Kupang – The Indonesian military has detained an East Timorese soldier for illegally entering the Indonesian territory of West Timor to seek his family, a local military commander said Thursday.
East Nusa Tenggara Province's Wirasakti Military Provincial Commander Col. Moeswarno Moesanip told Kyodo News that Joao Gonsalvez, 29, a member of the East Timor Defense Force, was captured Tuesday by East Timorese refugees sheltering in West Timor. East Nusa Tenggara Province includes West Timor.
"He did nothing wrong ... He just wanted to see his family, but crossed the border illegally," Moesanip said.
However, Moesanip stressed that military police are still investigating possibilities that Gonsalvez was smuggled into the Indonesian territory for spying, saying that, as a soldier, Gonsalvez should have understood regulations.
Gonsalvez left his unit in East Timor's easternmost district of Los Palos on June 7 with the permission of his supervisor to visit relatives in the town of Maliana in the Bobonaro district in the western part of East Timor. He was then told by Maliana residents that his family was still in the West Timor town of Atambua.
Gonsalvez, who is illiterate, then crossed the border without proper documents, but East Timorese people in the refugee camp in Atambua captured him and handed him over to the military police.
Moesanip said the UN Peacekeeping Forces in East Timor have sent a request to him to release Gonsalvez. But Moesanip said the final decision is in the hands of Udayana Military Regional Commander Lt. Gen. William da Costa, who supervises Bali and East Nusa Tenggara.
"As long as there is no final decision from the Udayana military regional commander, he will remain in our custody," Moesanip said.
"They [East Timor] have also arrested ex-integration fighters who returned home legally, so why should we release him?" he added, referring to former pro-Jakarta militiamen who went on a rampage of violence in 1999 after East Timorese voted overwhelmingly for independence in a UN-sanctioned referendum.
East Timor gained its full independence on May 20 after more than four centuries under Portuguese colonialists, 24 years under the Indonesian occupation and two and a half years under the rule of the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor.
[The June 21 UMISIT Daily Briefing reported that two (sic) East Timorese detained by the Indonesian army on the border between East Timor and West Timor in Bobonaro District on Tuesday, have been released. They were detained by Indonesian authorities for allegedly crossing the Tactical Control Line illegally. It also reported that a former militia member, Salvador Soares, was arrested in Bobonaro District on Tuesday. Soares is alleged to have murdered a number of people in Maliana in September 1999. He has been handed over to the Serious Crimes Unit for further questioning – James Balowski.]