Subject: SMH: Rumors Prabowo in W.Timor; Falantil
leaders "disappeared"
Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 09:37:45 -0400Sydney Morning Herald Tuesday, September 21, 1999
Falantil leaders disappear from camps in West Timor
Dr Crouch gives evidence yesterday. Photo by MIKE BOWERS
By LAUREN MARTIN
East Timorese resistance leaders had "disappeared" from militia-guarded
refugee camps across the border, and the mainly women and children who remained were at
risk of becoming hostages to other vigilantes, a Senate committee heard in Canberra
yesterday.
Two top Falantil leaders had been hunted down in the camps and "could well be
eliminated", according to Dr Harold Crouch, a senior fellow at the Australian
National University and an Indonesian military expert.
Dr Crouch knew the "very senior" Falantil men only by their noms de guerre
but said they included the leader who took command from Xanana Gusmao.
The news came amid warnings from Mr Bob Lowry, a former lieutenant-colonel and former
assistant military attaché at the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, that the refugees could
be made pawns by the military or by mavericks operating with military consent.
Mr Lowry touched on rumours that General Prabowo Subianto - former president Soeharto's
son-in-law who was dismissed from the military after his troops were found to have
kidnapped and tortured dissidents in Java - was seen in Kupang, West Timor, in recent
days. "If that is true, one would have to ask what he is doing there," Mr Lowry,
a visiting fellow the Australian Defence Studies Centre at the Australian Defence Force
Academy, told the Senate committee.
He said General Prabowo's presence certainly would have been sanctioned by the head of
the Indonesian Army, General Wiranto.
"So [the military's] attitude to him and what he might be doing is fairly obvious
from that," Mr Lowry said. "We would just hope our fears don't come to fruition
in that regard.
"There may also be other retired members of the army who still have an ideological
commitment, or even ordinary citizens or people from the civil administration, who want to
seek vengeance for what has happened" in the East Timor vote for independence, he
said.
Mr Lowry also questioned the continuing high-profile role of militia leader Eurico
Guterres in the West Timor refugee camps.
"One has to ask what else he was doing there," Mr Lowry said. "Who he
was making connections with, what plans he was making, what his future intentions are. One
hopes he's not planning to keep these people hostage on that side of the border for any
period of time."
Mr Lowry said the UN troops could quickly secure the centre and east part of East
Timor. "The question is how quickly they will be able to get a grip of the western
sector.
"As long as the border is controlled on the Indonesian side, and as long as there
are no third parties who are allowed to supply money and equipment and training to the
militia, then I think it will be resolved within several months.
"If that doesn't happen, then of course it could drag on for quite a while."
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