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The interviews conducted by Human Rights Watch with East Timorese returning to transit centers in Dili from camps in West Timor make abundantly clear that the mass exodus of East Timorese to West Timor was the result of coercion and that Indonesian military forces were actively involved in the expulsions. Significantly, East Timorese were forced into West Timor not only in the days immediately following the August 30 ballot and announcement of the results on September 4, but over a period of at least three weeks. The evidence collected here suggests that forced expulsions actually intensified after martial law was declared by Jakarta on September 7 and continued right up to the arrival of Interfet troops on September 20.
The testimony of returning refugees shows that the expulsions were systematic, with similar patterns manifested across East Timor. This was not the spontaneous action of militia leaders disgruntled by a vote that went against them. The logistics involved, the similarity of the process from one end of East Timor to the other, and direct witness testimony all point to a planned and systematically implemented operation. In many cases, district military command posts served as way stations for East Timorese civilians forced from their homes and subsequently transported to West Timor. As detailed below, some of the strongest evidence of military involvement is from refugees who had been forced to West Timor from their home in the Ermera district in western East Timor.
The testimony adds to the mounting evidence that the expulsion of East Timorese was an orchestrated campaign that required advance planning. There is also documentary evidence. While in Dili, Human Rights Watch obtained a copy of a telegram from Jakarta military headquarters to the commander in Bali responsible for East Timorese operations ordering the latter to prepare for possible removal of East Timorese to West Timor should pro-independence sentiment prevail in the ballot. At a minimum, the document shows that plans to move East Timorese across the border were initiated long before the vote.
Some Indonesian authorities have suggested that army involvement was solely to ensure the safe evacuation of migrants, civil servants, and pro-Indonesian East Timorese fearful of attack by pro-independence forces. There is little evidence, however, of any attacks or threats of attack on this population in the days following the vote. Evenassuming evacuation of endangered East Timorese was one goal, two factors make the Indonesian explanation implausible. One was the sheer scale of the effort, which saw some 200,000 people moved out of the territory by truck, boat and airplane following a vote in which less than half that number chose continued Indonesian rule. The other, more significant, is that eyewitness accounts of the events that followed the announcement of the poll results show repeated instances of the military involvement in and faciliation of militia expulsion of families and entire villages through terror and intimidation, at times at gunpoint, followed by large-scale arson and destruction of property. This was never intended to be a case of evacuation of selected loyalists.
Extensive Military Involvement in Forced Expulsions
In more than one hundred interviews conducted by Human Rights Watch with refugees returning from West Timor, some patterns emerged. While some residents of Dili were expelled to West Timor in the first two days after the announcement on September 4 of the referendum results, the vast majority of expulsions elsewhere in East Timor appear to have occurred after the formal implementation of martial law on September 7, with no effort on the part of martial law forces to stop them. Timorese were still being pushed against their will into West Timor on ships from Dili up to September 20, the day Interfet troops arrived, and by land at least as late as September 18 and 19.
The stories told by refugees from across East Timor were strikingly similar, suggesting coordination. East Timorese from Dili, Ermera, Aileu, Baucau, and Los Palos all told Human Rights Watch that militia members, often residents of the kampung (subdivision of a village) where they were charged with rounding up the population for expulsion, and often accompanied by local army officers, forced families at gunpoint into the district or subdistrict army headquarters, threatening them with death if they did not leave and burning their houses after they departed. After a period ranging from overnight to a week in the military command, they were taken to West Timor by car or truck, or, less frequently, by ship or plane. In some cases the trucks were provided by the district military command; in many cases, they were commandeered by the militias from the families they were expelling.
In many cases, families were split, and those taken to West Timor were women, children, and older men. The younger men, more likely to be targets of violence, fled to the hills or were already in the hills when the militias came in. This suggests that the departures were not voluntary, particularly for families with young men active in the pro-independence CNRT movement. (It was not only pro-independence families who were forced out, however. A Kupang-based human rights organization encountered a large number of Javanese transmigrant families in Atambua who had been ordered to leave their homes in Salele in the western district of Covalima after the referendum results were announced.28) In addition, not all families from the same kampung ended up in the same camp. In some cases, militia-led convoys simply dumped their human cargo across the border in Atambua and left the families to find their own accommodation. In others, families from the same kampung brought to a central army headquarters got mixed in with people from other areas and were taken on different days by different militia escorts to various camps in West Timor.
The military was also involved in meeting new arrivals in West Timor. The vehicles crossing the border into West Timor in most cases had to check in with an Indonesian army post at Mota'ain on the West Timor side; planeloads of East Timorese arriving in Kupang were met by TNI soldiers. Militia members accompanied virtually all those transported to West Timor and continued to live nearby or with the families they had expelled.
The role of the military was particularly conspicuous in the account of fourteen East Timorese originally from the Ermera district, located southwest of Dili in East Timor. Twelve of the families were taken first to the districtmilitary command (Kodim) in Gleno, Ermera before being transported to Atambua in West Timor. A number of the accounts are summarized below:
SX, from Poetete, Ermera, was an independence supporter and member of the local staff of UNAMET. Darah Integrasi militia members burned the house of five CNRT members on the night of August 30, after the referendum had taken place. On September 7, his family was taken to the district military command in Gleno, then escorted by three soldiers of the Ermera subdistrict command to Tenubot, Atambua. Two of the soldiers, Ermelindo and Hilario, were East Timorese, and one was from Java.
JT, also from Poetete, said that on September 9, one of the most notorious militia commanders in the area, a man named Zeca, sent a man to their kampung ordering everyone to leave. Ten members of his extended family were among those taken to the district military command and accompanied from there to Atambua by members of the Darah Integrasi and Besi Merah Putih militias.
FA, from Poetete, said his family had been forced into the district military command on September 12 after members of the Darah Integrasi and Darah Merah militias came to his kampung and burned the houses. FA went to the hills. On September 21, a militia member named Baresto took his wife and five children to Atambua. According to someone from his kampung who returned in late October, the family was living in the sports stadium in Haliwen, a village outside Atambua where thousands of East Timorese were given shelter.
JB, from the village of Mertutu, Ermera, was at home on September 13 when eight men from the Gleno district military command and the Darah Integrasi militia attacked, ordering everyone to leave. They shot at random, hitting JB's young son in the leg. JB himself fled to the hills, but his wife and five children, ranging in age from sixteen to two, were taken to the district military command the next day. After two days there, they were driven to Tenubot, Atambua.
MM, from Lihu, Railaco, Ermera, said her family was taken to the subdistrict command (Koramil) in Railaco on September 15. The soldiers there were taking people to Atambua but only if they could pay Rp.600,000 for a place in a vehicle. MM had no money, so she was forced to stay at the subdistrict military command for a week until she happened to hear on the radio that Interfet forces were coming. She escaped, but her brother's family and three small children were still in Halilulik, West Timor, as of early November.
Evidence That the Expulsions were Part of a Planned Campaign
The above accounts demonstrate the instrumental role played by the army in the forced expusions. There is now mounting evidence, though largely still circumstantial, that a plan was in place well before the consultation was held on August 30. Some of the existing anecdotal and testimonial evidence is described below. There is also documentary evidence. In early November, Human Rights Watch was shown a document found in the district military command (Kodim) in Dili. Dated May 5, 1999, the day the agreement between Indonesia and Portugal was signed on the modalities for a "popular consultation" on the political future of East Timor, the document is a telegram from the deputy chief of staff of the Indonesian army in Jakarta to Maj. Gen. Adam Damiri, commander of the Bali-based regional command that included East Timor. It orders Damiri to come up with a security plan to address all eventualities related to the option being given to the East Timorese people, including preventive measures, police action, "repressive/coercive action" and plans for "moving back/evacuation [of East Timorese] if option two becomes the choice." Under the May 5 agreement signed in New York, option two was rejection of autonomy and separation from Indonesia (see Appendix I for full text.)
Whatever security plan was drawn up in response to that order appears to have been set in motion well before the consultation was held on August 30.29 Yayasan Hak, an East Timorese human rights organization in Dili, reported on June 13, 1999 that sources within the Besi Merah Putih militia had leaked information that a plan to forcibly evacuate women and children to West Timor had been discussed at a meeting on June 12 in Liquica attended by the district head, Leonido Martins Rebeiro; Manuel Sousa, commander of the BMP militia; the head of the Liquica district military command and other BMP leaders. Earlier that same day, according to the report, some militia members sent their own families to Atambua.30
Manuel Sousa appeared at another meeting, this time two days before the results of the referendum were announced. O, a BMP militia member told Human Rights Watch on November 6 that he had taken part in a meeting at BMP headquarters in the town of Maubara, Liquica district, on September 2. Some 200 people were in attendance, most of them militia members but including a soldier from the Maubara subdistrict command, a member of the army intelligence unit SGI, and a policeman whom O knew only as Miguel. The main subject of the meeting was the need to get people out to West Timor, and O said they were told to tell people they would shoot anyone who refused to leave. He said the BMP commanders explained that with the population cleared out, it would be easier for the militias to fight a war for integration.31
A source close to the United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNAMET), whom Human Rights Watch interviewed in Darwin in mid-September, was witness to an exchange that took place on September 7 near the airfield in Baucau as UNAMET officials were trying to evacuate the local staff of their Baucau office. The Baucau district military commander, his chief of staff, and the district police commander were all present. The police commander, referring to the local staff, turned to the UNAMET officials and said, "They're just IDPs [internally displaced persons], right?" The military commander then said, "I have orders that all IDPs are to go to Atambua or Kupang [in West Timor]." Our source reported that the other Indonesians were clearly surprised by his saying this, and it seemed to be a slip. The UNAMET officials insisted that their staff were not IDPs, and the East Timorese in question were eventually allowed to go to Dili.
On September 12, a militia leader named Rui Lopes from the western district of Covalima told interviewers from an independent television channel in Jakarta that the day before the election results were announced he had taken part in a district level meeting at the house of the district head (bupati) in Covalima. He said the bupati and the district military commander were present and conveyed orders that the militias were to burn down Covalima, drive UNAMET out, and drive all the local residents into West Timor. He said the idea was to convince the outside world that the East Timorese were not happy with the result so that UNAMET would be forced to conduct the poll again. He said that the militias in Covalima were full of SGI (army intelligence) agents.32
Finally, the BBC's Humphrey Hawksley reported in mid-September after a visit to West Timor that officials in Kupang told him that they had been told to prepare for a major exodus and been ordered on August 26-four days before the referendum-to set up camps to handle tens of thousands of people.33
Most of the top militia commanders were still living in West Timor as of early November, their places of residence well-known to local residents and displaced East Timorese. Evidence collected by local and international organizations linking these commanders to specific acts of violence is extensive, but there are several factors preventing their arrest. One has been the lack of political will on the part of Indonesian authorities to punish the individuals who were doing their bidding in East Timor. Even if the political will were there, amassing the evidence to bring them to trial in Indonesia would not necessarily be an easy task: East Timorese who are still under threat and intimidation in West Timor are unlikely to want or be able freely to give evidence in an Indonesian court against their tormentors. Marzuki Darusman, the newly appointed attorney general and former head of the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission, has reportedly ordered that videotaped testimony taken in East Timor will be admissible as evidence in Indonesian courts, but getting that testimony from witnesses will require a degree of coordination and cooperation between Indonesian and East Timorese organizations and a willingness on the part of East Timorese to believe in the good faith of Indonesian judicial authorities that as of November 1999 was understandably lacking.
Even if those difficulties could be overcome, another factor hindering prosecutions has been the relative lack of attention thus far on the part of Indonesian, East Timorese, and international human rights organizations to the issue of individual responsibility for human rights abuses. The focus has either been (rightly) on helping to get victims and potential victims out of harm's way, documenting abuses with a focus on the victims, or demanding in general terms that army commanders and militia leaders be brought to justice. It may be time now to work from the opposite direction, starting from militia leaders who are clearly accessible in West Timor and documenting as many cases as possible that will link those leaders to specific human rights violations.
Investigation and prosecution of militia leaders may also prove useful in building a case against Indonesian army commanders who coordinated the scorched earth campaign and forced expulsions. As noted above, much of the destruction and burning of buildings that was carried out across East Timor was done at a very local level by militia members resident in the neighborhood acting on orders of their commanders who, in turn, were in communication with Indonesian authorities.34 Despite an offer of amnesty to East Timorese members of militias by CNRT president Xanana Gusmao on October 23, 1999, two days after his return to East Timor, there was growing sentiment in East Timor by November that at the very least, militia commanders had to be brought to justice, together with their Indonesian backers. Sufficient evidence exists to begin pursuing the prosecution of individual militia leaders immediately.
The militia leaders at the highest levels are well known. Prominent militia leaders include Joao Tavares (Halilintar, in Bobonaro), Eurico Gutteres (Aitarak, in Dili), and Cancio de Carvalho (Mahidi in Covalima and Ainaro). The militias were organized in a very hierarchical manner, with battalion commanders (danyon) and company commanders (danki), and other even smaller divisions under the danki. Less has been said about these mid-level militia leaders, but many East Timorese returnees from West Timor have evidence tying specific individuals to specific abuses. These leads warrant urgent and systematic investigation.
For example, East Timorese newly returned from the Tenubot camp near Atambua told us that two of the most feared commanders of the Darah Integrasi militia, Lucas and Zeca, were regularly present in the camp and a source of constant intimidation of the refugees. Human Rights Watch received numerous reports mentioning their names in connection with a wide range of abuses committed prior to the August 30 referendum. None of these reports would be sufficient to convict Lucas or Zeca for a criminal offense, let alone crimes against humanity, but the information is more than sufficient to warrant a systematic investigation of the credibility of these allegations.
Zeca is the nickname of Jose Pereira, commander of Darah Integrasi's Company A (Kompi A), based in Gleno. Lucas is Lucas Borromeo, commander of Company C (Kompi C) of the Darah Integrasi militia based in Hatolia subdistrict, Ermera. In June 1999, Yayasan Hak, East Timor's premier human rights organization, reported, based on witness testimony, that Lucas led a meeting on June 22-25 of Darah Integrasi leaders, attended by two non-Timorese Indonesian army sergeants from the Ermera district military command, Wayang Sukadarma and Swiyanto, in which he discussed arresting four members of the pro-independence political organization CNRT, whom he accused of having helped UNAMET open a branch office in Hatolia. He also reportedly discussed a plan to terrorize other CNRT members. In subsequent days, according to the report, Darah Integrasi members under Lucas's command warned the wife of a CNRT member in Ailelo village that they would kill her husband. They also threatened to kill any local UNAMET staff found to be siding with pro-independence groups.35 Three weeks later, Yayasan Hak reported that Lucas was planning a campaign of terror and intimidation to force people in Hatolia district to choose autonomy, and that he was also heard threatening to shoot UNAMET staff. The statements were reportedly made at a secret meeting that took place in the subdistrict military command of Hatolia on July 12, 1999, again attended by both Darah Integrasi leaders and the two Indonesian sergeants mentioned above.36 Human Rights Watch has received two independent reports that on September 11 at 7 pm Lucas killed a 45-year-old pro-independence civil servant (Assisten III in the district office) named Agustino.
28 Leonard Simanjuntak, "Report of the Situation in Atambua, 6-8 September 1999," Yayasan Pikul (no date). The Covalima district is also commonly referred to as the Suai district, after the name of the district capital.
29 Tomas Goncalves, a militia leader who had fled to Macau following an anti-independence rampage by militias on April 17, 1999 that left between twelve and eighteen dead, told the South China Morning Post on September 16 that he had attended a meeting on February 16, 1999 in Dili, organized by the head of the SGI (Satuan Gabungan Intelijen or Joint Intelligence Unit), which the heads of all thirteen district-level militias attended. Goncalves said the SGI head, an Indonesian colonel, told them the army was determined not to abandon its supporters in East Timor. Goncalves also told the Post that the colonel had received orders to hold the meeting from a chain of command that extended to Maj. Gen. Zacky Anwar Makarim, who General Wiranto appointed as his liaison in East Timor in April. Zacky was head of the army intelligence organization BIA until January 1999.
30 Yayasan Hak, Laporan Harian Pelanggaran HAM No.18/LH/YH-DA/VI 1999, June 17, 1999.
31 Human Rights Watch interview, Don Bosco school, Dili, November 6, 1999.
32 "Indonesian Armed Forces Continue Campaign of Murder, Violence, and Massive Forced Deportation...," Carter Center Weekly Report on East Timor, No. 9, September 13, 1999.
33 Humphrey Hawksley, "Timor exodus `run' by Indonesia," BBC World Service, September 12, 1999.
34 In some cases, the perpetrators were part of the same extended family as the owners of the houses they burned. Some of these members were devoted pro-autonomy partisans, others had been forced to join through threats or intimidation. The difference may not be a meaningful one to East Timorese who lost their homes and all material possessions, but whether and how to reintegrate such people is a matter of intense debate inside East Timor, with serious implications for long-term reconciliation.
35 Yayasan HAK, Laporan Harian No.57/LH/YH-DA/07/99, Dili, East Timor.
36 Yayasan Hak, Laporan Harian Pelanggaran HAM, No.63/LH/YH-DA/07/1999, Dili, East Timor.