Fear traps thousands in West Timor camps

By JOHN MARTINKUS in Kupang

On the outskirts of the West Timorese capital, Kupang, a dusty former bus terminal still serves as the home for some of the estimated 60,000 East Timorese refugees who have not returned home.

In Noelbaki camp the people wear threadbare clothes and talk of a shortage of food since Indonesian Government assistance was cut last December in an effort to force them to accept repatriation to East Timor.

Markus Constancio still wears his Aitarak militia ID and insists there are still 5000 people in the half-empty camp.

He complains that they have not seen their leaders for two years and talks fondly of how things were pretty good in East Timor.

But he won't go back because he is scared.

Across town in the luxury Sasando Hotel, ex-militia leader Cancio Lopes de Carvalho is meeting his English lawyer, who stresses that there are no charges against him, despite his having been leader of one of East Timor's largest militia groups, MAHIDI ("live or die for integration with Indonesia").

Cancio was linked to several highly public and gruesome murders, particularly in Galitas village near Suai.

On that occasion, Cancio was reported to have held aloft the dead foetus removed from a pregnant woman who had just been shot by his men and publicly declared the authority of his militia in the area.

That incident, on January 24, 1999, sparked the arrival of 6000 locals in the Suai Catholic church, where some of them remained until they were massacred by militia and Indonesian military after the United Nations pullout from the town in September, an act in which Cancio's men also took part.

Cancio and his men eventually destroyed the town of Cassa and forced the population to flee to West Timor before the UN peacekeepers arrived in the area in early October 1999.

Cancio still refers to those who fled with him and remain in the camps opposite the area since controlled by New Zealand peacekeepers as "my people", and says at least 6000 will come back if he returns and is not arrested.

Cancio has not yet returned to East Timor because he says there are accusations against him.

He has not been called to appear at the Indonesian ad hoc human rights tribunal in Jakarta where 18 Indonesian military and police staff and East Timorese civilians are being investigated.

He says that if the UN would charge him through the courts in East Timor he would return to face the charges tomorrow.

At the same time he derides the work of the UN serious crimes unit that has been tasked with investigating the crimes of 99.

Cancio says he is alone now and has no contact with other former militia leaders. He suspects other former leaders such as Eurico Guterres do not talk to him because they will not discuss the role of the Indonesian military in the violence in East Timor, which Cancio says he is prepared to discuss in an East Timorese court.

Eurico's new position as leader of the youth wing of Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri's political party PDIP keeps him in Jakarta.

The members of his former militia group, the Dili-based Aitarak, still wear their trademark black T-shirts and attempt to exercise a degree of intimidation among the dwindling number of refugees in the camps.

Yusuf Edi Mulyono, Indonesian director of the Jesuit refugee service, says the lack of prosecutions for crimes in 1999 hampers the return of the remaining refugees.

The fear is real. Even those who did nothing may be part of a big family.

A reconciliation commission is still an embryo and people are afraid of those taking the law into their own hands, he says.

Mulyono says there are still problems in the camps. There has been a riot in Noelbaki. He believes that up to 30,000 people will eventually return as the work of the reconciliation commission and serious crimes becomes more transparent in East Timor.

Mario Viera, spokesman for Untas, the East Timorese pro-integration organisation and political descendant of the militia leadership based in Kupang, believes resettlement in Indonesia is the only solution for former militia.

"These people who work with the military have been indoctrinated," he says. "It is not easy for them to change."

Viera says the trial in Jakarta of Untas board member Abilio Soares, a former East Timor governor under the Indonesians, is a signal of how weak the Indonesian Government has become.

"The murders during and after the popular consultation were done by the pro-independence people and we will try and use the tribunal in Jakarta to educate people on what happened."

Viera says the people who are the losers are always those on trial.

He refers to the trial of Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague to make his point.

Viera, like 9000 other former East Timorese military, police and civil servants now in West Timor, receives a wage from the Indonesian Government and now works in the local office for foreign investment in West Timor.

But he believes his people have been betrayed by Indonesia.

Untas still officially rejects the result of the UN ballot. It says Indonesia has been manipulated by the international community to accept the result. Untas claims to represent all those in the camps and has urged people to stay in West Timor.

Viera admits the cancellation of food aid last December is achieving the goal of slowly forcing people to return.

"If we had billions of rupiah to feed the people, of course we would refuse [to go back]," he says.

"They are using this to achieve their political goals of forcing our return."

With the return of the last of the refugees, the claims of the former pro-integration leaders to represent them will cease and any remaining bargaining power they have with the UN or the Indonesian Government will end.

Feature: Indonesia and East Timor

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