Mark Dodd, Dili – A vast cache of documentary and forensic evidence linking Jakarta's involvement to hardline pro-Indonesian militias accused of horrendous human rights abuses continues to lie unsecured in Dili one week after the arrival of Australian-led peacekeepers.
Since their discovery a week ago, the remains of an unknown number of suspected militia victims remain in the bottom of a well less than one kilometre from the Hotel Turismo, where Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Barnes gives a daily briefing to Australian and foreign reporters.
A spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross said a team from Dili's main hospital probably would recover the remains in the well, which is behind a house owned by the independence activist Mr Manuel Carrascalao.
One senior United Nations political official said last week that the death toll from two weeks of militia violence could be more than 1,000.
Mr David Wimhurst, the UN's spokesman in East Timor said: "There is no structural body that can be brought to bear [to investigate the alleged atrocities] and this is a weak point.
"There has got to be a rapid response to protect these sites," he said, especially if an international war crimes tribunal was established.
The Australian commander of the International Force for East Timor, Major-General Peter Cosgrove, said there was some evidence "there have been some awful acts". Speaking to reporters last week, General Cosgrove said it was his wish to see "some professional investigators come in rapidly".
Indonesian military also appear to be aware that their failure to remove evidence could be incriminating. Six gun-toting Indonesian soldiers who yesterday were rummaging through the offices of the ransacked Foundation for Legal Human Rights moved journalists away from the building.
Next door, at a building formerly occupied by the Integrated Intelligence Unit, Indonesian soldiers prevented people from entering. Locals claim the building was a former torture and detention centre.
At the deserted headquarters of the pro-Jakarta Forum for Unity, Democracy and Justice, a bounty of material evidence including membership lists, office files, accounting records and propaganda lies strewn around the office at the mercy of looters. Among the papers were boxes of newly printed pamphlets, part of a campaign to tarnish the reputation of the pro-independence Falintil guerilla force.
The booklets, first printed in Villawood, Sydney, in 1998 by the "East Timor Service Foundation", show in graphic and obscene detail the rape, torture and murder of several women.
The photographs have previously been published and are listed on the Internet. Human rights groups believe they were taken by Indonesian soldiers and the victims were ethnic Chinese living in East Timor and East Timorese students detained by the Indonesian military. As part of the propaganda campaign against Falintil, the booklet alleges the crimes were committed by pro-independence forces.
Bundles of documents also lie strewn across the floor of the deserted Aitarak militia post. One contains a list of 119 militiamen from the Dili-based Company B, whose commander, Eurico Guterres, is implicated in several crimes. Another hand-written list contains the names of 24 suspected members of the pro-independence National Council for Timorese Resistance. Their fate is unrecorded.