Lieutenant Steve Casey:
We've gone through that many villages that have just had not a soul in them. Some huts have been locked up and left, others have just been burnt down.
Private Tim Grover:
It's a little bit like a ghost town really, because everyone's gone. All the tin on the roofs has been salvaged, there's not much left - everyone's taken all their belongings.
Corporal Michael White:
It's all over the place. You just walk through, clear the town and no one's there.
Chris Masters:
There is a question every minute around here. Why did the Indonesian armed forces do this? And was anyone in control? And how successfully have they divided the people of Indonesia over East Timor and against Australia? But the most persistent question, the one that follows you through every new burned and emptied village is - where are the people?
Title: The Vanishing
Mark Thomas, Communications Officer, UNICEFF:
We figured there were about 890,000 people in East Timor some months before the election, for the referendum, and that about 260,000 are estimated now to be in East Timor. About 170,000 were estimated to be Indonesian citizens who returned to Indonesia, so it leaves us with around up to 400,000 as I say, but nobody's really sure.
Chris Masters:
Tonight 'Four Corners' goes in search of East Timor's missing and their stories, which begin after the September announcement of the referendum result.
Allan Nairn, Journalist:
When I was arrested by the military and interrogated again at Polder, they were destroying police intelligence documents because they were preparing to shut down the police headquarters. And they were burning them and I was able to see one document before they burnt it which described a plan. It was called the Honowin Loro Sae II, Operation Honowin Loro Sae II . And it broke down by police station and by army unit how many people each one would be responsible for taking and relocating. And they actually gave an overall figure, it was 323,564 East Timorese who had been forcibly relocated under this plan.
Chris Masters:
The TNI, the Indonesian armed forces and police, created the militias and the havoc that followed the vote to break from Indonesia. They intimidated, killed and forcibly evacuated much of the remaining population. In the middle of the mayhem this East Timorese police officer shed his uniform, deserted and is now in hiding.
Former East Timorese Police Officer:
When they heard the vote had been won by the pro-independence group the police started shooting. I can say that because I was there among them. We were on red alert. So I know it was the police who were shooting, firing volleys of shots at random. The same night, I left police headquarters. I fled because I felt they'd arrest me next.
Stien Djalil, Church Aid Worker, East Timor:
The militia was the one who put the gun-shots and on the first days after the ballot, the announcement, the sounds of the gun-shots is to break the doors and it's a totally crimes, they break the doors and they shout at the people, 'If you don't come out, your house will be burned.'
Luis:
A friend at the police station saw petrol, which was later used to burn down houses, being taken from the police station.
UNIMET Local Staff Member:
I saw with my own eyes the militia, they were taken by the military vehicle. When they arrived in that house, the military gave the security to them and they came to their house and vandalise all, some things in the house they took and they burnt the house. And then the military took them back to the headquarters.
Former East Timorese Police Officer:
Police and TNI intelligence had only one mission, only one aim, to spy on those who were pro-independence. Then they'd be arrested. Since the disturbances began in East Timor, people aren't being arrested and taken to headquarters, but being arrested and disappearing.
Saut Sirait, Independence Committee for Election Monitoring, Indonesia:
What I saw was that people coming in from a certain area would be followed by soldiers from the same area. When they got to the harbour, those soldiers would single people out. There were beatings and stabbings and those people who'd been singled out were taken away. Some were taken to a hidden place and all we heard were shots and screams.
Former East Timorese Police Officer:
They began to fire in volleys of shots. I was hiding in my house. I ran out, armed only with a sword of my father's. At the same time, some military police ran out of their barracks. Some were firing, some had rifles. Others ran into my house, to try to trap me. After I ran out of my home, I was standing under a mango tree. And it was there that a military policeman jumped out in front of me. I killed him with the sword. After I'd killed him I ran away from the house to seek protection.
Chris Masters:
The sacking of Dili subscribed to a justification that Indonesian property should not be left for the Timorese. Ordinary Indonesian soldiers who receive a monthly income of around $30 plus a bag of rice were given licence to plunder.
UNIMET Local Staff Member:
The police looted goods like television sets, refrigerators, outboard motors, generators and kept them in the police station to take with them when they go.
Allan Nairn, Journalist:
I was supposed to be flown out on a Hercules transport, but that plane filled up with all the goods that the militias and the army were looting - they were carrying on engines, they had an entire truck, boxes full of TVs, there were many boxes that apparently came from the UN compound because they had UN labels on them - and they were just packing it with everything they could. So we had to wait for the next flight.
Chris Masters:
East Timor was now forcibly and artificially divided. Most of the evacuees were taken to the Indonesian West. Along the border an INTERFET contingent of Australian soldiers is on a 24 hour alert. No Australian flags are flown. Despite what is said in the Indonesian press, this is not an invasion, it is a peacekeeping force.
Private Jim Hammett:
A lot of the guys get a bit frustrated and quite angry as well, at seeing signs of what has occurred here, but they've maintained their discipline well.
Chris Masters:
They are headquartered in the village of Balibo. We find the leader of the community in exile across the road from where five Australian-based newsmen were killed by Indonesian soldiers in 1975. He is one of 50 of the population of 2,700 to have returned.
Francisco Soares, National Council of Timorese Resistance:
We don't know about the rest of the population because they attacked suddenly and we were separated. Some went to Atambua and elsewhere. We didn't see any women, we don't know where they are, whether they're dead or alive, where they're buried, and if they're alive, where they're staying now. We ask the international forces to look for them and return them, pro-freedom or pro-autonomy.
Chris Masters:
The men and women of Australia's 2nd Battalion say the country reminds them of the bush around their home base at Townsville, but beyond the familiarity there is little comfort. Telling the difference between TNI and the militias remains problematic. An incident not far from here reflects the serious danger faced by these soldiers and our nation.
Title: Army Video
Lieutenant-Colonel Mick Slater, Commander, 2nd Battalion:
On approaching the town they were engaged by two individuals with automatic weapons and so the Australian INTERFET troops returned fire. We have seen and collected an amount of equipment, but it's difficult to know who owned the equipment to start with. In some military-style packs it has been found there are T-shirts and civilian clothes, but that isn't necessarily an indication that people are changing from one side to the other.
Major-General Peter Cosgrove, Australian Commander, INTERFET:
Q: Do you know whether Indonesian troops have fired on Australians?
A: There are indications that in some of the exchanges Indonesian troops have fired. I'd like to say, at the moment they're indications. We represent these occasions very strongly to the TNI leadership here in Dili. We seek confirmation or denial, resolution of the issue, and it's problematic as to whether we get satisfactory answers, but we continue to ask the questions.
Soldier at Night Observation Post:
We have had a lot of vehicle movement moving from here across the border, but certainly with these night sights it's very easy to maintain surveillance on them.
Chris Masters:
The troops wait to provide protection for the return of refugees or opposition to the much threatened militia attacks from the West.
Soldier at Night Observation Post:
Atambua's about six kilometres away, line of sight. It's a fairly large town compared to this region. It's just over, as in about maybe a kilometre, across the West Timor border. It's certainly an area of concern to us because it's believed that there could be a battalion, maybe two battalions of TNI. It's certainly an area known to have, or believed to be where there's a lot of East Timorese that have been forcefully pushed across the border.
Chris Masters:
This sight of the lights of Atambua is as close as most foreigners can get to the largest concentrations of the displaced.
Dr Haryono Suyono, Social Affairs Minister, Indonesia:
Q: Why have Westerners, some Western NGOs, been denied access to the camps?
A: Maybe in the beginning for the safety reason, because people were in a kind of psychological anger to the Westerners which, for some reason or another have been really accused of not doing fair work in the balloting at the end of August.
Abdullah Hendropriyono, Transmigration Minister, Indonesia:
What they know is, 'Because the white man come and you make me now suffer.' They are illiterate people, they are uneducated, they are poor people from low society. We have to understand this, but as soon as we convince them and assure them, they understand.
Chris Masters:
Getting news out of Atambua remains difficult more than a month after the Timorese were herded across the border. We were able to find some courageous people, Indonesians and East Timorese, who can offer more than the Government line on the camps in the West.
Stien Djalil, Church Aid Worker, East Timor:
They keep telling us bloody gun-man, so especially women - and I was able actually to interview at least two raped women - and as a mother I just cannot, until now I still crying. If I tell all the truth, if I remember all what they said, I cannot smile any more.
Anonymous Family:
We felt we would become hostages there. It was a strategy for the drama of East Timor because it wasn't our will to come here. It was a planned manoeuvre. Everybody had to leave.
UNIMET Local Staff Member:
They came to me and they asked that, 'Are you student?' And I said, 'No, I am not a student.' 'But you are working for UNIMET?' 'No, I didn't work for UNIMET.' At the time I tried to put on one T-shirt of pro-autonomy. When he saw the T-shirt, 'Oh, good, you are very good friend for us because you fight for the pro-autonomy, so you can leave freely. But so as a part of the pro-autonomy you should submit your name for us to join together, fight against the Australian.'
Former East Timorese Police Officer:
The militias will be led by native East Timorese from the TNI and the police when they go back to the border. The one behind all this, behind the militia and their native East Timorese leaders, is the TNI. This is a strategy adopted by the Indonesian military for militias to return to the border and confront INTERFET troops.
Chris Masters:
Our witnesses spoke further of constant abductions, of separations, of colleagues disappearing, of malnourished children. They also said, in contrast to the murder and misery, help was beginning to get through from inside and outside Indonesia. They said some West Timorese were growing sick of the militias and beginning to disarm them. The Social Affairs Minister did permit the ABC to accompany him on a visit to the West Timor capital, Kupang, to see the departure of some of the first East Timorese allowed back to Dili.
Dr Haryono Suyono, Social Affairs Minister, Indonesia:
Q: So how do you remove the circumstances where they may feel intimidated, that if they declare that they actually do want to return to East Timor?
A: That's why we will put the several options. If they are not afraid, then they can just join this queuing registration. If they're afraid, they just pretend they have no choice yet.
Title: Map of Transmigration Program
Chris Masters:
These plans, drawn for Indonesia's controversial transmigration program, identify preparation to move 150,000 refugees to other parts of Indonesia.
Abdullah Hendropriyono, Transmigration Minister, Indonesia:
Q: Is that accurate, that the plan was for about 150,000?
A: Yes, about that, so it doesn't make any difference if it is more than that.
Q: So there's no coercion, you're confident that if people were to be moved to those places they would be only moved under the circumstances that they were free and willing to go?
A: Yes.
Chris Masters:
At Kupang airport, Social Affairs Minister Suyono answers questions for Indonesian television.
Dr Haryono Suyono, Social Affairs Minister, Indonesia:
We've just begun to find the best way of fulfilling the refugees' wishes.
Chris Masters:
The militia leader Eurico Geuterras also has an audience.
Eurico Geuterras, Militia Leader:
Australia's leader is more brutal than murder. You should realise that he's a communist. And we know that whites have always thought of us black people as their slaves.
Stien Djalil, Church Aid Worker, East Timor:
I hate to see the television, it is telling not the whole truth, and I keep asking, as a church person I said, 'Until when this bloody lying is going on?'
Chris Masters:
Getting closer to the truth for us meant getting away from West Timor where intimidation reigns and refugees disappear after talking to journalists. Across Indonesia 'Four Corners' found an underground of people who had heeded a warning to get out.
UNIMET Local Staff Member:
And they told us that this night they will capture all the youth, 'Especially people like you, because they have known that you are the UNIMET local staffer.'
East Timorese Student:
Almost every night people were abducted from the refugee camps. They don't know exactly what happened, because they were too frightened to watch. They only heard the shouts of the militia and of those they took away.
Title: Map showing locations of Kupang, Alor, Atauro, Dili and Bali
Chris Masters:
A common sanctuary is Bali. An Australian aid worker from the East Timor island of Atauro was warned off Kupang, so hopped a Bali ferry packed to the rafters with refugees.
Gabrielle Samson, Community Development Worker:
The worst thing I think about the ship was the feeling of fear that was, I mean, they were traumatised people. There was a man next to us in the hall who had jumped out of a second storey, his burning building, and he couldn't move - he'd done something to his back. There were people who just lost everything. There were Timorese people, there were Indonesian people, there were armed militia on the boat, we saw several armed militia, so it was very, very tense. I was quite frightened because of the anti-Australian feeling that I quickly saw was worse there. I was actually verbally abused by one of the ship's staff who asked if I was an Australian, and because I'm not such a good liar I hadn't got into the habit of saying no, and I just nodded. And he screamed at me that we're not going to do anything, 'We Indonesians hate Australians.'
Q: Do you think that people did come to harm?
A: I heard from fairly reliable sources that two people disappeared on that ship. I heard up to 15, but I think that's not really been confirmed that there were so many.
Chris Masters:
On the island of Bali we encountered, not for the first time, a heartening scene. Soni Gondri, an Indonesian citizen, works alongside his East Timorese friend operating a support network for refugees.
Soni Gondri:
We can see from this that the Indonesian people are actually sympathetic to the East Timorese. They feel that East Timor has the right to be independent. But we see Indonesians being intimidated if they offer direct help. So we must distinguish between the Indonesian Government and the people.
Chris Masters:
The TNI's Timor operations are controlled from Bali. Many TNI who were withdrawn are back here. They share the streets with tourists from all over, including Australia. An estimated 1,800 East Timorese and 1,400 returned transmigrants have joined them. The refugees keep a low profile, but compared to the intimidation they are used to, Bali is a paradise.
East Timorese Student:
In Bali, perhaps they're afraid that any obvious violence perpetrated by the militia might have an adverse effect on tourism. We think the military may have plans. It's as if they want to shoot the refugees, who are sheltering behind the tourists. They want to get the refugees. At the moment they can't take any direct action against the refugees because it's as if the tourists are standing in front of them.
Title: Jakarta, October 1999
Chris Masters:
The largest support network for the East Timorese displaced throughout Indonesia operates in the capital, Jakarta. Again, some Indonesians have the courage to make public their support for the Timorese.
Father Sandyawan Sumardi, Institut Sosial, Jakarta:
This is part of our own responsible, as Indonesian civil society, to protect them.
Chris Masters:
But for the most part people are keeping their heads down. The TNI intelligence apparatus has large files and eyes everywhere. Militia training camps operate on the fringes of Jakarta. East Timor's fledgling government in exile, the CNRT, is constantly harassed.
Jose Amaral Tirman, Refugee Coordinator, Jakarta:
They harass us to stop carrying out our routine activities. But we pay no attention to terror and intimidation because we're used to them using it against us East Timorese.
Chris Masters:
Members of a community of an estimated 2,000 East Timorese hiding out in Jakarta we spoke to preferred to come to us. Around here it is not wise to be seen with the white faces. This entire extended family is anxious to reach Australia.
Anonymous Family:
They've taken everything away. We could only take the clothes we're wearing. That's why we've asked our children to remember us and help us to go to Australia. I've still got one son in Dili, the father of these young ones here, but I don't know his whereabouts.
Former East Timorese Police Officer:
During the five days I've been here, I haven't felt at risk, because my friends have been moving me from place to place. So since I've been in Jakarta I've felt a little safer. I'm not being harassed, but that's because they don't know I'm here.
Chris Masters:
The East Timorese are not the only ones keeping their heads down. While some press have managed a fair coverage, in the mass publications Australia is constantly targeted and blamed for the East Timor debacle. Australia has been accused of invading East and West Timor. Australians have been accused of torturing and murdering civilians.
John McCarthy, Australian Ambassador, Indonesia:
Q: Do you know whether it's being orchestrated?
A: Oh, there's suggestions. Certainly I don't think there's sort of one group that is running everything with Machiavellian finesse, but certainly I think there's an inclination amongst the media, particularly the media influenced by the Government or run by the Government, to tell their side of the story very deliberately and to ignore our arguments.
Q: Is it believed?
A: It is to, I think, a very large extent. I think the well-educated elite believe some of it, not all of it, but as you get down to the population as a whole, I think a lot of it is believed, yes.
Saut Sirait, Independent Committee for Election Monitoring, Indonesia::
If I read the reports in the Jakarta press and I'd never been to Dili, then of course I'd believe them. But because I've been to Dili, I know that all the damage to the buildings there was done before the UN multinational force arrived.
Major-General Peter Cosgrove, Australian Commander, INTERFET:
Q: How do you get the right story out in Indonesia?
A: Well I think we probably need more Indonesian journalists here. I can tell you that apart from one man who came in and I believe fairly impartially represented an interview I gave him, very few Indonesian journalists have been to this province since General Syahnakri left several weeks ago. Now that's a shame. There is a story here that they should be telling their own people.
Ali Alatas, Foreign Affairs Minister, Indonesia:
It is to be regretted that in such a situation as we are now finding ourselves, there is exaggerated reporting. It is not to be condoned, but I think we have suffered much longer this kind of reporting from the Australian side. Unfortunately I have to be very frank about that.
John McCarthy, Australian Ambassador, Indonesia:
Q: And the demonstrations outside the Embassy, are they an honest expression of public opinion?
A: Most of those demonstrations, I think, are orchestrated, but not all of them. Some of them are spontaneous and reflect the views of students and others about Australia.
Marzuki Darusman, Indonesian National Human Rights Commission:
There was this taken-for-granted attitude that the Australians were friendly to Indonesia, but all of a sudden it turned out that it was not so. It was that behind that relationship there was this attitude on the part of Australia that we didn't know before, that the public was not aware of, was not familiar with, did not know was there.
Title: October 5, 1999
Chris Masters:
The principal beneficiary of the scapegoating of Australia is Indonesia's principal institution, the Troops National Indonesia, or TNI. This is their 54th National Day, if not quite as spectacular as usual. A theme that remains constant within a force meant to unite Indonesia is the need to check internal agitators. This is in the face of powerful evidence that the heavy hand of the TNI has been actively promoting opposition and created division. On the eve of the vote for the presidential election and in the wake of the Timor devastation, many of the international observers here are left wondering whether anyone in the transitional government was in control of the TNI.
Former East Timorese Police Officer:
As for who had ultimate authority, we all know it was the TNI. The TNI must take full responsibility.
Allan Nairn, Journalist:
This was such a complex operation involving all units of the military and police, involving the Navy which brought in the ships, the Air Force which brought in the planes, the Indonesian Foreign Ministry which provided some of the financing for the militias, the Ministry of Politics and Security which coordinated the other ministries, the Transmigration Ministry - many, many elements of the Indonesian Government were involved in this, so it required months of advance preparation.
Major-General Peter Cosgrove, Australian Commander, INTERFET:
The evidence is that there was widespread, unchecked violence by militia groups and that has to suggest that the level of control over ordinary law and order, crimes of violence that were being committed by TNI, was inadequate.
Ali Alatas, Foreign Affairs Minister, Indonesia:
We have acknowledged that there are elements, that there are rogue elements - and some of them are from battalions who are predominantly manned by East Timorese, the two local battalions - that these elements have been known, and we have acknowledged that they have been supportive of some of the actions of the militia. So, that was acknowledged by Indonesia and we tried to overcome it by various means.
Marzuki Darusman, Indonesian National Human Rights Commission:
There was no political directive on the armed forces to secure a political solution rather than a military solution. And if there is no political directive on the military, then they will revert back to what they do best, and that is to secure military solutions to what is basically a political problem.
Chris Masters:
The full accounting of TNI's most serious crime, the execution, the vanishing of so many people, will take time. There are many more witnesses to murder than remains of the victims. While the militias have been responsible for most of the violence, there were clearly perpetrators on both sides.
Former East Timorese Police Officer:
A fellow member of the police force, by the name of Florentino Araujo, was definitely killed by a combined group of intelligence, TNI, police and militia. He was killed at the harbour while I was present. I'm an eyewitness. But what could I do? But I witnessed, from a distance, the murder of my colleague. This is evidence that there have been brutal killings, because my friend was hacked to pieces.
Francisco Soares, National Council of East Timorese Resistance:
The two boys were surrounded by them and torched. The Indonesian military dressed in Aitarak or Besi Merah Putih uniform and mixed with local boys who were using home-made and automatic guns. They attacked the villagers, tied and blindfolded them, put them in trucks and took them down to Batugade where they slit their throats and threw their bodies in the sea.
East Timorese Student:
I'd been working in Sare for about a week. I witnessed killings committed by the Red and White Iron militia, helped by soldiers from the Maubara district.
Major-General Peter Cosgrove, Australian Commander, INTERFET:
There are, of course, issues to do with the great violence that did occur. One can't sweep under the table that there may well have been some very violent acts by some people, so there must be some accounting for that, but we're here ready to negotiate and conciliate where we can.
Chris Masters:
But most of the missing are believed to be alive. Some of those in East Timor are filtering down from the hills. Most are not ready to trust that INTERFET will stay and can protect them. Some, like these orphans, have just arrived form the West. Onlookers search for missing relatives. Every day hunger draws more and more.
Maria:
Q: How did your parents feel not being able to provide food for their children?
A: They were sad, but we had to save ourselves. No matter what happened, we had to run away to save ourselves.
Duncan Gray, World Vision:
These people are really hungry. You'll see them come down to the big warehouses, at times they'll look at the rice, they'll literally dive on it and start eating raw rice and throwing it in their mouths. These are hungry people.
Private Baz Fawcett:
Yeah, the question's always there. You know they've taken off to the hills to protect themselves, but when you see them coming back, smiles on their faces, you realise you're there for a good purpose - to bring them back home.
Chris Masters:
As Timor moves towards the wet season, Indonesia prepares for a new government and Australia drifts towards summer, there is great anxiety, but an overarching mood of hope: Hope that most will return and be found alive, hope that civil authority and democracy can take hold in Indonesia and take control of the military and the militias, hope that Australian soldiers can survive the very serious danger they face, hope that the peace is kept into the new year, the new millennium, and East Timor can start again.
End
c Copyright Australian Broadcasting Corporation 1999
Reporter: Chris Masters
Producer: Rebecca Latham
Researchers: Brett Evans, Eko Maryadi