It came to my attention the article of Sunday Observer of December 15, 1996 by Charlotte Clayton. As the person recently often used by the Indonesian Government propaganda machine to denigrate the name of my brother Jose Ramos-Horta by using this so-called book "the Eyewitness" I wish to state publicly the following:
1. My name is Arsenio Ramos-Horta, a brother of Jose Ramos-Horta who was quoted in the Sunday Observer by Charlotte Clayton as having written the so-called book "The Eyewitness".
I am currently residing in Sydney, NSW, Australia. I arrived in Sydney in April 1995 and requested political asylum.
2. I am aware that the Indonesian Government is now trying to make use of the book "Eyewitness" to discredit my brother, Jose Ramos-Horta. References to the book have been published in the Sunday Observer as a consequence of the desperate moves by the Indonesian Government to avoid hearing the truth about East TImor.
3. Between 1979-80 I was a prisoner of the Indonesian military occupying East Timor. I was a captive of the Indonesian secret service intelligence - INTEL. As it is well-konwn, the role of INTEL was never to gather intelligence but rather, to terrorize the people of EAst TImor. Between this period, many times I was forced to accompany INTEL to follow them to witness their barbaric and sadistic sessions when they torture my own people in the famous HOuse of 'San Tai Ho' (the most feared torture centre in Dili).
3.1. By demanding my presence in these torture sessions, their aim was to terrorize myself. They told me that if I do not do as I was told, I would suffer the same consequences.
3.2. It is not easy to visualize what I mean by torture unless you have seen INTEL in action. The torture I have witenessed included bashing, kicking, hit with steel rod, electric shock and pressing your toe nail with a chair where the INTEL officer sit on. All of these were done with tremendous sense of humour by the INTEL officers.
3.3. The torture sessions used to start at 0:00 (midnight) when they (INTEL) forcibly wake the prisoners up, and torture them until 3:00AM. This was a routine exercise of the INTEL agents. Major J. Ganap, Captain Metan, Captain Synaswul, Lt. Col. Bamban Permadi and Sergeant Suhartoyo, are some of these sadistic names I will never forget for the rest of my life. They were some of the perpetrators who hopefully will be made to respond to their horrendous crimes.
If you are or being invited to Bambang's place, you can only expect that you will be killed. Many were killed and disappeared forever as a consequence of "going to Bambang's place".