Indonesia balks at investigation of E. Timor massacre
By Rick Mitchell
Five weeks after occupying Indonesian troops slaughtered more than 100 East Timorese near Dili, the United Nations is still waiting for the Indonesian government's permission to investigate.
"Sending a U.N. team to Jakarta to investigate the carnage of 12 November is not yet planned, and it is not known whether one will ever be sent," said Nadia Younes, a spokeswoman for the Secretary-General, adding, "We are still waiting for a green light."
In Lisbon on December 2, Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar told Portuguese President Mario Soares that he intended to send an emissary to East Timor. He said the U.N. wanted a "clear, independent and absolutely impartial account of the facts surrounding the tragic and very serious events at Santa Cruz."
The Secretary-General said he would probably send Amos Waco, special rapporteur for the Human Rights Commission on Summary or Arbitrary Executions, and that he hoped the Indonesian government would provide him with all necessary facilities to conduct an investigation in a "completely independent manner."
But by mid-December no one had been dispatched to East Timor, half of an island north of Australia and south of the Philippines. Younes said that, if Waco goes to Jakarta, it will only be to discuss the massacre with Indonesian authorities. He will not be going on to East Timor.
Following Waco's proposed visit, he would report to the Secretary-General, who would consider whether to send a commission to East Timor to investigate, Younes said.
Witnesses, including several Western journalists, said that, without provocation and with no warning to disperse, soldiers opened fire on a crowd of thousands of mourners at the Santa Cruz cemetery near the capital city of Dili. The mourners had marched to the grave of a young man killed by soldiers two weeks earlier. Many people were shot in the back, trying to flee, witnesses said.
Two American journalists were severely beaten and one from New Zealand was killed. A British television reporter recorded the event on video tape, which he buried in the cemetery moments before being arrested. He later recovered the tape, shown on newscasts around the world.
According to Sydney Jones, executive director of Asia Watch, Indonesia has balked at allowing a U.N. investigator to go to Dili, insisting that the Indonesian Commission of inquiry is already conducting an investigation. The Indonesian government initially expressed regret at the deaths, but it is taking an increasingly hard line, Jones said.
General Try Sutrisno, head of the Indonesian military, said: "Yes, the [marchers] had to be blasted. Delinquents like these agitators have to be shot and we will shoot them. ABRI [the Army] is determined to wipe out whoever disturbs stability."
The massacre made international headlines, chiefly because of the foreign journalists in Dili to cover the expected arrival of a U.N.-Portuguese delegation. East Timor was a colony of the Portuguese for nearly three centuries, until 1974. The delegation was cancelled at the last minute.
The Timorese awaited the delegation "like the coming of the Messiah," says Allan Nairn, a writer for the New Yorker who witnessed the massacre and had his skull fractured by soldiers pounding him with the butts of their U.S.-provided M-16 rifles.
"They [the Timorese] thought they would have an outlet. They'd been waiting for 16 years," Nairn said. "When the delegation was cancelled, there was no way to express themselves. The only way was to march."
Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975 and sealed off the island for 12 years, starting in 1977. They began allowing tourism and commerce in 1989. To date Amnesty International is barred from entering. The U.N. still recognizes Portugal as legitimate administrator.
Indonesia has a long record of atrocities in East Timor. According to Jones, more than 100,000 of a population of 700,000 have died of various war-related causes since 1975.
The U.N. Security Council adopted resolutions condemning the occupation in 1975 and 1976, but has never done anything to enforce them, chiefly due to U.S. resistance. The United States, supplying Indonesia with millions in military aid, is one of the few countries to recognize the annexation of East Timor.
