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UN frustration builds over bid to disarm gangs

Source
South China Morning Post - September 30, 2000

Vaudine England and Associated Press in Kupang – Two days after the start of what was supposed to be a campaign to forcibly disarm East Timorese militiamen in West Timor, Indonesian police said yesterday they had netted only 21 weapons, all of which were surrendered voluntarily.

In three militia-controlled refugee camps around Kupang, the West Timor capital, hundreds of armed police officers and soldiers searched for weapons through makeshift huts and dilapidated tents. "We found nothing," said one officer. United Nations officials dismissed the effort as "a real disappointment".

Indonesia is under intense international pressure to disband the gangs after they murdered three foreign United Nations aid workers in the West Timor border town of Atambua on September 6. The Government promised the world body that security forces would forcibly disarm the militias after a deadline for them to surrender their weapons expired.

Indonesia's UN Ambassador, Makarim Wibisono, said in a letter to the Security Council that 34 standard weapons, 888 home-made weapons, four grenades and 1,000 rounds of ammunition had been handed over during the first, voluntary phase of the disarmament process.

UN officials have accused elements of the security forces of covertly training and arming the militias and directing their activities. "The level of these voluntary surrenders of weapons has really been quite pathetic," said Peter Kessler, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, in Dili, East Timor. "That's a real disappointment."

The UN chief in East Timor, Sergio Vieira de Mello, spoke to the UN Security Council in New York yesterday in what a colleague described as "a state of rage". Two of his senior advisers were terrorised by militiamen on Sunday when they attempted to observe a voluntary disarmament ceremony in Atambua.

Making the situation yet more frustrating for the international community – which is threatening to cut Indonesia's budget support due to the West Timor transgressions – is the United Nations' inability to verify whether Indonesia is moving against the militias seriously.

"The UN is now in a ridiculous position," a Jakarta-based diplomat said. "They've given Indonesia all these objectives but they have no way in which to verify if or when those demands are met. We are reduced to guessing, yet again, if the Indonesians are lying or not."

Part of the problem is a lack of forethought, some diplomats argue. UN outrage at the September 6 murders was so intense that pressure was applied immediately with little planning. But also part of the problem is the situation on the ground in West Timor, which Jakarta seems unable or unwilling to control.

There are no international personnel in West Timor, and their continued absence is part of the pressure being applied on Jakarta. UN aid officials say they will not return to aid the 120,000 East Timorese refugees in West Timor until it is safe, adding that any troubles or deaths caused by such lack of care will be laid at Jakarta's door.

When refugees at the Tuapukan camp demanded that the weapons search there be covered by journalists, police decided to delay the search.

Based on past experience, observers say the militia will be hiding the modern arsenal they are known to own in secure caches until the current flurry of international outrage blows over.

The verification problem leaves it wide open for the Indonesian Government to avoid the direct confrontation with militia gangs which the UN had hoped to see. Some ministers are trying, but police and army willingness to implement orders remains in serious doubt.

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