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Witness says soldiers, police were at East Timor church during massacre

JAKARTA, May 13 (AFP) - A policeman testifying at an Indonesian court trying
five officers for gross human rights violations in East Timor said Monday
that police and soldiers were at a church when 27 people, including three
priests, were slaughtered in 1999.

"When I arrived with my men at the Ave Maria church, soldiers and policemen
were already around the compound taking cover as shots were still being
fired," Sony Sanjaya, 27, a member of the police Brimob mass control unit,
told the ad hoc human rights court at the Central Jakarta courthouse.

Sanjaya said he had arrived at the church in Suai, in East Timor near the
border with Indonesian-controlled East Timor, after hearing volleys of shots
there.

He said he asked one soldier who was taking cover there what was happening
and was told that a group of pro-Indonesian East Timorese had stormed the
church.

"It is difficult, it is impossible because of their large number," the
soldiers was quoted by Sanjaya as saying when asked why the East Timorese
militias were allowed to storm the church.

Sanjaya was testifying at the trial of five officers serving in Suai when the
September 6, 1999 massacre at the church took place.

The five -- four army officers and one police officer -- are accused of gross
rights violations by failing to prevent the massacre of 27 civilians in the
church.

On trial are Colonel Herman Sedyono, Kushardianto, Major Ahmad Syamsuddin,
Captain Sugito, and Adjunct Senior Commissioner Gatot Subiyaktoro.

Sanjaya also said he overheard Kushardianto, then the local district military
commander, ordering the pro-Indonesian militia group, the Laksaur militia, to
leave the church.

"The commander of the Laksaur, Olivio Mendoza Manek, answered: 'no, this is
my responsibility," Sanjaya said, adding that he did not know what happened
later.

Kushardianto said the order was not for the Laksaur to leave the church
compound but for people not to hinder the evacuation of refugees from the
church after the shooting.

He also denied addressing the order to Manek, whom he said he did not know.

Another witness, Suai high school principal Pranoto (Eds: one name) said he
had helped Captain Sugito of the local military command to transport and bury
the victims at a secluded beach in neighbouring West Timor the morning after
the massacre.

But Pranowo said he and the captain were unaware of the massacre until they
arrived at the church later on September 6.

The five defendants are among 18 military, police, civilian officials and
East Timorese militiamen who face trial over army-backed attacks by
pro-Jakarta militias against East Timorese independence supporters in April
and September 1999.

If convicted, the defendants face sentences ranging from 10 years in prison
to death.

Militiamen organised by senior Jakarta officials waged a campaign of
intimidation before East Timor's August 1999 vote to split from Indonesia,
and a "scorched earth" revenge campaign afterwards.

They killed hundreds of people, torched towns and forced more than 250,000
people into West Timor after the vote.

Indonesia is under strong international pressure to bring offenders to
justice, with the United States refusing to resume full military-to-military
relations until it does so.