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West Timor: Militia terror continues

Source
Green Left Weekly - May 17, 2000

Jon Land - The 100,000 East Timorese refugees in camps in West Timor face daily hardship and terror from the pro-integration militia gangs which control or are active in many of the 200 camps. The repatriation of refugees to East Timor has slowed considerably.

At a United Nations briefing on May 8, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) chief of operations in Dili, Bernard Kerblat, stated that, due to the presence and activity of the militias, in the previous week there had been a record low in the number of returning refugees. Only 65 people returned and 48 came from Australia.

Kerblat said that the UNHCR was "losing the propaganda war launched by UNTAS [a pro-integration organisation]". As a result, refugees are apprehensive about the state of security and general living conditions in East Timor.

On May 11, SBS news showed footage from some of the refugee camps and interviewed the notorious Mahidi militia leader Cancio Lopes De Carvalho. The Mahidi militia were responsible for vicious attacks in Covalima district, south-west East Timor, in January 1999.

De Carvalho freely admitted that Mahidi members remain armed and ready to carry out their "patriotic" duty. In the same news report, East Timorese leader Jose Ramos Horta said that United States intelligence sources knew of at least one militia training camp in West Timor where Indonesian military personnel are present.

Also on May 11, fighting between suspected militia members and UN peacekeeping troops took place near the East Timorese town of Batugade, close to the West Timor border.

A group of US congressional staff, representatives of human rights organisations and journalists who went to West Timor confirmed on May 11 the dire situation facing East Timorese refugees. "Despite the Indonesian government and military denial of militia presence in West Timor's refugee camps, there was obvious fear on the faces of most East Timorese in the camps. Intimidation and tension created by militia leaders was palpable", said Karen Orenstein, a representative of the US-based East Timor Action Network.

The delegation's statement added: "Continued discovery of modern weapons in the camps points to direct TNI [Indonesian army] collusion with militia leaders.

Several separate reports of a low-level training plan ... further connect TNI to militia repression."

The delegation called on the US government to maintain its ban on military ties with Indonesia and "support the establishment of an international tribunal in East Timor with significant East Timorese and Indonesian participation".

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