 400,000 people. According to the group, refugees are believed to be scattered in clusters across East Timor, deprived of food, water, shelter and even the most basic health care.

Far from finding the safety they are seeking, however, even in flight these people continue to be hunted by the armed pro- Jakarta militias which set off the killing and burning spree. And neither is this murderous hunt confined to East Timor itself.

Agence France Presse, quoting local sources, reports that the terror campaign has begun to move across the border into the province of East Nusa Tenggara. Atambua, a normally placid border town in the western half of the island of Timor and currently home to more than 100,000 refugees from East Timor, has become a lawless place of gunfire, murder and kidnaping. Two people were recently shot dead by unidentified gunmen near a market in the town, and another person was reportedly kidnaped.

Considering the circumstances, the fear that pro-Jakarta militias are hunting down East Timorese refugees, seeking out proindependence supporters in particular, and abducting them or killing them like animals appears to be well founded.

Worst of all, as far as Indonesia's good standing in the international community is concerned, the belief that elements of the Indonesian Army are involved in planning and carrying out the carnage continues to gain credence in the eyes of the world.

One international observer, Dr. Andrew McNaughton from ETISC, said: " ... there is no doubt the Indonesian Army is engaged in an attempted genocide; a final solution against the people of East Timor. We don't use these words lightly, (but) the way in which this has been put together shows that it has been planned for weeks and months as a major operation."

Whether such suspicions reflect reality, the fact remains that the Indonesian Military (TNI) has been unable to quell the violence, the killing and the destruction, even after martial law in East Timor was declared. Given TNI's success in crushing such major uprisings as the aborted 1965 communist coup, such an inability is difficult to accept and gives rise to the suspicion that this seeming incompetence is purposeful.

Whatever the case, there is one way the Indonesian Military can reclaim its reputation and good name; that is by accepting the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry to investigate the entire East Timor affair. Whatever the outcome of such an investigation, all those guilty of human rights abuses in East Timor must be brought to account for their crimes in an independent tribunal, without regard to person or position.

However, the most urgent need is for Jakarta to do everything within its power to stop the violence in East Timor, and agree without delay to airdrop food and other emergency supplies to the hundreds of thousands of refugees who are suffering inhuman hardships in the hinterland of East Timor. Only by living up to its professed adherence to the basic principle of civilized humanitarianism can Indonesia begin to regain some of its lost prestige.