UN official in E. Timor blasts Jakarta on gangs
UN official in E. Timor blasts Jakarta on gangs
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters): The senior UN official in East Timor rebuked Indonesia on Friday for hesitation and prevarication in moving against violent gangs he said should be disarmed, broken up and their leaders arrested.
"Where resolution and a certain degree of ruthlessness would seem to be required we are witnessing hesitation and prevarication," Sergio Vieira de Mello told the UN Security Council during an open debate.
At the same meeting, the United States and Britain threatened again to cut aid to Jakarta at an upcoming meeting of donor nations in Tokyo if Indonesia fails to make progress on dismantling the militia.
"The U.S. and the international community's attitude towards the timing and substance of that meeting will certainly be influenced by the government of Indonesia's actions in the next couple of weeks," American envoy Nancy Soderberg said.
British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said his country was ready to help Indonesia "but would find it hard to do so if there is a no real progress in West Timor."
Soderberg also said she was disturbed by comments from some Indonesia officials who said the army, which organised the gangs, could not disarm them by force.
Indonesia has promised to move forcefully against the militia, who went on the rampage a year ago to protest an East Timorese vote for independence. They fled to Indonesian West Timor, herding refugees in front of them and have been conducting raids into the east half of the island since then.
Vieira de Mello, the head of the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor, known as UNTAET, rebutted allegations that refugees in West Timor posed a problem.
The dispute also could not be called a civil war among East Timorese "as some in Indonesia increasingly attempt to paint the problem," he said.
"The threat faced is of militia, operating with impunity in West Timor, able freely to launch armed interventions across an international boundary into West Timor," he said.
Vieira de Mello said he sympathised with Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, who was saddled with the "dreadful legacy" of previous governments.
"Nonetheless, the repercussions are likely to be more unrest and loss of innocent lives in West and East Timor unless the root of the problem is recognised and eradicated," he said.
Abdurrahman, in Brasilia on Friday, said authorities planned to arrest militia leader Eurico Guterres in the next few days after obtaining a court order.
Guterres was watching a Sept. 24 ceremony to disarm the militia in West Timor after which his gangs ran wild, threatening UN officials there.
Vieira de Mello said that after high-ranking Jakarta officials left, Guterres appeared in the midst of the police compound in which the ceremony had been held.
"Subsequently, he and several hundreds of his followers agitated in and outside the station while my colleagues were hidden under armed protection in a room at the station for their own safety," he said.
De Mello noted there had been no arrests in the deaths of three UN refugee agency workers killed by a mob earlier in September in the West Timor town of Atambua.
"There could hardly be a more eloquent demonstration of Indonesia's current inability -- or refusal -- to deal effectively with the problem," he said. "This is impunity running rampant."