Subject: IPS: Concern Over Status of E. Timor
Militias
Date: Sat, 19 Jun 1999 14:37:20 +0000
From: "John M. Miller" <fbp@igc.apc.org>Received from Joyo Indonesian
News:
RIGHTS-EAST TIMOR: Concern Over Status of Militias
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 15 (IPS) - Human rights groups are concerned at the Indonesia's
decision to appoint the head of a pro-Jakarta militia to head the civil defense unit in
Dili, the capital of East Timor.
One coalition, the International Federation for East Timor (IFET), wrote UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan to stress that Eurico Guterres - the leader of the Aitarak
(Thorn) militia, was not an appropriate choice for maintaining security in East Timor.
''It is inconceivable that these known murderers should be given any role in
safeguarding security,'' IFET declared, in referring to Guterres's paramilitaries.
The appointment had been praised by Indonesia's police chief in East Timor, Col. Timbul
Silaen but the move to bring a paramilitary leader - whose group has been linked to the
harassment and killing of hundreds of pro-independence Timorese - has sparked concern
among UN officials in the run-up to the Aug. 8 vote on self-determination for the
territory.
UN officials have been scrambling to ensure that the UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET)
can provide stability to East Timor so that an estimated 800,000 people can vote on
whether to accept autonomy within Indonesia or opt for independence.
The UN Security Council voted last Friday to approve the deployment of some 270 police
advisers in East Timor within the next few weeks. UN officials later told IPS that all the
police should be deployed by the end of June.
Yet the United Nations must rely on Indonesia, which invaded East Timor in 1975 and
annexed it one year later, to provide secure conditions for the vote. The appointment of
Guterres has added new worries.
One UN official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Indonesia could try to
appoint the paramilitary leaders to head civil defense units, but that such a move likely
would not be accepted internationally.
Annan, in a report issued last month, warned that ''the militias, believed by many
observers to be operating with the acquiescence of the (Indonesian) army, have not only
have attacked pro-independence groups, but are beginning to threaten moderate
pro-integration supporters as well.''
''The Aitarak militia are in the forefront of the pro- integration campaign, which is
their very reason for existence,'' IFET wrote Tuesday. ''They not only propagate their
views in words, but also by killing pro-indepedence leaders and activists.''
Guterres has acknowledged his role in the militias, as well as his opposition to
independence supporters who, according to groups like IFET, comprise the vast majority of
Timorese.
In a recent interview with the British Broadcasting Coporation (BBC), the militia
leader admitted that his Aitarak group received arms from the Indonesian military.
In recent weeks, the militias have rounded up some 30,000 Timorese displaced by recent
fighting in camps where pro- independence views are discouraged, argued Sidney Jones,
executive director of Human Rights Watch-Asia.
Even as UNAMET staff arrived in East Timor, UN officials warned that the civil defense
units must not play a major role in providing security for the Aug. 8 vote.
Ian Martin, head of the UNAMET office, said the United Nations believes that ''it is
the police and only the police who shall play the security role, so we expect to
progressively see that is the case.''
Martin said that, as UN officials were arriving, a sense of security was growing among
Timorese, particularly in Dili. But he added, ''I don't think anything like a sufficient
sense of confidence has been created.'' (END/IPS/fah/mk/99)
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