Subject: DN: Swiss journalists reach Alas
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 18:54:21 -0500
From: "John M. Miller" <fbp@igc.apc.org>Swiss journalists film three
razed villages
Diario de Noticias 3 Dec ember 1998
They do not know how many died but they saw and filmed the signs of terror and
destruction in East Timor: three villages razed and 150 refugees in a school. Two Swiss
journalists, Pascal Herren and Olivier Drufaut, managed to reach Alas, where a massacre is
said to have occurred 23 days ago. There has been scarce and contradictory information.
SIC broadcast in last night's news bulletin a report with statements and pictures by the
two reporters...
The pictures show homes, mostly made of bamboo and wood, totally razed and burnt, a
burnt car where children now play, a torn shoe and burnt mattresses with twisted springs.
According to the journalists, more that 30 houses were destroyed by the Indonesian
forces...
The only source of information is Father Cornelius from the Alas parish. "We
cannot talk about what happened here. We know a lot but we must keep it to ourselves. The
marines have been here for some time for a military operation." SIC journalist Pedro
Sousa Pereira, who interviewed the Swiss journalists in Geneva, quoted the priest's words
to 'Diario de Noticias'. SIC said that showing a list of missing men, the priest told
reporters: "In the meantime there have been many incidents, for example, a boy called
Policarpo Antonio was kidnapped and is missing. I saw with my own eyes another boy, Lucas,
with a bayonet stuck in his neck, coming out on the right hand side of his face." The
SIC reporter told 'Diario de Noticias' that the Swiss journalists heard the priest say
that the soldiers had cut off Lucas's legs and showed them to a girl...
Pascal Herren and Olivier Drufaut are convinced that there was a massacre in Alas.
"It is easy to hide the bodies," they told SIC, to justify the fact that it is
impossible to know how many died. They said that the Red Cross had not been able to
confirm the number of dead because the Indonesians "did not show them the mass
graves" .
There have been reports from the resistance in the last few days that say 42 were
killed in the massacre and 200 are missing. An official source in Geneva told 'Diario de
Noticias'that Alas was set alight and that 50 people were killed by a military command
working without the knowledge of the Dili command.
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