Suai – Indonesian soldiers and pro-Jakarta militia slaughtered as many as 200 people in a church compound in this town in southwestern East Timor in September, an eyewitness claimed Saturday.
Eliesu Gusmao said a mob arrived at around 2pm on September 6 and he hid in a corner of the church compound. He said he heard the militia commander shout "Shoot, shoot, shoot" at which point the massacre, rumors of which have floated around for weeks, unfolded.
An AFP photographer who visited the scene Saturday saw piles of crushed and burned skeletal remains behind the church, which was almost totally razed. Only the concrete facade and church bell remained.
The collapsed roof of the church lay in ashes. Pieces of burned clothing littered the ground outside. By an iron bedstead there were bigger bones. Local residents had placed red bougainvillia flowers on the piles of crushed skeletons.
The walls and floor of a half-finished cathedral, about 100 meters away but within the compound, were splattered with old bloodstains. Bullet holes riddled the walls and spent cartidges littered the floor. There were two burned out jeeps and one burned out tractor in the compound.
Gusmao, whose wife and daughter were still missing, said women and children screamed at the gunmen to stop, but they took no notice. He identified the militia leader giving the order as Icidio Manek, leader of the Laksaur militia group.
Some of the militia hacked people with machetes, he said. One of those hacked to death was a Roman Catholic priest from Indonesia's Java island, he said. He said the militia had taken most of the bodies away.
In the East Timorese capital of Dili, International Force for East Timor (Interfet) spokesman Colonel Mark Kelly said troops were in the Suai area Saturday, but he had no confirmation of the apparent massacre. "I can't confirm that but we will follow it up. All reports like this will be thoroughly investigated," he said.
Suai, 110 kilometers southwest of Dili, was the target of frequent militia attacks even before the August 30 independence vote in East Timor. The territory voted to reject an offer of autonomy from Indonesia and opted for full independence 23 years after Jakarta annexed the territory.
The first militia violence in the Suai region began as early as January when the Indonesian government announced it could let go of East Timor if the autonomy offer was rejected.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson has created a five-member team to investigate human rights abuses in East Timor, led by Costa Rican jurist and MP Sonia Picado.
The other members include two Asian representatives – the former chief of justice of India, A.M. Ahmadi, and the deputy chief justice of Papua New Guinea, Mari Kapa. Also included are Nigeria's former minister of women's affairs, Judith Sefi Attah, and former German justice minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger.
Robinson told a news conference in Geneva on Friday that the commission could recommend the setting up of an international tribunal, similar to those set up for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
"It will certainly be in the power of the commission to make recommendations for a tribunal or any other appropiate response when they have assembled the relevant evidence," she said.