Send in the marines

Send in the marines

The government has finally decided to do what it should have
done months and months ago: Disarm the gun-totting pro-Indonesia
militias who have been terrorizing and killing not only East
Timorese refugees but also international humanitarian workers.
The decision announced on Monday came just three days after the
United Nations Security Council condemned the deaths of three UN
workers in the West Timor town of Atambua last week.

The fact that it only took three minutes for the 15-member
Security Council to unanimously endorse the resolution against
Indonesia on Friday shows how little international sympathy and
support the country enjoys over the Atambua killing.

Resolution No. 1319/2000 reads in part that Indonesia must
"take immediate additional steps to disarm and disband the
militia immediately, restore law and order in the affected areas
in West Timor, ensure safety and security in the refugee camps
and for humanitarian workers, and prevent cross-border incursions
into East Timor."

That international trust in Indonesia is very low is also
reflected by the Council's decision to dispatch a mission to
Indonesia to ensure compliance with the resolution, and to ask
Secretary General Kofi Annan to report back in a week's time.

The promise to disarm the militias has raised the question of
what took the government so long to realize the dangers that
these amateur soldiers pose, not only for the people who live and
work in West Timor but for the entire nation. The international
condemnation and the ensuing Security Council resolution are
clearly a humiliation that Indonesia could have done without at a
time like this when it needs all the international support it can
get to survive the economic and political crises in hand.

Just when we thought the nation was starting to put the East
Timor nightmare behind it, Indonesia now has to start all over
again to win back the goodwill of the international community.
The incident has unnecessarily created additional work for our
diplomats abroad when they could be devoting their time and
resources to other campaigns, like securing support for the
country's efforts to rebuild the economy or keeping the nation
united against the forces of disintegration.

As a responsible member of the United Nations, Indonesia must
comply with Resolution No. 1319/2000. Even without international
prompting, however, Indonesia should have disarmed the militias
the moment it became clear in September last year that the
government had lost the 24-year campaign to annex East Timor.
Looking back, the Indonesian Military should never have armed the
militias in the first place. While we cannot change the past, we
can and should amend the errors of the past.

The East Timorese militias were essentially the creation of
the Indonesian Army as part of its campaign to control the
territory during the annexation. The militias were notoriously
savage and trained to kill anyone opposing the annexation. They
put their indoctrination and training into practice to such a
devastating degree that they drove away almost the entire
population of East Timor and razed towns and villages to the
ground after losing the vote to pro-independence supporters in a
UN-sponsored ballot in August 1999.

Since then, these gangs of thugs have taken their campaign
into the refugee centers scattered through West Timor. They have
terrorized and prevented those who wish to return to East Timor,
and their campaign often turned on the UN aid workers who were
helping to repatriate the refugees. What is most appalling about
all this is that these militias have acted with impunity in the
same way that they got away with the murders of last year.

The local police are clearly not prepared to deal with the
Army-created militias who are far better equipped. Although fully
in charge of the security affairs in West Timor, the police
cannot move against them without the consent of the powerful
Army.

The Army, as the chief sponsor of the militias, has continued
to display a lack of political will to disarm and disband their
puppet soldiers. One can still recall the chilling response from
military leaders when they were criticized for failing to stop
the militias' brutal attacks against unarmed East Timorese
civilians last year: These militias were their comrades-in-arms
because they had fought together in the East Timor military
campaign. Army soldiers were reluctant to take action because of
"psychological barriers" even as the militias were committing
those atrocities.

Given such a state of affairs, it is doubtful whether the
government's latest promise to disarm the militias could really
be carried out effectively, or whether it was just another act of
lip service to please the world community without any real
intention to see it through. We certainly have not seen any
clearly laid out programs on how the disarmament process would be
conducted, or how soon the process would be completed.

There is one solution that could be seen as a way to break the
impasse of the militia problem in West Timor: Send in the
marines. Since they have less emotional attachment to these
militias and are better equipped than the police, members of the
Marines Corps, which is part of the Indonesian Navy, are likely
to do the job much more effectively and more professionally than
any other force available in the country.