[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 67 (Tuesday, May 11, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5026-S5027]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              CONTINUING CAMPAIGN OF TERROR IN EAST TIMOR

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President. I am dismayed to report to the Senate 
that the situation in East Timor continued to deteriorate over the 
weekend. The violence has become so bad that courageous human rights 
activists, lawyers, health workers and others have been forced to go 
into hiding. There are reports that thousands of East Timorese are 
trapped inside what one observer has called a ``concentration camp.''
  This situation comes on the heels of several new developments. Last 
week, we had the unfortunate and ironic coincidence of several events 
on one day, Wednesday, May 5. On that day, the governments of Portugal 
and Indonesia, under the auspices of the United Nations, signed an 
agreement regarding the modalities of the planned August 8, 1999, vote 
on autonomy in East Timor. On that same day, the New York Times 
published a very significant op-ed by a key human rights lawyer, 
Aniceto Guterres Lopes, while at the same time, his house was 
surrounded by armed militias. And, still on the same day, I and several 
other Senators introduced S. Res. 96, a resolution to push for the 
Government of Indonesia to make a top priority the disarming of the 
very militias that seem to be terrorizing the region, among other 
actions.
  Mr. President, on Sunday, May 9, 1999, the Washington Post published 
an excellent article that explains in horrifying detail just how bad 
the situation has become in East Timor. I ask unanimous consent that 
the text of the article be printed in the Record, and I thank the 
Chair.

                [From the Washington Post, May 9, 1999]

A Campaign of Terror; Army-Backed Militias Use Violence to Sway Vote on 
                         E. Timor Independence

                         (By Keith B. Richburg)

       The Indonesian military, through armed surrogates and 
     paramilitary groups, is using intimidation, violence and the 
     forced relocation of thousands of people to ensure that 
     residents of East Timor do not vote for independence in a 
     referendum Aug. 8, according to relief workers, human rights 
     groups, Western military analysts and independent reporting 
     here.
       The actions of the paramilitary groups stand in sharp 
     contrast to the central government's commitment in a U.N.-
     brokered agreement last week to allow East Timor's 800,000 
     people to choose their own future in a referendum, even if 
     they decide to sever ties with Indonesia and become the 
     world's newest independent nation. The government promised a 
     free and fair vote.
       Hundreds of Timorese independence activists have been 
     killed or have gone into hiding after receiving death threats 
     from army-backed militias. The main independence group, the 
     National Council for Timorese Resistance has been wiped out 
     in the capital, Dili; its downtown office is shut and its 
     leaders are on the run. Militia members armed with machetes 
     and homemade rifles roam the streets, carrying what is 
     believed to be a death list with the names of prominent 
     activists, human rights lawyers and even Catholic priests.
       And in the most ominous sign yet that the military intends 
     to engineer the outcome of the vote, 20,000 people have been 
     herded from their mountain villages and are being held in 
     this town as virtual hostages of the militia--creating a 
     captive bloc of votes in favor of Timor remaining a part of 
     Indonesia. Each day, the men are separated from the women, 
     are forced to stand and sing the Indonesian national anthem 
     and to wear red-and-white armbands and scarves, the colors of 
     the Indonesian flag.
       The police say these people are refugees fleeing the pro-
     independence guerrillas in the hills, who have been waging a 
     low-level insurgency against Indonesian occupation for 24 
     years. But local relief workers in Dili--no foreign aid 
     workers are allowed here--say they have been barred from 
     traveling to Liquica to check on the condition of these 
     people, who are living in makeshift tents, under tarps or in 
     abandoned buildings. What little food they have is provided 
     by the local government, and water is scarce.
       Last week, a small group of reporters was allowed into 
     Liquica to see the detainees and take pictures. But 
     interviews outside the presence of the police or militia were 
     forbidden, and most of the people seemed too frightened to 
     speak. A few times, someone in the crowd shouted to the 
     journalists a line not in the official script--one shouted, 
     for example, that they did not have enough to eat--but they 
     were quickly silenced by militia members who raced into the 
     crowds after them.
       The police commander for East Timor, Col. Timbul Silaen, 
     had said in Dili earlier that reports of people being held 
     captive in Liquica were untrue. ``At most, there are 100 
     [people being held], and they are from the pro-independence 
     faction,'' he said in an interview.


                       Like a Concentration Camp

       But when journalists arrived in Liquica, they saw what 
     appeared to be at least 20,000 people. The Liquica police 
     commander, Lt. Col. Adios Salova, put the number at 10,000, 
     but he insisted, ``They can go back to their homes if they 
     want.''
       ``They've got Liquica like a concentration camp,'' said Dan 
     Murphy, an American physician from Iowa working at a church-
     run clinic in Dili. ``They need help. These people are in 
     desperate shape. . . . They're just sitting out in the open. 
     It's a perfect setup for massive amounts of death'' from 
     disease, with so many people without access to clean water 
     and medical care.
       Other Timorese relief workers said the kind of forced 
     relocation seen in Liquica is being repeated on a large scale 
     elsewhere in the territory. The goal, they said, appears to 
     be to hold the detainees captive until the referendum, to 
     create a large bloc of voters who will support a government-
     sponsored package that would give broad autonomy to East 
     Timor, but keep it as a part of Indonesia.
       ``Their plan is to keep the people there and make sure they 
     vote for'' autonomy, said Estanislau Martins, an official of 
     the Catholic charity Caritas.
       East Timor, a former Portuguese colony, has been a 
     nettlesome problem for Indonesia since its troops invaded in 
     1975 on the pretext of stopping a civil war between rival 
     Timorese factions. East Timor was annexed the following year 
     as a province of Indonesia, but the United Nations never 
     recognized the annexation.
       For much of the past 24 years, Indonesia refused to budge 
     on recognizing Timorese demands for independence. Displays of 
     defiance were crushed, including a series of army massacres 
     that are now etched in the psyche of Timorese. Human rights 
     groups and Timorese activists estimate the conflict has 
     killed as many as 200,000 Timorese. But for the most part, 
     Timor has simmered on the back burners of international 
     diplomacy.
       All that changed this year, when President B.J. Habibie, 
     who took power last May after the fall of longtime ruler 
     Suharto, suddenly announced that Timorese could have 
     independence if they rejected one last, broadened autonomy 
     offer.
       But while the civilian government in Jakarta was eager to 
     rid itself of the East Timor problem, the Indonesian military 
     apparently has other concerns. Senior military officers are 
     known to fear that granting the territory independence will 
     fuel separatist movements across the sprawling archipelago, 
     particularly in the mineral-rich province of Irian Jaya, and 
     in the troubled, Muslim fundamentalist-dominated province of 
     Aceh on Sumatra Island. Troops have been fighting 
     insurgencies in both those provinces, and the rebels have 
     been emboldened by the government's concessions to the 
     Timorese.
       ``It's national unity, and fear of national 
     disintegration,'' said a Western military analyst.
       The armed forces created the militias ostensibly to help 
     keep the peace. But Timorese activists, human rights lawyers, 
     and Western military analysts point to a more sinister 
     purpose--to use them to create the appearance of a civil war 
     in East Timor, while embarking on a campaign to terrorize and 
     intimidate enough people to ensure a vote against 
     independence.


                           weapons of terror

       In recent weeks, the militias have rampaged unchecked in 
     East Timor, killing and maiming suspected independence 
     supporters and sympathizers. ``Ever since [Secretary of 
     State] Madeleine Albright came [in March], it's been 
     terrible,'' said Murphy, the American physician. ``Since 
     then, they've decided to take a hard line, and bring out all 
     the weapons of terror and intimidation.''
       The most brazen attack was here in Liquica on April 6, when 
     militiamen stormed a Catholic church sheltering hundreds of 
     refugees. Tear gas forced the refugees into the open, where 
     they were shot and hacked with axes and machetes; human 
     rights groups recorded 57 deaths.
       On the weekend of April 17, militias rampaged through Dili, 
     driving out most of the independence supporters after a rally 
     at the offices of Timor's Jakarta-appointed governor. The 
     militia members burned down homes and shops in Dili's Becora 
     market area, injuring scores of people.
       ``The militia is the military; they didn't do this on their 
     own,'' said a man named Mateus, whose house was spared but 
     who saw his neighbors' houses reduced to smoldering rubble. 
     ``We saw their cars, and behind them was the military.''

[[Page S5027]]

       The Western military analyst agreed that the armed forces 
     control the militias, and are using them as surrogates. 
     ``There's a big disconnect between what the leadership in 
     Jakarta is saying and what's going on on the ground,'' he 
     said. ``If [Defense Minister Wiranto] was unhappy with what's 
     going on in East Timor, he would have fired some people.''
       There are now at least 13 militia groups in East Timor, one 
     for each of the territory's 13 districts, with names like Red 
     and White Iron and Aitarak. The Western military analyst said 
     the number now could be as high as 20. The Dili police 
     commander, Col. Timbul, said each militia has about 5,000 
     members.
       One tactic of the militia groups is intimidation of 
     independence supporters. Militia posts have been set up just 
     yards from the homes of human rights activists and other 
     independence sympathizers.
       Last Wednesday night, the Portuguese consul general in 
     Jakarta, Ana Gomes, telephoned journalists in Dili to tell 
     them that the Aitarak militia had surrounded the home of a 
     prominent human rights lawyer, Aniceto Gutteres Lopes, 
     director of the Legal Aid, Human Rights and Justice 
     Foundation. The journalists, arriving in taxis just before 
     midnight, found about two dozen militiamen outside Gutteres' 
     empty home.
       Gutteres and his family were discovered hiding in his back 
     yard. He whispered to the reporters to stay and make sure he 
     was not found, and to try to persuade the militia that he was 
     not at home. He escaped, and has gone into hiding.
       That episode was not unique; dozens of independence 
     supporters, human rights workers and others have been 
     threatened, have fled East Timor or have gone into hiding. 
     Those who remain say they sleep in different houses each 
     night.
       Relief workers and foreign military analysts in Jakarta say 
     the militias have a death list, with the names of prominent 
     independence sympathizers to be killed between now and the 
     vote, to guarantee the result the military brass prefers.
       Matins, of Caritas relief agency, said he knows his name is 
     on the list. ``It's all the key persons they say have to be 
     killed,'' he said, cowering in his office after receiving an 
     early morning warning of an imminent attack.
       ``They believe if they kill them all, they can win the 
     elections.'' He said four priests are on the list, including 
     the Rev. Francisco Barreto who heads the Caritas office. A 
     man stands in front of bullet holes that riddled his home 
     during an attack by a militia group in the East Timor town of 
     Liquica. The militias, who are believed to have the support 
     of the Indonesian armed forces, also rounded up an estimated 
     20,000 villagers who are being detained in the town. Members 
     of this family are among thousands of East Timorese being 
     held in tents and abandoned buildings in Liquica. It is 
     believed that they will be pressured to vote against 
     independence.

                          ____________________