TNI organized killings: Report
TNI organized killings: Report
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP): A secret report for the Jakarta government indicates the Indonesian military directed the militia violence against East Timor's independence vote in 1999, according to a Sydney newspaper Saturday.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the 41-page report by the Commission of Investigation into Human Rights Violations puts the blame squarely on the shoulders of then Indonesian Army (TNI) Chief Gen. (ret) Wiranto.
The report, marked "Secret" and "Only for the investigation purposes of the Attorney General's department", details how the militias were trained, paid from government budgets and given modern firearms, and allowed to use military bases and transport.
The militias then worked closely with army and police units to track down, torture and kill independence supporters, the article stated.
The Commission of Investigation into Human Rights Violations completed the report.
The report does not include Wiranto on the list of 32 army, police personnel, civilian officials and militia members listed as suspects in crimes against humanity but it does include former Chief of Udayana Military Command Maj. Gen. Adam Damiri and former Armed Forces Intelligence Body (BIA) Chief Maj. Gen. Zacky Anwar Makarim.
However, it concludes that the "whole range" of wide and organized violations of human rights before and after the ballot was "fully known to and realized by the armed forces commander General Wiranto", who was also in charge of the Indonesian police at the time.
"All the crimes against humanity in East Timor, direct or indirect, took place because of the failure of the armed forces commander to guarantee the security of the implementation of the two options proclaimed by the government," it says.
Two days ago a spokesman for the Indonesian Attorney General said all crimes committed in East Timor in 1999 and investigated by Indonesia's Human Rights Commission (Komnas Ham) would be tried soon.
Komnas Ham had investigated crimes carried out before the Aug. 30, 1999 vote but President Abdurrahman Wahid issued a decree Monday authorizing the tribunal to hear cases of gross human rights violations that took place in East Timor after the ballot.
Indonesia has faced heavy criticism from the international community for its failure to prosecute anyone over the army- backed militia-led orgy of killing, rape, and destruction two years ago.
The violence was unleashed in the months before and after a UN-sponsored ballot, which produced a four-to-one vote in favor of independence.
The United Nations Human Rights commission reported to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in January last year that hundreds of people were killed and about 250,000 were forced across the border into West Timor. A recent report to the UN put the number killed at 2,000.