[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 118 (Monday, September 13, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H8134-H8137]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  IN MEMORY OF FATHER HILARIO MADEIRA AND FATHER FRANCISCO SOARES WHO 
                      WERE MURDERED IN EAST TIMOR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I welcome the news that Indonesia will 
allow an international peacekeeping force into East Timor, but let me 
emphasize that the international community must act quickly before more 
lives are lost.
  Shortly before the August 30 referendum on independence, I was in 
East Timor with two of my colleagues from the other body. Dili was a 
bustling city as it prepared for the U.N.-supervised vote. We were the 
only Congressional delegation to travel to East Timor before the 
elections and the last Members of Congress to see Dili as it once was. 
The burned, looted, and destroyed city emptied of its people is 
heartbreaking. Our delegation traveled to two towns along the western 
border, Maliana and Suai; and I would like to share some of what I saw 
in Suai.
  August is the dry season in East Timor. It was sweltering, hot and 
dusty. In this poor town we went to the Catholic church compound where 
over 2,000 people were seeking refuge. Father Hilario Madeira, the 
senior parish priest, and Father Francisco Soares who would be our 
guides greeted us. They introduced us to their world, one filled with 
worry and tension and subjected daily to violence and intimidation by 
the Indonesian military and militias organized and armed by the 
Indonesian armed forces.
  Despite the strain and uncertainty of their situation, I was 
impressed by Father Hilario and Father Francisco's warmth, good humor, 
hospitality, and steady nerves. Here were men carrying out God's 
mandate to love and care for your neighbor, protect the weak and live 
humbly.
  In talking to the refugees, we discovered most had been burned out of 
their homes or forcibly evicted. The majority were women and children. 
They sought refuge in the church compound surrounded by militia who 
over the past 2 days had cut off all their food and water.
  Our delegation met with town officials asking that the water be 
restored. It was clear that militias were in charge of the water and 
that town officials would do nothing. The armed Indonesian police and 
soldiers, those charged with protection and security of the East 
Timorese people during the U.N. process, stood in the shade doing 
nothing, laughing and joking with the militias.
  When I met with President Habibie in Jakarta, we demanded the water 
be restored in Suai. Less than 24 hours later the militias turned on 
the water.
  Father Hilario shared with us his concerns about the current violence 
and his fears about violent retaliation

[[Page H8135]]

against the people who would go to the polls scarcely a week later, and 
we took that message to heart.
  That evening in Dili we had dinner with Nobel Peace Prize winner and 
Catholic bishop Carlos Belo. In the dining room of his house 
overlooking the courtyard between his residence and the chapel where he 
said mass, Bishop Belo emphasized the need for protection following the 
vote, and as we met in Dili with Indonesian officials, police and 
military commanders, we were constantly assured they were providing 
security for the people. They brushed aside our description of the 
situation in Suai, and I asked that they could cite a single instance 
where they had detained, arrested, or confiscated the weapons of any 
militia member, and they could not.
  As our delegation prepared to depart from Dili, we called upon the 
U.N. to immediately deploy armed peacekeepers to East Timor to protect 
the people from further violence, especially following the referendum.
  Now we know everyone's worst fears have been realized. Over the Labor 
Day weekend I received word that the home of Bishop Belo where I had 
dined just 2 weeks ago had been burned to the ground. The bishop barely 
escaped with his life. The 3,000 people given refuge in his courtyard 
were forced out at gun point by uniformed Indonesian military militias. 
Their fates are unknown.
  And on Wednesday morning I received a phone call from human rights 
workers in Jakarta that eyewitnesses reported militias had gunned down 
and killed Father Hilario and Father Francisco along with Jesuit priest 
Father Dewanto. Many of the people of Suai sheltering inside the church 
were also killed. Some escaped while others were forcibly transported 
out of the country. These were good men; these were holy men. Nothing 
we say or do here in Congress, nothing President Clinton may say or do, 
nothing the U.N. may say or do can bring these men back to the people 
of Suai. In so many ways we in the United States and the international 
community failed them. They trusted us, and we failed them. If we were 
to honor their memory, then we must not fail them again.
  Mr. Speaker, we must support the rapid deployment of an international 
force to rescue and guarantee the security of the people of East Timor. 
We must take immediate steps to protect refugees and displaced people 
from further harm and attacks. We must disarm the militias and 
confiscate and destroy their weapons. We must provide humanitarian 
support, food and medicine for East Timor. We must safely return those 
who are forced to leave their homes, villages, and country. We must 
guarantee the full and safe implementation of the independence process 
for East Timor, and we must help the East Timorese people rebuild their 
cities and towns.
  This time the international community must keep its word to the 
people of East Timor.

               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 11, 1999]

 Nuns Describe Slaughter in E. Timor--Militiamen Killed Priests, Then 
                    Refugees in Church, Witness Says

                             (Doug Struck)

       Kupang, Indonesia, Sept. 10--Father Dewanto was the first 
     to die, said Sister Mary Barudero.
       The militiamen had lined up outside the old wooden church 
     filled with refugees from East Timorese town of Suai on 
     Monday afternoon, and parishioners watched as the young 
     Indonesian Jesuit priest stepped out dressed in his clerical 
     robes to meet the trouble.
       A burst of gunfire cut him down. Father Francisco followed. 
     The militiamen waited for the senior parish priest, Father 
     Hilario. When he did not emerge, a witness said, they kicked 
     down the door to his study and sprayed him with automatic 
     weapons fire.
       A nun who watched the massacre from the window of her house 
     described the scene to Barudero less than an hour later. The 
     nun told Barudero the militiamen entered the church filled 
     with refugees, and began firing long bursts from their 
     weapons. Then they threw hand grenades into the huddled 
     victims.
       Inside, there had been only young children and women, 
     babies at their mothers' breasts, and pregnant women, 
     Barudero said. The men had fled days earlier. Barudero, who 
     works as a nurse, had sent four of the pregnant women from 
     her hospital to Suai just two hours earlier to await further 
     progress in their labor.
       ``They went to the church because that's where they felt 
     safe. They felt being near the priests was protection,'' said 
     the 64-year-old nun, vainly fighting her tears.
       Her account of the massacre, also reported Thursday by the 
     Vatican's missionary news agency Fides, is one of the first 
     graphic descriptions of the violence that has wracked East 
     Timor at the hands of Indonesian military-backed militiamen 
     who opposed the independence for the province.
       Roman Catholic clergy, seen by the militia as having 
     supported independence for East Timor, were among the first 
     victims. Most citizens of East Timor, a former Portuguese 
     colony, are Roman Catholics. Indonesia is the world's largest 
     Muslim country.
       Barudero, a Philippine-born Indonesian citizen who belongs 
     to the French order of Sisters of St. Paul of Chartres, 
     agreed to talk to a reporter here in western Timor, because 
     ``I have lived my life. I am not afraid to die.''
       Other refugees still feel the militias' reach in the 
     supposed safety of western Timor, and have been warned not to 
     talk to reporters. Barudero's colleague who watched the 
     massacre, and who belongs to the Canossian order, has fled to 
     Darwin, Australia, but still is afraid to be identified, she 
     said.
       Barudero said the militia that carried out the massacre had 
     been active in the area and was well known to residents. Of 
     the three priests who died, young Father Dewanto was an 
     Indonesian citizen from Java who arrived in Suai just three 
     weeks before the massacre and had been ordained only a month 
     before that. Father Hilario, who had been in the town for 
     some time, was well known as a supporter of independence for 
     East Timor, according to Fides.
       Fides also said about 100 people were killed in the Suai 
     massacre. It quoted witnesses as saying 15 priests were 
     killed in the cities of Dili and Baukau, and some nuns were 
     killed in Baukau.
       Here in the western part of the island of Timor, refugees 
     who fled the violence in East Timor still have cause for 
     fear. The militiamen who brought destruction to East Timor, 
     have taken control of the 84,000 refugees now in camps in 
     western Timor, and move freely around the city. Some are 
     armed; some seem intent on intimidating foreigners and 
     refugees. Foreigners have not been allowed in the camps.
       At a western Timor refugee camp in Atambua, on the border 
     with East Timor, a man identified as a supporter of 
     independence was killed Wednesday, apparently by militiamen.
       An official of Catholic Relief Services, who had just 
     returned from Atambua, provided some confirmation of reports 
     that pro-independence refugees were forcibly removed from 
     East Timor.
       ``If you ask the refugees once, they say they left because 
     it was unsafe, and they had to leave their houses. But if you 
     ask again, they will tell you that the soldiers terrorized 
     them and made them come,'' said William Openg, an Indonesian 
     relief worker for Catholic Relief Services.
       Although many in the refugee camps are said to be opponents 
     of independence--like the militiamen--those who support the 
     outcome of the Aug. 30 referendum favoring independence may 
     not acknowledge it.
       ``They are afraid to show their faces. It could cost them 
     their lives,'' said Agapitus Prasetya, an Indonesia UNICEF 
     worker who has been in the refugee camps. ``The militias are 
     everywhere. They are all over.''
       Anti-foreigner passions have been whipped up by the 
     militias, and even Indonesian staff members distributing food 
     to the refugees strip the UNICEF signs off their cars, he 
     said.
       ``The militias are killing people, and the people are 
     threatened here in west Timor,'' complained a Catholic 
     clergyman who fled Dili only to find militiamen in control of 
     refugee camps in western Timor. ``Where is the law and order 
     in Indonesia? The militias, the military and the police are 
     above the law.''
       He and several other clergy members described their flight 
     from East Timor on condition that their names not be used. 
     They said they fear consequences from the Indonesian military 
     and Timorese militias.
       One nun who lived in Dili said the gunfire began about 
     three hours after the ballot result approving independence 
     was announced last Saturday.
       ``It was really frightening. We couldn't go out of the 
     house,'' she said. ``We could see a lot of fires. It looked 
     like they would use diesel gas, because the fires would be 
     big black balls, and then you could see white smoke from 
     houses. That was everywhere.''
       On Monday, she and other nuns decided it was too dangerous, 
     and left in an old pickup truck in a convoy escorted by 
     police. As they passed through Dili, she saw a surrealistic 
     scene of fires and lawlessness, she said.
       ``It was remarkable. There was shooting going on, and 
     people were running for their lives. But others were looting 
     the stores, very calmly, as though they were so relaxed.'' 
     She said she saw some looters loading goods into military 
     trucks.
       In one section, ``all the stores were razed,'' she said. 
     ``I saw a lot of military, and of course, the militias. Some 
     people were ransacking, and some people were looting. The 
     whole place was in ruins, except for the government 
     buildings.''
       ``And there were a lot of people moving out, because their 
     houses were burning.''
       Another clergyman said the gunfire intensified after the 
     referendum results. ``God, it was frightening,'' he said. 
     ``There were motorcycles running all over, bringing military 
     and militias. You could hear the big guns of the military.''
       On Tuesday, water, electricity and telephone lines were cut 
     in his section of Dili, and he decided to leave, the 
     clergyman said. He passed many burned houses, he said. ``It

[[Page H8136]]

     seemed the pro-independence houses were targed. But the 
     referendum was approved 4 to 1, so they didn't have to go 
     very far.''
       ``I never saw any instance of refugees being forced by gun-
     point,'' said a priest. ``Our people did not want to leave. 
     But they were told if they stayed, the houses would be burned 
     and they might be killed. They were forced out by fear.''
       The militias were particularly strong in the western areas 
     of East Timor, where Barudero and four other nursing nuns ran 
     a hospital in Suai, and where Roman Catholic priests ran the 
     church where the massacre occurred.
       Barudero said she was not intending to leave, even after 
     the men fled, even after more victims of the rising violence 
     came to the hospital, even after she and the other nuns had 
     to dig a grave for a victim on the grounds of the hospital. 
     The victim's family members were too afraid to claim him or 
     were victims themselves, she said.
       But after the massacre, ``there was no one left to help. 
     They had all left or been killed. And I knew, if we stayed, 
     we could be killed,'' she said. ``I am old, I'm ready to die. 
     But the young sisters would not go unless I went. They have 
     many years left to help people. Finally, I said, `pack what 
     you can. We will leave.' ''
                                  ____


               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 12, 1999]

 Jakarta's Army Tied to Deaths--Report Says Sympathetic Troops Joined 
                            Militia Rampage

                            (By Doug Struck)

       Kupang, Indonesia, Sept. 11--A human rights organization 
     said today it has documented atrocities in East Timor that 
     implicate the Indonesian military and militias in at least 
     seven instances of mass killings and dozens of individual 
     slayings.
       ``Killing, plundering, burning, terror intimidation and 
     kidnapping [have] been carried out by the Indonesian armed 
     forces along with the pro-Jakarta militia'' in the days since 
     East Timor voted overwhelmingly for independence on Aug. 30, 
     concludes the report by the Foundation for Law, Human Rights 
     and Justice, based in Dili, the East Timor capital.
       The organization interviewed many refugees secretly because 
     of fears of retribution from militiamen in the refugee camps. 
     Most of the atrocities cited by the group have not been 
     verified, because after the shooting erupted in Dili, 
     journalists were confined to the U.N. compound and then 
     evaluated.
       According to the report, witnesses identified Indonesian 
     military members, in addition to the militaries, as having 
     participated in the atrocities. Indonesia has denied that any 
     mass killings occurred and has sent more troops to East Timor 
     to impose martial law and end the turmoil.
       [U.N. human rights commissioner Mary Robinson said Sunday 
     that she wanted an international war crimes tribunal set up 
     to investigate human rights violations in East Timor. She 
     said she would also probe the extent of military and police 
     involvement in such violations.]
       The Indonesian human rights group's report includes some 
     incidents that have been verified by the media and other 
     sources and others not previously known. Among them:
       Several hours before results of the independence referendum 
     were announced on Sept. 4, 45 people were killed in Maliana, 
     in western East Timor. They included 21 drivers and local 
     employees of the U.N. observers' operation.
       Ten people in Bidau Macaur Atas, a neighborhood in Dili, 
     were hacked to death Sept. 4 by militiamen and Indonesian 
     soldiers, according to the human rights report. Some were 
     buried by relatives, but ``others were put into bags and 
     thrown away on the side of the road. Others were thrown into 
     the ocean.''
       On the same day, militia members killed 50 people in 
     Bedois, in eastern Dili. The next day, the report said, eight 
     people who went to the Dili harbor to try to leave by ferry 
     were identified as pro-independence and shot dead by Aitarak 
     militia members.
       The group said it also has documented the attack on the 
     Dili Roman Catholic diocese that killed at least 25 people, 
     including a baby; the killing on Sept. 5 of 15 local 
     employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross in 
     Dili; and an attack by the army and militia on a Catholic 
     church compound in the Dili neighborhood of Balide, where 
     unknown numbers were slain.
       The human rights group, which is working in western and 
     East Timor, provided reliable reports in Dili before chaos 
     engulfed the city last week. Its offices there were 
     ransacked, and many of its files were destroyed.
       Much of the violence has been carried out by pro-Indonesian 
     militias, but there also have been frequent reports of 
     shooting and looting by the military. The Indonesian armed 
     forces chief Gen. Wiranto, acknowledged today that the 
     militias and military are ``comrades in arms.'' He said his 
     forces have not succeeded in ending the violence because, for 
     his soldiers, ``I can understand it is very hard to shoot 
     their own people.''
       An official of the foundation asked not to be identified 
     for fear the group's work would be stopped by the military or 
     the militias, who control the refugee camps in western Timor 
     through fear and intimidation. For the same reason, the 
     official said, the witnesses were not identified in the 
     report.
       In Australia, aid worker Isa Bradridge told Channel 7 that 
     his wife, Ina, had seen piles of dead bodies stacked in a 
     room at a police station in Dili before the couple was 
     evacuated. ``It was chockablock full of dead bodies, right up 
     to the roof.'' he was quoted as saying. ``All she could see 
     through the bars were arms hanging out, heads, old and new, 
     blood dribbling out under the door.'' The report could not be 
     verified.
       Some human rights groups alleged that some East Timorese 
     were forced by the militias to become refugees. Accounts 
     slowly emerging from the refugee camps in western Timor 
     appeared to confirm that claim.
       ``We were asked by the local government and the Aitarak 
     [militia] to leave East Timor,'' said a 29-year-old Dili 
     resident of the Noelbaki Refugee Camp near Kupang. ``I didn't 
     want to go. . . . I would like to go back to Dili.''
       Reporters have been barred from the camps in western Timor, 
     though several Indonesian journalists accompanied Social 
     Affairs Minister Yustika S. Baharsjah on a quick tour of 
     three camps today.
                                  ____


             [From the Sidney Morning Herald, Sept 9, 1999]

            Catholic Clergy Executed by Indonesian Military

                          (By Louise Williams)

       Catholic Church leaders were hiding in remote East Timor 
     mountains last night after military backed pro-Jakarta 
     militia gangs went on a rampage of bloody retribution, 
     murdering at least 14 priest and nuns and stabbing the Bishop 
     of Baucau.
       Six nuns were reported killed in Baucau, four nuns in Dili 
     and three priests in Suai, said a spokeswoman for Caritas 
     Australia, the Catholic overseas aid agency. The Bishop of 
     Baucau, the Most Rev Basilio do Nascimento, was stabbed 
     before escaping into the mountains.
       Father Francisco Barreto, the local director of Caritas, 
     was believed to have been murdered just outside the capital, 
     Dili.
       He had warned the Foreign Minister, Mr. Downer, during a 
     visit to Australia in April that terrible violence would be 
     orchestrated by the Indonesian military.
       One account of the attack on the six Canossian sisters in 
     Baucau, 115 kilometers east of Dili, said the militia thugs 
     had forced them into a forest where they were murdered.
       Reports of the atrocities emerged as Indonesia announced 
     last night that a five-member United Nations Security Council 
     team would travel to East Timor tomorrow, but Jakarta 
     remained strongly opposed to any UN peacekeeping force.
       In the worst slaughter to date, the UN confirmed that at 
     least 100 people, including three priests, had died in an 
     attack earlier this week on refugees sheltering in the church 
     at Suai, on the remote east coast.
       The dead priests were Father Hilario Madeira, who had long 
     been an outspoken critic of military and militia abuses, 
     Father Francisco Soares and Father Tarcisius Dewanto.
       The savage attacks are the first deliberate violations of 
     the sanctity of the church under Indonesian rule and have 
     robbed the East Timorese of their last refuge.
       The militias appear to be using a death list of 
     independence sympathizers compiled before the ballot to 
     systematically hunt down their targets.
       Many of the priests and nuns are sheltering on Mate Bean, 
     the mountain of death, where tens of thousands were killed by 
     bombing in the first years of the Indonesian occupation.
       It is not known whether they have any supplies or access to 
     medical treatment.
       A communications blackout in Dili has made it impossible to 
     confirm the number of dead or injured in the attacks and 
     Catholic networks in Australia and Indonesia are working with 
     the Vatican to try to establish the facts.
       Some reports have been received by overseas diocese offices 
     through e-main from outlying Catholic schools and churches in 
     East Timor, describing attacks on churches and buildings were 
     nuns and priests were sheltering with thousands of refugees.
       A Caritas Australia spokeswoman, Ms. Jane Woolford, said: 
     ``We don't even know where many of our local staff are. We 
     hold grave fears for their safety as many of them have been 
     on death militia lists before and have been attacked trying 
     to deliver aid.''
       Many church leaders were identified as independence 
     supporters and the Catholic Church became an important symbol 
     of opposition to the Muslim-dominated Indonesian Government.
       The leader of the Catholic Church in East Timor, Bishop 
     Carlos Belo, was evacuated to Darwin earlier this week after 
     his offices and home were burnt to the ground, with scores 
     killed.
       Father Jose San Juan, also recently evacuated to Darwin, 
     said: ``I fear many, many priests and sisters will be killed 
     if they stay. In the past the church was a safe place, even 
     from the Indonesian military, but if they can attack the 
     bishop then that's it.''
       The militia units were stacked with Indonesian operatives, 
     and Father San Juan, a Filipino from the Salesian order.
       ``I saw the militias attacking churches before I got out 
     and many of them were speaking in Indonesian, not the local 
     language, so I do not believe they are all East Timorese,'' 
     he said.
       ``They were yelling at people to get out or be killed, and 
     if they refused they just shot or stabbed them. The 
     Indonesian police and military were just standing there.''
       The chairman of Caritas Australia, Bishop Hilton Deakin, 
     said: ``These murderous attacks on the church are part of a 
     much wider unjust genocide.

[[Page H8137]]

       ``When Catholic Church members, who have offered relief and 
     refuge to East Timorese, are struck down, we realize there is 
     no respect for any life in East Timor.''
       Ms. Ana Noronha, director of the East Timor Human Rights 
     Commission, said information on the deaths had been sent to 
     the United Nations. ``It is now obvious that the violence is 
     reaching everyone and that there is a pattern of the Catholic 
     Church being attacked.''
                                  ____


[From the Carter Center East Timor Weekly Report No. 9, Sept. 13, 1999]

  Indonesian Armed Forces Continue Campaign of Murder, Violence, and 
Massive Forced Deportation in East Timor as Militias Terrorize Timorese 
                         Refugees in West Timor

       The Carter Center is encouraged by the decision of the 
     Indonesian government to allow the deployment of an 
     international peacekeeping force in East Timor. However, the 
     Indonesian military and police, with the assistance of their 
     militia surrogates, continue to murder and terrorize the 
     people of East Timor, destroying buildings and infrastructure 
     and forcibly expelling tens of thousands of unarmed civilians 
     from the territory. The city of Dili, the capital of East 
     Timor, has been almost completely destroyed over the past 
     week, and reports from other parts of the territory indicate 
     widespread destruction, looting, and murder. It is clear that 
     the Indonesian armed forces are executing a deliberate, 
     planned campaign under the direction of senior military 
     commanders to destroy and forcibly depopulate East Timor.
       In West Timor armed pro-integration militias are now 
     operating with official support, openly terrorizing the more 
     than 100,000 East Timorese refugees who have been forced over 
     the border. Those displaced by the violence, both in East 
     Timor and West Timor, now face the threat of malnutrition and 
     disease as domestic and international humanitarian efforts 
     are hampered by militia and military activity and Indonesian 
     government efforts to block access to refugee camps.
       Carter Center staff and observers, forced at gunpoint to 
     evacuate Dili Sept. 5 and now reporting from several 
     locations throughout Indonesia, have confirmed the following 
     through eyewitness accounts from reliable sources:
       Refugees fleeing East Timor have been subject to extreme 
     intimidation and acts of violence. The Carter Center has 
     confirmed that pro-integration militia members murdered 
     approximately 35 young men traveling on the Dobon Solo ferry 
     from Dili to Kupang on Tuesday, Sept. 7, and dumped their 
     bodies overboard.
       In the attack at Bishop Belo's compound last week, 
     militiamen hacked to death with machetes some 40 refugees in 
     the courtyard while TNI soldiers fired into the bishop's 
     residence from the street. A military ambulance later came 
     and removed all but two of the bodies.
       In an Indonesian television interview, Rui Lopez, a militia 
     leader, admitted that Indonesian civilian police and military 
     officials in Suai, East Timor, held a meeting before 
     announcement of balloting results and were given instructions 
     to attack UNAMET offices, burn the town of Suai, and drive 
     the population into West Timor.
       There are now more than 100,000 refugees from East Timor in 
     West Timor and on the islands of Flores and Alor, and 
     estimates of the total number of people displaced from the 
     territory range from 120,000 to 200,000 (nearly one-fourth of 
     the entire population). Refugees have been transported by 
     Indonesian military ships and aircraft to a number of 
     locations within Indonesia, including Irian Jaya, Ambon, 
     Sulawesi, Surabaya, and Bali, some of which are thousands of 
     kilometers from East Timor.
       Pro-integration militias are now active throughout West 
     Timor, particularly in the towns of Atambua and Kupang. 
     Eyewitnesses report that militia members have entered refugee 
     camps with lists of names of supporters of independence, and 
     that a number of individuals have been removed from camps or 
     executed in the camps of militiamen. Militia members armed 
     with automatic weapons also have been seen stopping and 
     searching vehicles in central Kupang and driving looted 
     UNAMET vehicles in and out of the provincial police 
     headquarters.
       The Indonesian military and police have prevented 
     international aid workers, journalists, and observers from 
     visiting refugee camps in West Timor and from interviewing 
     Timorese refugees.
       Eyewitnesses report that the Indonesian military and police 
     have joined in the looting and destruction of Dili. 
     Indonesian soldiers and police officers have frequently sold 
     looted food and other basic necessities to refugees under 
     their control at exorbitant prices.
       It is now apparent that militia violence has been targeted 
     at political, social, and religious leaders, and a number of 
     priests and nuns have been murdered during militia and 
     military attacks on churches sheltering those seeking refugee 
     from the violence.

                          ____________________