The Canberra
Times
January 7, 2003
Crimes in East Timor unpunished
James Dunn
decries the failure of an Indonesian tribunal to convict those
responsible for murder and destruction.
IT IS hard
to feel sanguine about the latest acquittal of the Indonesian
Human Rights Tribunal, which has been hearing charges against TNI (Indonesian
armed forces) officers and militia leaders in relation to events in East
Timor
in 1999.
The tribunal
has just dismissed charges against a Kopassus (Special Forces)
officer who is surely one of those most responsible for the crimes against
humanity that cost hundreds of lives, and the near total destruction of
the
territory's towns and villages. This tribunal has now dismissed charges
against 10 officers on the grounds of lack of evidence. Only one, Lieutenant-
Colonel Sudjarwo, the former military commander of Dili, has been found
guilty,
and then only of having failed to stop the violence. The real charges
that
should have been made, responsibility for the setting up of the militia
units
and their brutal conduct, were not laid against any of these officers.
The
outcome so far (and it is hard to see how the tribunal can change course)
suggests that the TNI is going to be absolved of responsibility for these
acts
of state terrorism. The not-guilty verdict against Lieutenant-Colonel
Yayat
Sudradjat during Christmas week seemed the last straw. Sudradjat was a
key
figure in what was a Kopassus conspiracy to prevent the loss of East Timor
by
sabotaging UN-sponsored moves for an act of self-determination, by means
of
violence and intimidation.
In the
report compiled by the Indonesian Human Rights Commission
investigation set up by President Wahid when he took office, Sudradjat
was
identified as one of the TNI officers who should be indicted. In a report
I
compiled for the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor
in
2001, he was named as a central actor in the destructive operation, which
culminated in the loss of more than 1000 lives, the almost total destruction
of
East Timor's physical infrastructure and the virtual deportation of 250,000
people to Indonesia. The essential case against the TNI officers is not
that
they failed to prevent violence, but the much more serious charge that
they
engineered this campaign of state terrorism. Its architects were
Major-Generals
Zakky Anwar Makarim and Sjafrei Sjamsuddin, who planned the setting up
of the
militia in mid-1998, when it had become clear to Kopassus that President
Habibie's conciliatory offers could lead to the loss of a territory they
had
played a key role in acquiring for Indonesia. Without this TNI initiative
the
militia terror would, I believe, never have existed. Sudradjat played
a key
role
from that time onwards, essentially as the link between the generals and
the
militia commanders. According to militia witnesses, he provided money
to pay
militia leaders, supplies of drugs to 'make the militia brave' and operational
directions. In fact, there is evidence that on at least one occasion this
officer exhorted militia commanders to intensify their violent activities,
including against the church and its officials.
There is
strong evidence that TNI officers played leading roles in the
operations that led to serious atrocities, notably, Suai and Maliana,
where
dozens of Timorese were killed in what appeared to be revenge attacks
for
having
humiliated the TNI. In these two cases senior Kopassus officers, one of
whom
has
already been acquitted and the other not even charged, virtually directed
operations resulting in brutal massacres. There is no shortage of evidence
against such officers, but the Indonesian prosecutors have laboured under
the
limitations of the tribunal's mandate, which covers the period between
April
and
October 1999. In effect this precluded investigation into the setting
up of
the
militia and those responsible for it.
The sentencing
of the flamboyant Aitarak militia commander, Eurico
Guterres,
attracted widespread attention, but he was a mere tool. The big fish,
the
Kopassus commanders, have virtually been protected from prosecution. The
only
senior officers brought before it are the territorial commanders, officers
like
Major-General Adam Damiri, Brigadier-Generals Mahidin Simbolon and Tono
Suratnam, and they were acquitted.
These three
were, in fact, key operational figures, who played key command
roles in the physical destruction of East Timor, and deportations to the
Indonesian half of the island. This operation, which the TNI officers
themselves
described as a 'scorched earth' operation, constituted a serious crime
against
humanity, but is yet to attract the attention of the tribunal. It is now
apparent that the tribunal Indonesia agreed to establish in response to
international pressures is likely to absolve the Indonesian military of
responsibility for the devastation of East Timor, and for the killing
of over
1000 of its people. The main criticism to emerge from it is that some
officers
did not do enough to stop the violence, which defence lawyers ascribed
to
fighting between FALINTIL (Armed Forces of National Liberation of East
Timor)
and supporters of integration.
This was
a lie, for FALINTIL troops confined themselves to agreed
cantonments
during the last period of Indonesian rule.
The tribunal
has also been repeatedly told by defence lawyers that
international intervention was largely responsible for the agitation that
led
to
violence. It is as much in Australia's interests that those responsible
for
the
Kopassus-inspired terrorism be exposed and brought to justice as it is
bring
to bring to justice the terrorists responsible for the Bali bombing.
Although
there appears to be little enthusiasm in Canberra or Washington
for
it, an international tribunal should now be given serious consideration.
To
leave things as they are will leave a festering sore in relations between
Indonesia and Australia, and diminish the legitimacy of a UN mission we
chose
to support.
As for
the TNI officers responsible for these crimes, only Sudjarwo, one of
the least responsible, has been sentenced. The more senior officers have
been
promoted. Major-General Adam Damiri later commanded TNI operations in
Aceh,
while his deputy, Mahidin Simbolon, now a major-general, became military
commander in West Papua, where Kopassus officers are currently under
investigation for an assassination. As for Sudradjat, after Timor he was
promoted colonel and was for a time deputy chief of Group IV of Kopassus,
its
notorious dirty-tricks department. Meanwhile, in East Timor many low-level
militia are languishing in prison while those officers who recruited them
continue their privileged existence in Jakarta and elsewhere.
James Dunn is a former UN expert on crimes against humanity in East Timor.