Soldiers to be tried over Liquisa

Soldiers to be tried over Liquisa

JAKARTA (JP): Two soldiers will be court-martialled for their
role in the Jan. 12 killing of six people in Liquisa, East Timor,
Army Chief of Staff Gen. R. Hartono announced yesterday.

"The two soldiers of the Liquisa military district will be
court-martialled on criminal charges," Hartono said, citing the
findings of an Officers' Honor Council's investigation into the
Liquisa affair.

The military will also take administrative and disciplinary
measures against other officers and soldiers involved in the
incident, Hartono said. He declined to reveal, however, how many
of those would face disciplinary, as opposed to merely
administrative action.

Hartono declined to name the two soldiers to be court-
martialled, nor would he say what the charges were, affirming
only that the tribunal which is to try their cases upholds the
principle of the presumption of innocence.

He said that Operation Parkit, which involved a team of 30
soldiers, had deviated from standard procedures when the soldiers
killed six East Timorese after seeing a fellow-soldier badly
wounded during a clash.

"The two (officers) will go on trial soon," Hartono told a
packed press conference. Hartono maintained that the six Timorese
who were killed had been rebels and rebel sympathizers; not
civilians, as some have claimed.

The council was established to assess the results of two prior
investigations into the controversial incident: one by the
National Commission on Human Rights and another by the Armed
Forces.

Hartono said that, on the basis of documentary research,
interviews, field reconstructions and interrogations, the two
soldiers appeared to be the most responsible for the death of the
six people.

"Whoever is responsible for the killings will be punished," he
said, adding that the punishment might be either administrative
or disciplinary.

He said the investigation findings would be delivered to the
Udayana Military Police in Bali today and dossiers would
subsequently be filed with the local military court.

Hartono declined to mention even the ranks of the two soldiers
to be court-martialled. "Both of them are members of the Parkit
mobile patrol team," he said.

The Parkit patrol team was specially established in response
to the increasing rebel activity in the Liquisa regency. The
Parkit operation was led by First Lt. Jermias Kasse.

Hartono said the investigation had revealed that the six
victims had been members of an East Timor rebel group led by
Antoni Alves.

"Two of them, Ozario Soares and Americo Aroujo, were armed
rebels, while Jose Nunes, Victor, Abel Nunes, and Augusto Pinto
were rebel supporters," he said.

"Jermias has admitted that he gave the instruction for the
shootings to be carried out," Hartono said.

He said the shootings had resulted from the Parkit team's
fatigued psychological condition after a difficult three-day
operation.

The team was disappointed because they had failed to capture
Antoni Alves and they were outraged because one of their number,
Custodio Bareto, had been severely wounded in a skirmish, Hartono
said.

Similar

The findings of the council's investigations were similar to
those of the Armed Forces investigation.

The Armed Forces said in February that some soldiers had made
a mistake when they killed six people who were members of an East
Timorese rebel group.

Hartono yesterday gave a similar chronology of events leading
up to the incident, based on the investigation of a fact-finding
team led by Brig. Gen. Sumarna T. of the Armed Forces
Inspectorate-General.

He said that for several months prior to the incident the
security team in Liquisa had been observing the movements, into
and out of the regency, of several long-haired people whom it
believed to be separatists.

On Jan. 8, the security team received a tip about the presence
of 12 armed separatists. On Jan. 9, the team received a report
that some 45 members of an anti-integration organization were
resting at the house of the head of Gariana village .

On the evening of Jan. 11, there was an armed clash in
Gariana. Following this contact, the patrol team confiscated
several documents, which later led troops to arrest four local
people who were "strongly suspected" of being active members of a
clandestine movement.

These four men were then used to lead the patrol team to the
rebels' hideouts.

On Jan. 12 the security team, guided by the four men, raided
four places, but the first three turned out to be empty.

On the fourth raid, in a village called Fabo, about seven
kilometers from Gariana, there was another armed contact, in
which the six East Timorese were killed. (imn)