Subject: WP: Feared 'Kopassus' unit may be behind
Timor terror
Date: Mon, 6 Sep 1999 02:55:59 EDT
From: Joyo@aol.com[the article appears on the front page of today's Washington Post]
Excerpt: Sources said they believed members of the military's feared special forces
unit, known as Kopassus, had donned militia T-shirts and were participating in some of the
violence.
Many victims were shot with bullets from high-velocity assault rifles rather than the
crude homemade weapons used in the past by the militias.
A Filipino doctor working at a Catholic clinic said he had treated four teenage gunshot
victims from the besieged Becora neighborhood, and all had been shot with military assault
rifles. "All the injuries you could see were from high-velocity rifles," he
said. "You could see it from the wound."
One policeman outside the Turismo Hotel said before it was evacuated that he considered
militia members his friends and would not shoot them if the hotel were attacked.
"What they are doing is good for the country," he said.
But the possibility of active involvement by Kopassus members in spreading chaos, if
confirmed, would add a dangerous and unexpected element to East Timor's slide into
anarchy. Rogue elements from Kopassus have been implicated in the kidnapping and
assassination of political dissidents during the last days of President Suharto's
government, for the sniping deaths of four students at Trisakti University last year, and
for instigating the May 1998 riots in Jakarta that left more than 1,000 people dead.
Ten Kopassus members were arrested last year for their role in the kidnappings.
Diplomats and other analysts have long suspected a "third force" behind much
of East Timor's militia violence, as hard-liners in the Indonesian armed forces may have
wanted to disrupt last week's referendum on autonomy as a way to prevent separatist
sentiment from spreading across the archipelago.
One diplomat, speaking anonymously, said earlier, "a special black operations unit
within Kopassus" was the main instigator of the militia violence. "You won't
ever see them," he said. "They won't necessarily be the people wearing
uniforms."
Militia leader Eurico Guterres, who heads the Aitarak "Thorn" militia, also
alluded last week in a news conference to an unnamed "third force" that he said
was behind the violence.
East Timorese have long assumed that the militia violence was being orchestrated at the
top levels of the armed forces.
complete article:
Washington Post Monday, September 6, 1999; Page A01
Thousands Flee Chaos Engulfing E. Timor
Military, Police May Be Involved In New Violence
By Keith B. Richburg Washington Post Foreign Service
DILI, Indonesia, Sept. 5—Pro-Indonesian militias continued their campaign of
violence, and thousands of people fled East Timor today, while diplomats and U.N.
officials said signs were mounting that military and police units were participating in
the violence.
There has been no evidence that the central government is intervening to stop the
anarchy that intensified Saturday after the announcement that nearly four-fifths of East
Timorese had who went to the polls voted to reject an offer of autonomy and thus break
away from Indonesia. Casualty numbers were impossible to confirm, as few people ventured
onto the streets, but various sources said scores could be dead and many more wounded in
Dili alone.
"There is every indication that a massacre is taking place, staged by [Indonesian]
military forces," Ana Gomes, Lisbon's envoy to Jakarta, told Portugal's TSF radio.
"Over 100 dead would be a conservative estimate."
The downtown Mahkota Hotel, where many U.N. staff members and journalists were housed,
was set ablaze. The nearby Turismo Hotel also was attacked and journalists there were
forced to leave. The U.N. compound was crowded with refugees -- many cut and bleeding from
scrambling over razor wire to get inside -- and was under siege tonight, with gunfire
heard all around. Water and electricity have been cut off in some parts of the city, and
the seaside capital's night sky was glowing from fires.
This morning, Indonesia's armed forces chief, Gen. Wiranto, flew into this besieged
capital for crisis talks with his military commanders, but there was no word later on any
new initiatives. However, he did affirm an earlier promise to send 1,400 troops to
maintain order.
Calls continued today for the Indonesian government to let the international community
help restore order. The U.N. Security Council met in emergency session in New York to
fashion a reaction to the deteriorating situation in East Timor. Diplomats said there was
continued resistance from the council to the rapid deployment of a U.N. mission with the
mandate to impose law and order. Instead the council revived a debate on an initiative,
initially advanced by Canada last week, to send a mission from the council to assess the
security situation.
The U.N. Secretariat, meanwhile, called together countries considering committing
troops to a future peacekeeping operation in East Timor. And Portugal sought to ratchet up
pressure on the United States to put its political muscle behind a push for the immediate
deployment of U.N. peacekeeping force to the region.
In East Timor, as the anarchy spread, diplomats, U.N. officials and others said there
were increasing indications that Indonesian army and police forces have joined in the
violence. It has long been known that some members of the Indonesian police are
sympathetic to the militias, which were trained by the military as a counterforce to the
pro-independence movement. So far the pro-independence guerrillas are maintaining a
cease-fire, in hopes that the central government or foreign powers will intervene. The
fighting could become significantly bloodier if the guerrillas get involved.
Officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said they had confirmed that a U.N.
convoy traveling from Liquica to Dili on Saturday was fired on at three checkpoints by
paramilitary police, who had manned roadblocks alongside militia members.
Other sources said they believed members of the military's feared special forces unit,
known as Kopassus, had donned militia T-shirts and were participating in some of the
violence.
Many victims were shot with bullets from high-velocity assault rifles rather than the
crude homemade weapons used in the past by the militias.
A Filipino doctor working at a Catholic clinic said he had treated four teenage gunshot
victims from the besieged Becora neighborhood, and all had been shot with military assault
rifles. "All the injuries you could see were from high-velocity rifles," he
said. "You could see it from the wound."
One policeman outside the Turismo Hotel said before it was evacuated that he considered
militia members his friends and would not shoot them if the hotel were attacked.
"What they are doing is good for the country," he said.
But the possibility of active involvement by Kopassus members in spreading chaos, if
confirmed, would add a dangerous and unexpected element to East Timor's slide into
anarchy. Rogue elements from Kopassus have been implicated in the kidnapping and
assassination of political dissidents during the last days of President Suharto's
government, for the sniping deaths of four students at Trisakti University last year, and
for instigating the May 1998 riots in Jakarta that left more than 1,000 people dead.
Ten Kopassus members were arrested last year for their role in the kidnappings.
Diplomats and other analysts have long suspected a "third force" behind much
of East Timor's militia violence, as hard-liners in the Indonesian armed forces may have
wanted to disrupt last week's referendum on autonomy as a way to prevent separatist
sentiment from spreading across the archipelago.
One diplomat, speaking anonymously, said earlier, "a special black operations unit
within Kopassus" was the main instigator of the militia violence. "You won't
ever see them," he said. "They won't necessarily be the people wearing
uniforms."
Militia leader Eurico Guterres, who heads the Aitarak "Thorn" militia, also
alluded last week in a news conference to an unnamed "third force" that he said
was behind the violence.
East Timorese have long assumed that the militia violence was being orchestrated at the
top levels of the armed forces.
After Mass this morning, Bishop Carlos Belo, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was asked
why the militias were still engaged in their campaign of terror, even after the referendum
results made it clear that most people here favored independence. He replied: "You
ask the commander of the military. You ask him."
Olandina Kairu, a prominent pro-independence leader who has sought shelter at Belo's
compound, along with 2,000 other refugees, also said she believed the armed forces were
behind the violence. "From the beginning, this has been planned by the
military," she said. "If the military withdraw their support, there would be no
militia."
Special correspondent Colum Lynch in New York contributed to this report.
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