Jakarta – Two East Timorese bearing scars from a 1999 massacre Thursday told Indonesia's human rights court of a day of terror when militiamen brandishing guns and machetes attacked a church and killed 22 people.
Amelio Baretto, a volunteer with the international aid group World Vision, said he was inside the church at Liquica with his wife and about 3,000 other refugees when the militiamen stormed it on April 6, 1999.
Baretto, who was a civil servant at that time, said one of the attackers slashed him in the head with a machete. He said he heard shots fired and felt the effects of tear gas.
"At one o'clock the militia started to attack and I saw Tome Diego [the militia leader] burst into the church screaming 'Attack'," Baretto told the court.
The charge dossier prepared by the prosecutors in the case identified Diego as a member of the Liquica district military.
Joao Fereira, 35, a farmer from the hills near Liquica who was at the church when the attack took place told the same court that he saw the assailants, pro-Indonesian militiamen, come down to the church from the nearby district military headquarters.
Baretto said a man hit him with a rifle butt as he made his way out of the church. A pro-Indonesian friend finally rescued him and took him home.
He said a few hours before the raid, he saw feared militia chief Eurico Guterres speak to Pastor Rafael. He heard Guterres tell the clergyman: "Let those CNRT leaders here leave and be taken to the district chief Leoneto Martin." CNRT refers to East Timor's independence movement.
Rafael said he could not force them to leave the church, according to the witness. Rafael also survived the attack. Guterres will eventually stand trial in the rights court.
Fereira said he was slashed three times by a militiaman as he fled. He said he had hidden in the bathroom of the priest's residence during most of the attack but fled after militias, some of them wearing black hoods, shouted for everyone to come out.
"I came out with many others but I was attacked outside with a machete. The man hacked at me three times but I managed to run to seek safety at the nearby district chief office," said Fereira, who has a scar on the scalp and another on his left elbow.
Baretto, bearing a large scar on his forehead, and Fereira were testifying as witnesses in the trial of former East Timor police chief Brigadier General Timbul Silaen, who is accused of responsibility for "crimes against humanity" by failing to halt the massacre of civilians.
Silaen is one of 18 military, police and civilians who are due to face trial on charges of gross human rights violations over the campaign of violence and destruction by pro-Jakarta militias in the then-Indonesian province.
The militiamen, backed by some Indonesian soldiers, waged a campaign of intimidation before East Timor's August 1999 vote to separate from Indonesia and a violent scorched-earth revenge campaign afterwards.
The trials are being watched closely by the world for proof that Jakarta will punish those behind the violence.
They are focusing on five incidents in which militias attacked independence supporters seeking refuge in churches and homes in April and September 1999, killing more than 100.
They include assaults on the church in Liquica that left 22 dead; on the Dili home of independence figure Manuel Carrascalao in which 12 people died; on the diocese of Dili in which 46 people were killed; on the residence of cardinal Carlos Ximenes Belo in which 10 people were killed, and on a church in Suai in which 27 died.
Although Baretto told the court he was not scared or under pressure to give testimony he appeared nervous, often giving just brief responses.
Both Baretto and Fereira also testified in another trial, that of former East Timor Governor Abilio Soares, held in a separate courtroom on Thursday. Soares is charged with the same crime as Silaen.
International rights groups are sceptical that the long-delayed rights court will deliver justice.