Armed groups taking part in an internal conflict are obliged to respect international humanitarian law. A key principle, embodied in Article 3, common to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, provides for humane treatment of civilians and other non-combatants. It specifically states that each party to an internal conflict is prohibited from certain acts against all those who take no active part in the hostilities, including civilians, those who have laid down their arms, and those who have been rendered hors de combat because of illness, wounds, or detention. These acts include "violence to life and person," the taking of hostages, "outrages upon personal dignity," and the "passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples." The Indonesian armed forces have regularly violated Common Article 3, as it is more commonly known, but Falintil has been responsible for such abuses as well.
The attack on the Castelo family in Irara, Los Palos, on May 28 was one example. After some initial doubts about who carried out the attack in which seven civilians were killed, CNRM publicly took responsibility on June 27. According to a report we received from East Timor several days after the attack, Castelo, an elementary school teacher, and his family, together with some fellow teachers from eastern Indonesia (non-Timorese), were at his home watching television when a group of men dressed in black vandalized the satellite dish outside the house. When the teachers and Castelo's children went out to see what had caused the television reception suddenly to go bad, they were confronted by guerrillas who reportedly asked why he supported East Timor's integration with Indonesia. They then opened fire on Castelo and three of his children. The teachers started running toward the nearby district militarycommand, but because all the alleyways were controlled by the guerrillas, they had no way out and were also shot. Castelo was the younger brother of the head of the district parliament in Los Palos.
Killed in the attack were Castelo himself, forty-two; three of his children; another teacher named Gregorius Kedang, thirty, from the province of Nusa Tenggara Timur; and Gregorius's wife and adopted son. Three other teachers were wounded in the attack, including Agus Berek, forty-one, also from Nusa Tenggara Timur; John Minesa from Irian Jaya; and Hengky from Menado. While the government immediately blamed the killings on "GPK"(the initials for "security disturbers," the official euphemism for guerrillas), sources close to the guerrillas initially claimed that the army must have been responsible for the killings because Castelo himself had once been suspected of being part of the clandestine network. It then transpired that Castelo was known locally as someone who had surrendered to Indonesian forces and who had then gone back on their behalf to infiltrate the opposition. In their June 27 statement, CNRM alleged that Castelo had been working for Indonesian intelligence.
It was not the first time during the year that civilians accused of being collaborators with Indonesian intelligence had been reported killed by guerrillas. Amadio Pinto, thirty, from Daudere, near the town of Los Palos, is believed to have been the victim of a Falintil killing earlier in 1997. According to local sources, a joint military team led by Kopassus and a unit known as the Alfa Team had assigned Pinto to monitor local youth who were suspected of having contact with the guerrillas. On February 26, he had taken his rice to be hulled in the village of Laivai but found the huller broken and was returning on foot to Daudere. En route home, he was accosted by men whom witnesses identified as guerrillas, but he was able to escape and get home safely. The next day he was reportedly sent by Kopassus to Livai village to report on youth there. On his way home, he was reportedly ambushed by guerrillas and taken into the forest nearby. His body was discovered a week later. According to the local source, the villagers knew before the body was discovered that he had been killed but were afraid to report the death to the Indonesian authorities for fear that the guerrillas would treat them in a similar fashion. After the killing, the source said, the military presence in and around Livai increased.