EAST TIMOR –

Silenced Majority

37 Minutes, 20 Seconds

September 1999

 

Sound Starts:  10.00.06.00

 

Pictures Starts:  10.00.06.00

 

 

 

Chris Masters:

When the East Timorese voted so comprehensively for independence from Indonesia on August 30 it was a vote for their own punishment.

 

00.16

Mark Plunkett, Barrister/UN Accredited Observer:

There was no noise, there was no cheering.  I think a few photographers might have had to stir some kids up just to get some cheery scenes, but those people knew that they had voted for their death as well as their independence.

 

00.30

Chris Masters:

They were not surprise by the ruthless, planned, systematic retaliation, they had known for 24 years.  Now their country is shattered, their people scattered, their fate unknown.

 

00.46

Sister Susan Gubbins, Maryknoll Order, East Timor 1991-99:

They were burning his village that morning and that was the morning that we left and he said, 'My baby is only a week old.  It's going to die.'  And I said, ' What do you mean, in the forest?'  And he said, 'No, it's going to die on those buses.'

 

01.00

Jim Dunn, Former East Timor Consul, UN Accredited Observer:

It was very hard for me to leave because I looked back at this family and there was a child of 9 - a small boy, two girls - very vulnerable, one of 17 and one of 13, and all I could see was fire.

 

01.14

Title:             Silenced Majority

 

01.39

Chris Masters:

The fate of the East Timorese is now inexorably bound with our own.  Australia shares the danger, uncertainty and madness of a bloodstained Timor.  On this day, towards the misery and mayhem we tread, while the columns of refugees file the other way.  Tent cities like this are familiar the world over, but this is the first time I have seen one with the Australian bush in the background.  Along with the Timor bound troops assembling nearby, here is an early visible sign of a new engagement with Asia.  In tonight's report we look at the calculation behind the chaos that has brought us to this.

 

02.36

Dr Kevin Baker, Clinician, East Timor:

I think it's just a feeling that we are being carried along - not by a rabble - there was something larger going on.

 

02.43

Jim Dunn, Former East Timor Consul, UN Accredited Observer:

The attack was very carefully planned and orchestrated and it was clearly directed in three phases.  One, to frighten the media out of East Timor, and the second to hold up UNIMET and keep them in, and the third then was to punish terribly the Timorese people.

 

03.04

Sister Susan Gubbins, Maryknoll Order, East Timor 1991-99:

They burned the houses and then tell the people, 'Come with us or you die.  We're coming back here to kill everybody, and by such and such a date we will have come back and done a clean sweep.'

 

03.19

Tomas Goncalves, Former Militia Leader:

On the 26th of March I was invited to a meeting.  At this meeting they said to kill the priests and the nuns because it was they who were there to serve as defenders of the people.

 

03.48

Angus Green, Anthropologist, West Timor:

He said that all people who voted for independence would be known and they would be killed, and that if the United Nations stepped in the way that they would also be killed.

 

04.04

Inge Lempp, UN Accredited Observer:

What happened there just shows that it was systematic intimidation of the international community to get out.  But I do think that we left a little too fast, and I keep wondering, 'What could I have done?'

 

04.19

John Martinkus, Journalist:

I think they've carried out their plan to the nth degree.  They've really done everything they said they were going to.

 

04.28

Chris Masters:

This program is for the most part, an account of the observations of the international community present in East Timor for the last crucial six months.  While they failed to protect the Timorese, they did bear some witness to the slaughter.  The evidence of these doctors and nurses, lawyers and journalists, students and clergy has helped turn the world to Timor and steer us on this course.

 

04.58

Liz Glynn, Nurse, East Timor:

Q:      Do you think it is in fact fair to say that the international community was on side with the pro-independence movement?

A:       I don't think anyone could help but be on side.  I think everyone went there with a clear mind.  You never saw anything obvious that they were on the side of pro-independence.  I just think you couldn't look at that community without realising what was right and what was wrong.  It wasn't a case of that, it was just knowing.  I don't think they were on anyone's side, it was just obvious.

 

05.27

Dr Kevin Baker, Clinician, East Timor:

I think it's true.  I think the people, the sort of people who would go there may already be leaning towards humanitarian ideals.  But I think, I mean I'd, we've taken some hard hearted people with us who probably normally are conservative thinking, and I must admit we've given them one or two weeks, they've all altered.  They actually, I think it is obvious who are the good people.  I think you've got to, it's almost like some kind of metaphysical fight - there are good and bad in this case, and it's pretty well clear cut.

 

05.59

Bonar Tigor, NAIPOSPOS, Indonesian Accredited Observer:

For my opinion, from my group's monitoring, UNIMET's work is neutral.  They are balanced and objective.  Their work is very professional.

 

06.33

Chris Masters:

The 78.5% vote for independence does seem to have surprised the pro-autonomy or integration movement, which is in itself curious.  Anyone with any understanding of life under 24 years of Jakarta military rule, of constant, corrosive brutality and oppression saw what was coming.

 

06.55

Sister Susan Gubbins, Maryknoll Order, East Timor 1991-99:

As far as I could see, nobody was going to vote for autonomy.  I mean, I saw it on TV, and I saw it in the paper - people talking about autonomy - but I didn't meet any of them.

 

07.10

Inge Lempp, UN Accredited Observer:

You know I myself am still shocked that they couldn't put it together, that they wouldn't win that.  But to add to that I mean I remember the night before the vote on Sunday night we visited the sites just to check them out one more time and I talked to a man who had walked all night from another village to get there to cast his ballot along with 120 members of his village, and he told me that night he was contacted by the leader of the Sami, one of the Sami government officers, saying that there was a bag of rice waiting for him.  So even the night before the Government were still bribing people with rice.

 

07.48

Liz Glynn, Nurse, East Timor:

How can anyone want people like that around them, who've tortured them, starved them, beat them, raped them?

 

07.57

Chris Masters:

In the months before the referendum, Jakarta's outward willingness to release its 27th province masked a plan to ensure the independence vote would not succeed.  Militia groups, loyal to Indonesia, emerged ostensibly to protect the East Timorese opposed to the independence movement and its Falantil guerilla army.

 

08.21

Sister Susan Gubbins, Maryknoll Order, East Timor 1991-99:

I mean you didn't hear much about it, but I know they did a certain, a few things.  But then all of a sudden January, February springs up Maraputi and Aitarak and all these, and Laga something, and all of a sudden these names start proliferating.  And then in April it was announced by our Bupati that we had to have a militia, and so they called it Ahi, and purportedly this was so we can protect ourselves against other militia.  And we were just scratching our heads saying, 'What is all this about?'

 

09.04

Chris Masters:

In February this year 'Four Corners' went to the hills to chart the rise of the militias.  The Aitarak militia was formed after the announcement of the referendum.  It's leader, Eurico Guterras.

 

09.18

Eurico Guterras, Aitarak Militia:

I'm prepared to defend integration to my last drop of blood.

 

09.25

Chris Masters:

The MAHIDI, led by Cancio de Carvalho, threatened, along with civil war, the murder of Australian diplomats and journalists.

 

09.34

Cancio de Carvalho, Mahidi Militia:

I'll introduce myself so that the people here know... so I'll explain MAHIDI.  MAHIDI means 'dead or alive, integration with Indonesia.'

 

09.55

Chris Masters:

Their Chief Commander for a time, believed to have been appointed by the Indonesian military, the TNI, was Halilintar leader, Joao de Silva Tavares.  Tavares had joined with the Indonesians in their invasion of East Timor in 1975.

 

10.12

Joao de Tavares, Halilintar Militia:

We'll defend integration, no matter whether forces from outside or inside want to remove the red and white flag.

 

10.21

Mark Plunkett, Barrister/UN Accredited Observer:

By and large many of the militia were kids recruited from West Timor, just street thugs, bully-boys who wouldn't last five minutes in Cabramatta.  And with a little bit of display of vigilance, those bully-boys at least will be put down, very easily.

 

10.40

Chris Masters:

Behind the expensive bunting and rhetoric there was a transparent emptiness to the campaigning.  Those who joined were told they would receive for their loyalty four cows and a brick house.

 

11.02

Liz Biok, Lawyer, UN Accredited Observer:

We went to one autonomy rally in an area called ?Swailoro? where two big trucks came in with bags full of t-shirts, hats, bandannas, flags, and they just stirred the whole populous up to a sense of excitement over these bits of material that they were going to throw out, and then they were thrown to them and people were grabbing at them.  Nobody in the pro-independence campaign had those sort of resources - people couldn't throw t-shirts or flags at them, it just wasn't there.

 

11.33

Bonar Tigor, NAIPOSPOS, Indonesian Accredited Observer:

We have proof the militia integrationists, each person is paid 450,000 rupiah per month, plus 100 kilos of rice.

 

11.47

Chris Masters:

The militias appeared to have received not just the bunting, weapons and cash, but a licence to kill.  When this Government official learned who was on the death lists he fled the country.

 

12.00

Tomas Goncalves, Former Militia Leader:

My first reaction was one of revulsion.  I never expected that they would take this attitude against Catholic authorities in Timor.  I had always thought a commander should fight against an armed enemy, but not to kill priests, to kill nuns, and much less against an unarmed people, defenceless people.  This made me feel... I had to reject all this.

 

12.39

Chris Masters:

The orders came from the Army or TNI.  Beyond their economic interests, Indonesia's armed forces have a powerful emotional investment in East Timor.  They have incurred an undeclared number of casualties in this quarter century war.  They have failed to subdue the Falantil guerillas.  They have failed to unite the population.  They have opposed the referendum.

 

13.04

Mark Plunkett, Barrister/UN Accredited Observer:

Well I think from the very beginning it ought to be recognised that the TNI have a significant part to play under the Indonesian constitution.  It's a revolutionary army, it has a significant part to play in social development.  So for us coming with western eyes a lot of it seems peculiar, but for the Indonesian history it's quite natural.

 

13.22

Bonar Tigor, NAIPOSPOS, Indonesian Accredited Observer:

The world tends to accommodate human rights, but the military still think in the old paradigm.  They think they should use violence.  They think by using force they'll make people follow their instructions.

 

13.48

Chris Masters:

Indonesia's sham troop withdrawals left in place a force almost half the size of Australia's entire army.  The province retained one soldier for every 40 civilians.

 

14.02

Inge Lempp, UN Accredited Observer:

The message from the people was, 'It won't be good if the TNI are still there.  It cannot happen with Indonesian security forces.'  And actually a quote that I heard almost every day from very different people was, How could our torturers, our murderers, our killers our rapists, those who made our family members disappear, how could they be interested in the May 5th agreement with our security?  We don't trust them at all.'

 

14.27

Chris Masters:

There was no effective effort to disguise the links between TNI and militias.

 

14.34

Isa Bradbridge, East Timor Resident:

Well the East Timorese have always known that from the word go they were working together.  You know the East Timorese know everything about everything that goes on within there - their network has always been people.

 

14.46

Mark Plunkett, Barrister/UN Accredited Observer:

At first instance the militias have a number of layers.  The first layer is they have the 'aratanan' and a hand made gun or rocks, and subsequent layers do have automatic weapons.  And the evidence of UNIMET on film and incontrovertible evidence is to demonstrate that TNI were supplying them with guns.  From hiding places this was observed on many occasions.  But many of the TNI are in fact, so really the militia are in fact TNI.  One day they'll be wearing uniform of TNI, the next day they'll be dressed like militia.

 

15.18

John Martinkus, Journalist:

We were seeing on the street militia basically starting to carry around hand guns, militias openly in front of their headquarters handing other hand guns to their colleagues and showing them how to use them.  We were just standing there, watching that and they were waving them at us and saying, 'Oh, you know, you're next.'

 

15.37

Jim Dunn, Former East Timor Consul, UN Accredited Observer:

We actually saw one of the people who was going around shooting supposedly at us, seated on the rear of a motorcycle.  They went around the back of a building and we went up, we just happened to go up on the roof to see what was happening.  He got off his motorcycle, sauntered over to a group of soldiers and they were just chatting away and laughing.  And I said to the others, 'Look at his boots' - they were the same.  And many people have seen them changing clothes.  I've seen them mix together where you see TNI soldiers and militia, all on the back of a truck.

 

16.07

Bonar Tigor, NAIPOSPOS, Indonesian Accredited Observer:

We found out two weeks ago that the field commander came to the Ainaro region and met with a local militia commander and with the head of the region.  At the meeting they said they must take action because, 'We know we'll lose the ballot.'  They were under instructions to distribute 1,000 weapons, M16s, to the people.

 

16.40

Inge Lempp, UN Accredited Observer:

Q:      Did you get a sense that many of them were press-ganged and didn't really want to be there, or indeed were they fervent nationalists?

A:       Well we were trying to research that ourselves and what we heard from different sources within Sami, that in Sami they thought that there were 2,000 militia members of the Ablie.  However they thought that only 200 or the 2,000 were committed nationalists and committed to the integration, that the others - there was actually this term and I forget it in Tetum, but they use it all the time saying, 'Oh, they're just "neck Ablie".'  That means they're afraid for their own necks and so they've been forced into becoming members.

 

17.17

Chris Masters:

Attempts by the United Nations to disarm the militia won some apparent co-operation.  But Inge Lempp, listening to a radio scanner, heard the instructions to pass the weapons back.

 

17.31

Inge Lempp, UN Accredited Observer:

In that laying down of arms, the arms were put into a big metal box and locked with a hatch lock and the key was given to the police, the Indonesian police in the town of Kassa.  So obviously there was linkage with the police that it didn't seem to be a problem to get them back.

Q:      So the weapons were quickly back on the streets?

A:       Yes.

 

17.52

Chris Masters:

The TNI/militia strategy appeared to be the provocation of a phony civil war, but on the instructions of its leader, Xanana Gusmao, the armed independence forces refused to be drawn into battle.  The integration forces needed a reasonably close result in the referendum to justify a descent into chaos.

 

18.15

John Martinkus, Journalist:

You know we were there and it was the police shooting civilians and militias seeking protection of the Indonesian police.  So that was an example of how they've operated and how they've tried to twist the situation around to being this so-called civil war that they always threatened would take place.  For a long time what they were really trying to - on the one hand intimidate the voters, the Timorese and on the other to perhaps create chaos on voting day - and in the end they didn't actually succeed in either.

 

18.50

Chris Masters:

Because held firmly in their hands were powerful weapons of their own, their registration cards.

 

18.58

Inge Lempp, UN Accredited Observer:

It is something that the Indonesians have not been able to kill even though they kill the people's bodies, but that spirit they can't get to.  I'm overwhelmed with that experience, exactly what you're saying.  I'll never forget the day of the vote, August 30th, when there were so many threats just in Sami as we drove out at four in the morning to get to our places of observance, when the road entering into Sami was filled with this silent procession of people who had walked for kilometres, ballot in hand - I mean registration card in hand and identification card in hand - just walking to cast their ballot.  It was an incredible sight.  I'll never forget that moment.

 

19.37

Jim Dunn, Former East Timor Consul, UN Accredited Observer:

I think it's the most extraordinary experience of my life - the Timorese turned out in incredible numbers.  You know, one should point out that there is a non-compulsory voting system with fears of killings and bloodshed and reprisal directed at Timorese voters, and 98.6 turned out to vote, per cent rather, 98.6%

 

20.05

Sister Susan Gubbins, Maryknoll Order, East Timor 1991-99:

Well I can still feel it.  And I went around and they were, I just, you could just feel a lighter atmosphere and you could feel this, 'We're going to do it.'  Nobody said a word.  There were smiles, handshakes, they'd give you this real strong handshake.  But, and I just went around just observing and taking pictures, but they were there so, some of them were there Sunday, were down in ?Aileu?, the ones who had to come far, and they went to mass on Sunday morning and they sang their hearts out and I just thought, How could you not guess what they're going to do?'

 

20.42

Chris Masters:

But nobody could guess the scale of what was to follow.  The patrolling militia intensified the violence.

 

20.52

Sister Susan Gubbins, Maryknoll Order, East Timor 1991-99:

At five minutes after the vote the clinic had to close.  Everybody had to go home.  They had to be with their family.  It was just terror.

 

21.00

Chris Masters:

Counting began straight away.  International observers looking on say the issue was never in doubt.

 

21.08

David McMillan, Lawyer, UN Accredited Observer:

for none of those counters, what was the autonomy pile was higher than the independence pile - for none of them - and for most of them it was significantly in favour of independence, and for some of them it was just a landslide.

 

21.28

Ian Martin, UMIMET:

I hereby announce that the result of the vote is 94,388 in favour, and 344,580 against the proposed special autonomy...

 

21.57

Liz Glynn, Nurse, East Timor:

Oh, the result itself was marvellous.  We happened to be in Dombosco that day and we heard it was coming and thought, 'No, it can't be right.'  But it was, and the next thing everyone started to shout.  But there were a few boys who obviously thought we shouldn't shout because we were surrounded by the paramilitary and the military inside the compound, but you couldn't stop it.  They started and it was just like this roar, because by then there were about eight to 10,000 people in Dombosco camping all around the grounds and we went down there.  It was wonderful - they were hugging and crying and just so joyous and you felt marvellous.

 

22.35

Dr Kevin Baker, Clinician, East Timor:

And the most strange feeling was that within half an hour that altered because just after this incredible, spontaneous laughter - there were priests skipping along the road - and we got intelligence that we were going to be attacked and that also the second word was that they were going to kill all the youth, that was the main aim.  And it was incredible - it altered within half an hour to silence.  There were people just walking with their heads down, young boys were tearing branches off trees, funny old men were - because that's a place where they teach carpentry and electrical work - were putting big nails through whatever branches they could get.  The really strong youth were, had their old ceremonial swords they brought with them.  It was an incredible feeling to watch that change.

 

23.32

Jim Dunn, Former East Timor Consul, UN Accredited Observer:

You'd have more soldiers, all with automatic weapons just standing by and watching.  And one of the worst cases was a small boy who ran - well a small, he was about 14 - and they got him and they hacked him to death.  And the militia were on the other side, laughing.  Can you imagine that?

 

23.48

Isa Bradbridge, East Timor Resident:

We had the Besah Mera Puti which are the Red and White Iron, the most feared militia in East Timor, because most of them are very heavily trained Indonesian soldiers in militia uniforms.  They came to us, to our house in a big truck to destroy our house and also to kill anybody inside.  We had, there was about 60 people just squatting on the floor of our bedrooms in total fear and I'm standing there trying to think of, the only thing I could find to protect us was a shovel.

 

24.18

Mark Plunkett, Barrister/UN Accredited Observer:

We had the right of self-defence.  I regret on that occasion we did not exercise it.  The fear was that if, had we done so, then the retaliation would have been even greater.

Q:      So you were intimidated to the point of being provoked to violence, were you?

A:       Undoubtedly.  It would have been most satisfying to have exercised the right of self-defence, but to have done so would have invited greater retaliation which would have been dangerous, not for ourselves, but for other innocent people not involved directly in the peace process.

 

24.46

Chris Masters:

Three days after the result Indonesia proclaimed martial law.  This Landsat photograph taken over Dili a day later shows how if anything the violence became worse.  UNIMET compounds were closed down.  Local UNIMET staff were elevated on the militia's death lists.  While members of the international community, all unarmed, had been attacked, no foreigners were killed.

 

25.20

Jim Dunn, Former East Timor Consul, UN Accredited Observer:

I frankly think they were scared off a little too easily, but I don't like to blame people in those circumstances because it was rather frightening.  But I kept pointing out they're not shooting at us, they're shooting in the air and they're really trying to scare us, because the only media person who was really hurt was Jonathan Head and he wasn't hurt badly, they really did set about him but they stopped - an order came from behind the scenes saying it was enough.

 

25.56

John Martinkus, Journalist:

That shooting at that particular incident went on for three hours and three East Timorese were killed - one was hacked to death very, very brutally right outside the UNIMET compound - but I mean all the journalists, well there were probably over a hundred journalists present there, and none of us were injured, and there was a reason for that.

 

26.19

Mark Plunkett, Barrister/UN Accredited Observer:

The whole idea was to get Europeans out, or the international people out.

Q:      Are you confident that if more media had stayed then more lives would have been saved?

A:       Yes, I've got no doubt about that.  It didn't require much to have a wholesale panic - it was really just a little bit short of a panic by the media who just poured out of that town in a matter of 24 hours.

 

26.41

John Martinkus, Journalist:

Q:      Was the media spooked?  Did we leave too soon?

A:       Yes, absolutely

 

26.47

Chris Masters:

The international community was swiftly blinded.  Although attacks had been predicted, there was no obvious escape plan for the beleaguered foreigners.  But not everybody remained confined to barracks.

 

27.03

Jim Dunn, Former East Timor Consul, UN Accredited Observer:

Q:      You speak Bahasa, did you have an opportunity of speaking to TNI and ?Polri? to get some sense of what was in their minds, whether they wanted to be there?

A:       Well actually I was very angry on one day so I did go up to a group of them and I just told them, 'I've been a soldier and you know I think for soldiers what is important is you protect the people, but what you are doing, you're not protecting the people, you're murderers, many of you - you're killing the people.  How can you do this?  This is outrageous!'  And they stood silently and I walked off, they didn't interfere.

 

27.45

Angus Green, Anthropologist, West Timor:

Q:      Did we have a worse case scenario contingency plan?

A:       No, not that I know of.  Certainly the people that I spoke to in Dili had no knowledge of any contingency if things had gone as predicted.

 

28.26

Chris Masters:

There were even fewer options for the East Timorese independence supporters.  Only a small percentage were able to find the protection promised them at the outset of the vote.

 

28.39

Liz Glynn, Nurse, East Timor:

Can't describe it.  They were grateful to us.  It was awful.  I couldn't look them in the eye when I knew we were leaving, I felt terrible, absolutely terrible, 'cause they were so grateful to us and we've done nothing.

 

28.54

Dr Kevin Baker, Clinician, East Timor:

There was a little boy - 3 o'clock in the morning before we left, and there was constant gunfire, they were just probing the perimeter, most of the youth had gone by this stage thankfully - and we, I was sitting out there having a cigarette and he came up to me in the dark and he put his hand just at my shoulder and he said, 'Don't worry Doctor, don't be afraid.  The peacekeepers will be here at 6 o'clock in the morning.'  And I sort of reassured him that yes, I heard that was true, because still clutching at that wonderful belief that they were going to be saved.

 

29.30

Inge Lempp, UN Accredited Observer:

I'll never forget, I got two calls from the local Protestant church, Hosanna, which was about two blocks down from our office saying, 'We've got over two hundred refugees here, mostly women and children.  Can't you come and drive them somewhere?'   And I said, 'Where?'  'Well, to the hills.'  And it was that morning that I left and I think ultimately what I could've done is probably just gone to the church and sat with the people there and just waited with them for whatever.  And basically I heard a lot of that, of those comments too. [Speaks in Bahasa] It meant now all that's left is that we just let go and give up and we wait for whatever comes to come.  I heard that a lot at the end.

 

30.10

Isa Bradbridge, East Timor Resident:

We broke down and we had a flat tyre in the middle of town.  The whole of Dili is burning all around us, people were looting left and right and I get a flat tyre.  I've got 15 people in the back of my ute, I've got belongings, I've got a dead pig bleeding in the back of my car.  I've got no spare tyre.  I've got one of the Besah Mera Puti coming up wanting to burn my car down and I'm thinking, 'No, this is like a bad dream, this is not happening.'

 

30.43

Jim Dunn, Former East Timor Consul, UN Accredited Observer:

I'm ashamed, I must say.  On that aircraft coming back from Dili to Darwin we all looked at each other, there was no feeling of happiness or relief, we just felt miserable, all of us.  But I have to say that we didn't believe we were moving out, but I didn't believe we'd really be going and I still don't.  I mean, UNIMET is still there.  It's really important to get a presence back there.

 

31.10

Chris Masters:

Angus Green is one of the few westerners who made it out through West Timor.

 

31.14

Angus Green, Anthropologist, West Timor:

The atmosphere among people who had fled from East Timor, I think it was one of absolute apocalypse and horror, holocaust.  I think that people were by and large numbed and expressionless.

 

31.40

Chris Masters:

At least a quarter of a million displaced people are now beyond the reach of the advancing peacekeepers.  Indonesians have claimed this as a voluntary exodus.

 

31.51

John Martinkus, Journalist:

They knew there was going to be violence and they were very scared, but they absolutely didn't want to leave East Timor.  Similarly later that day as we ourselves were being escorted from ?Treesmood? to the UNIMET compound we saw columns and columns of people being marched in the direction of the dock.  And we're talking a street probably three kilometres long with a column of people probably five across and TNI soldiers on either side with automatic weapons shooting in the air and the column mainly comprising of women and children who were crying and walking towards the docks.

 

32.35

Bonar Tigor, NAIPOSPOS, Indonesian Accredited Observer:

This is the strategy of the Indonesian Government.  They cannot lie again.  All the international community knew what happened about the situation of refugees in East Nusa Tenggara.

 

32.51

Chris Masters:

It is as if the Indonesian West has swallowed the remaining population of the East.  Again journalists and aid workers have been shut out.

 

33.02

Angus Green, Anthropologist, West Timor:

There was occasional violence, one account of somebody shooting into a truck of women and children as they drove through on their way out of East Timor.  Also accounts of people being told to go back into East Timor from Atambua, particularly younger people who may have fit into that category of being students or independence supporters in some way, or just simply ordinary people.

 

33.39

John Martinkus, Journalist:

I think West Timor's going to become increasingly lawless and anarchic really, because the local authorities there can't challenge this sudden influx of eight to ten thousand armed people who are used to behaving with impunity in East Timor and they're basically, the militia are caught up in a bind because they're redundant now.  I think a lot of them will be killed by the Indonesians themselves as they try and cover their tracks, and the rest will continue to loot, plunder and terrorise those unfortunate East Timorese who have been forced over to West Timor.

 

34.38

Tomas Goncalves, Former Militia Leader:

It's a pity, because later on they will be killed by the Indonesians.  The Indonesians are going to wash their hands saying they did nothing and all these militia are going to be killed.

 

34.52

Chris Masters:

Australia is now adjusting to a new reality on our northern border, and it is worth remembering that it was not of our own doing.

 

35.02

Dr Kevin Baker, Clinician, East Timor:

We mustn't lack courage in saying that you do side with good.  I think sometimes we, because we think we're intellectual, intelligent, that we must hesitate and keep being objective, but eventually you've got to sort of commit your soul or your heart to something that is so obvious.

 

35.21

Chris Masters:

In the last twelve months forces within the Indonesian Government and military, without the consent of the Indonesian people, have enacted a campaign of calculated chaos.  Thugs have been armed and set on a course of murder.  They attempted to provoke a phony civil war.  They attempted the containment of international scrutiny.  They have brought trouble to us all and disgrace to their nation.  It is also worth remembering that however many bodies we count, their essential goal - the goal of forcing a fraudulent vote - was not achieved.

 

35.59

Sister Susan Gubbins, Maryknoll Order, East Timor 1991-99:

Well many of them said it, 'This is for the next generation, and we will suffer.'  Even the priest said, 'I'm sure there'll be blood, but we will have Timor.'  And that was, it wasn't very well, I mean everybody didn't say that, but if you ever said to somebody, 'This is dangerous.'  They'd say, 'This is for our children.'

 

37.20

End

 

c.  Copyright Australian Broadcasting Corporation 1999

(Broadcast on 20/9/99)

 

CREDITS

Reporter:       Chris Masters

Producer:       Rebecca Latham

Researchers:  Peter Cronau

                       Brett Evans

 

 

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