Jakarta – The commander of the East Timorese militia has ordered his men to halt their campaign of terror, and apologize to their victims, the state Antara news agency said Tuesday.
The militia should now change tactics and try to win over the people with "good communication and friendship" in the "long struggle" to win back East Timor for Indonesia, Antara quoted militia supremo Joao da Silva Tavares as saying.
Antara said it had received a signed copy of Tavares' written instruction "to all commanders" sent from the border town of Atambua in West Timor. It was dated September 25.
"In relation to the recent shooting, stealing and looting of the wealths and stockpiles, intimidation and unrest towards the people ... I must instruct a halt to such actions as these," Tavares said.
"The struggle of the PPI (the Integration Fighter Force) and the East Timorese generally, is still too long, therefore it needs good communication and friendship.
"It is therefore necessary to us to create a situation which could give a safe feeling to the people by the PPI."
Firm "preventive and curative" measures, were needed, he added, and he would not tolerate actions "which violate the law." He also expressed his "sympathy and concern" for the "many brutal actions by individuals using the name of PPI."
The Indonesian army-backed militia carried out an unchecked campaign of terror, arson and murder in East Timor after the announcement on September 4 that the East Timorese people had voted four-to-one in favor of independence.
The capital Dili and most other major towns were reduced to ashes before world outrage resulted in the dispatch of a multinational peacekeeping force there which arrived on September 21.
Tavares and hundreds of the militia have since poured over the border into Indonesian-ruled West Timor, while those who remained in the East are being rounded up and disarmed by the International Froce in East Timor (Interfet).
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has raised the alarm that the militia are now controlling the camps housing some 230,000 East Timorese refugees.
Many of the refugees have said they were forcibly deported at gunpoint by Indonesian military planes and ships from the East, and fear the militia will not allow them to return.
Community leaders in Kupang, the main town in West Timor, and in Atambua, the main town of the Belu district neighbouring East Timor which has borne the brunt of the exodus, have also complained about the unruly militias and called on the police to disarm and restrain the militias.