Abdul Khalik, Nusa Dua, Bali – A joint truth commission report has found several high-ranking military officers supported pro-Jakarta militia groups that perpetrated gross human rights violations in East Timor in 1999.
Quoting scores of witnesses testifying during the fact-finding process of the Commission for Truth and Friendship (CTF) from 2005 to 2008, the report said the militia groups were formed by the Indonesian military, and that some generals supplied them with funding and weapons that were later used to attack pro-independence groups.
In its own account on the institutional formation and operational structure linking the Indonesian military with the militia groups, the commission report mentioned names of former Army Strategic Reserve Command (Kostrad) chief Lt. Gen. (ret) Prabowo Subianto, former transmigration minister Gen. (ret) Hendropriyono, former Udayana military commander Maj. Gen. (ret) Adam Damiri and his former deputy Maj. Gen. Mahidin Simbolon.
Pro-integration militia leader Tomas Goncalves said he met with Prabowo and then East Timor commander Col. Tono Suratman, and former military intelligence commander Lt. Col. Yayat Sudrajat in Oct. 1998 to plan the formation of East Timor militia groups, the report said.
Goncalves and his compatriots then met with Hendropriyono in Jakarta in February 1999. "According to Tomas Goncalves, Hendropriyono said the funds from the department of transmigration in East Timor could be used for anything," the report said.
It said that after these series of meetings in Jakarta to build support for the formation of the pro-Indonesia militias, Goncalves and his colleagues then met with Adam and Simbolon in Denpasar before returning to Dili in March 1999.
"The essence of their discussion was to immediately form an armed unit for which the Indonesian military would provide financial and other support," the report said.
Another witness Francisco Lopes de Carvalho then met Maj. Gen. (ret) Zacky Anwar Makarim, who was the deputy head of the East Timor referendum task force, to discuss the strategy of a pro-integration movement right before the referendum.
Carvalho reported the following statement by Zacky during the meeting: "Fifty-fifty can't lose. If we lose, I'll leave it to you. I'm asking, if you swear, don't just swear", the report said.
Goncalves also testified that he and his pro-integration friends met with Lt. Gen. (ret) Kiki Syahnakri, the East Timor province military commander in 1999, about the fate of integration supporters if the autonomy option was defeated, and asked if the Indonesian military would continue to support them.
On its analysis of past documents, especially the indictment of the UN Serious Crimes Unit, the commission revealed the role of former Indonesian military chief Gen. Wiranto, who was blamed by omission for the violence because as the highest-ranking military officer he should have known of the militia groups' movement.