Jill Jolliffe, Dili – Ten years after the massacre that shocked the world, memories are still raw in East Timor. When a short piece of theatre re-enacting the November 12, 1991, slaughter of more than 200 students in the Santa Cruz cemetery was shown to an audience of survivors and families on Saturday, it left them in tears. One elderly woman collapsed into bitter weeping, and even a panel of dignitaries cried openly.

The killings could almost have been yesterday for Father Ricardo da Silva, director of Dili's Fatu-Metan seminary. That day he presided over an early-morning Mass for the soul of Sebastiao Gomes, a student who earlier had been shot dead in the porch of his church. Around 2000 young people came to the Mass. When it was over, they set off in procession for the cemetery.

After 16 years under Indonesian military occupation, a glimmer of hope had opened for the East Timorese nationalist movement. Indonesia had agreed to allow a Portuguese parliamentary delegation into the territory, accompanied by its own press team. Expectations for the visit were high, leading to elaborate secret preparations for a demonstration by resistance supporters.

When the visit was suspended by Portugal over Indonesia's refusal to allow this correspondent to accompany the delegation, tension spiralled. There were, however, journalists already in East Timor, who had slipped in as tourists to await the delegation. Disappointed by the failure of the visit, the students decided to convert the memorial procession into a daring demonstration in which, for the first time, they would show the world their support for the guerrilla resistance.

Father Ricardo was unaware of this plan, but he knew anything they did would be peaceful. When his youthful parishioners left, he was slightly anxious because of the general atmosphere, but not too worried. "They were smart kids, disciplined and well-organised. I didn't think they'd fall into any traps."

Then he heard concerted gunfire from the cemetery. He was preparing to go there when the first wounded came into the church clinic. "The young people were terribly distressed, saying the Indonesians had fired on them without warning."

The difference between this and earlier massacres was that it was all filmed, by cameraman Max Stahl, and his images changed the world's perception of East Timor.

Ten years later the territory has its nominal freedom, but Santa Cruz is still an open wound.

The United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor has paid little attention to victims of war crimes, although they constitute a substantial sector of the population. They have a priority below economic reconstruction, a short-sighted policy given that a nation's wealth rests in its human capital.

Father Ricardo believes there were more killed than the 200-plus estimate given by human rights organisations such as Amnesty International, and he says there is a pressing need for a proper inquiry. Of this figure, only a tiny proportion of the bodies were found. "So many children disappeared, and parents still live the trauma. For a Timorese it is very important to have the mortal remains and to bury them adequately."

Teresinha Sarmento Borges, 56, is one such mother. For a decade she has not given up hope that one day her son, Jose Julio, will walk in the door. He stares out from a picture frame, a bright 19-year-old posed before a Rambo poster. Several hours after the shootings his stepfather searched the cemetery and the hospital, in vain. The Indonesian military had collected the bodies in trucks, and they were apparently buried at night. No one knows where.

There is, in fact, a UN police inquiry under way. It is hampered by lack of staff. Last year two international officers had sole responsibility for the Santa Cruz massacre, another major massacre near Viqueque, and the inquiry into the 1975 Balibo killings.

UN prosecutor Mohamed Othman said two excavations have been undertaken, acting on witness statements that victims were buried there, but no bodies were found. "Santa Cruz is a scar in terms of atrocities committed here," he said. "We need additional people to work on it."

Clementino Amaral, then an MP in the Indonesian system, was the only East Timorese on the Indonesian inquiry set up in response to world pressure. He condemns the whitewash in which six senior officers were suspended from duty and a handful of junior officers given token prison terms. "It must be reopened," he says. "Only the [UN] Security Council can authorise an international tribunal, but we need the world to pressure for it."

Two young men, Gregorio Saldanha and Francisco Branco, were among those arrested and tortured for the crime of organising a peaceful demonstration.

Both served eight years in Suharto's prisons, but were freed prematurely after the dictator fell. Today, they walk tall as members of East Timor's new parliament. Only their troubled, serious faces indicate their sad past.