East Timor Briefing

Introduction

The pillaging of East Timor by forces loyal to Jakarta in the wake of the 30 August popular vote for independence has left an utterly ravaged landscape and a displaced and traumatised population. The number of dead is unknown; some 240,000 East Timorese are believed to be in West Timor[1], roughly 100,000 of whom are estimated to be in overcrowded camps run by Indonesian military, police, and militia forces and to which, until now, relief agencies have had virtually no access.[2] Untold numbers of refugees and internally displaced persons have reportedly been forcibly resettled by Jakarta's Ministry of Transmigration to such farflung parts of the Indonesian archipelago as Java, Bali, Irian Jaya, Flores, Alor, Sumatra, and Sulawesi.[3] Over 1200 refugees have been evacuated to Darwin, Australia, from where hundreds have been dispatched to various other Australian sites.

Much of the territory of East Timor, from its tiny villages to the infrastructure of its major cities and towns, has been destroyed. Schools, health clinics, whole neighborhoods, communications lines, public buildings, and military installations were systematically targeted, looted, and burned, in what was described, in repeated threats issued by anti-independence forces prior to the balloting, as a "scorched earth" tactic. Young men, clerics, and pro-independence activists were explicitly sought out, their families often kidnapped, tortured, or murdered. Countless women and children were forcibly separated from their men and transported to militia, police, or military installations and have not been heard from. Groups of decomposing bodies have been found in ravines, trucks, and wells; one Timorese employee of the UN Assistance Mission to East Timor (UNAMET) reported having stumbled across clumps of dumped bodies - most dead, some still writhing from gunshot wounds - in a dried-up river bed, as he ran from Indonesian police who had vowed to kill him simply because he worked for the UN.

Although the violence is believed to have been perpetrated chiefly by members of the province's 13 local militias, evidence of collusion on the part of the Indonesian military and police forces is abundant. Indeed, intercepts of communications between military commanders and militia members,[4] armaments employed,[5] the systematic patterns of destruction, the mass deportation by truck or by ship to West Timor, and warnings given to relatives and friends by sympathetic members of the police and military[6] all suggest that the charge of collusion is an egregious understatement: the destruction and depopulation of East Timor appear to have been meticulously orchestrated by top commanders in the Indonesian military and carried out at their behest and with their full support.

Despite the wanton terror, those East Timorese interviewed by ICG continue to hold fast to their hardwon victory at the ballot box, proud that, after 24 years of often brutal Indonesian rule, the people of East Timor are finally on the threshold of independence. While keenly aware of the difficulties ahead, those interviewed expressed genuine exhilaration at their newfound freedom and at the prospect of forging their own nation, literally, from the ground up.

The challenges now facing the East Timorese and the international community are immediate and daunting. They include addressing the urgent humanitarian and security needs of the hundreds of thousands of displaced and assisting the vast majority of those who wish to return; rebuilding East Timor; gathering evidence of atrocities and beginning the arduous process of determining accountability for those crimes, dealing with the associated trauma, seeking compensation and reparations, and working toward reconciliation; forming a transitional administration consisting of East Timorese assisted by international experts; preparing for democratic elections; drafting a constitution and educating a Timorese bar and judiciary committed to the rule of law; training a civil administration untainted by the culture of corruption and occupation that has heretofore characterised government in East Timor; re-inventing school curricula in the local languages that are appropriate to the newly independent state; strengthening civil society by supporting non-government organisations and creating independent print and broadcast media, and establishing fruitful trade and diplomatic relations with neighbouring countries.

In this briefing ICG will address these issues, with emphasis on the more pressing tasks ahead.

The Humanitarian Crisis

With the steady expansion of territory under the control of the International Force for East Timor (INTERFET), security in East Timor would appear to be increasing by the day. Militia activity is still evident, however, in Dili and in isolated eastern pockets of East Timor, and as of 2 October INTERFET had not downgraded its estimation of the security risk. Even so, between 5 and 8 October UNAMET will be dispatching advance teams to Dili and Baucau, in anticipation of starting up its mission again. Representatives of humanitarian organisations are still slimly represented in Dili, largely because of the scarcity of water and shelter. But twice-daily flights of relief workers and humanitarian cargo are arriving from Darwin, and most international agencies are planning to move into Dili within the next two weeks.

The emergency supply of food, medicines, and health services now seems to be under control. The first large food convoy succeeded in reaching Baucau on 1 October, a five-day, multi-agency food distribution of a month's supply of rice for 100,000 people is taking place 4-8 October in Dili with the help of the local church dioceses, and the Indonesian Navy has agreed to provide transport for a UN-supervised delivery of food and medical supplies to Dili and Kupang, in West Timor. As of 1 October eight of 10 health facilities were fully functional, serving 20-100 patients daily, although physicians and surgeons remained virtually absent. Several agencies are planning a measles inoculation, and evidence of malnutrition is far less than feared.[7] Tuberculosis and malaria have emerged as the most severe public health threats.[8]

With the emergency food pipeline estimated to be as long as two to three months, the graver food problem is to get the maize crop planted within the next two to four weeks, before the advent of the rainy season. While the rice crop can be planted in January, maize must be in the ground before the rains come, and an UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) team has already assessed the seed needs and is urgently combing the region for an appropriate form of non-hybridized maize that can be tended and sustained without extraordinary inputs. If the crop is not planted within the next few weeks, agricultural experts fear, the international community will need to supply food to East Timor for as much as the next 18 months.

The other critical need before the wet season arrives in earnest is for permanent shelter. The ample supply of tarps and plastic sheeting will not be adequate during the heavy rains. An Australian team of building experts are expected to determine within days the requisite specifications for timbre, corrugated iron and other roofing, and tools necessary to rebuild people's homes. Because East Timor has already been widely deforested, lead agencies are seeking to source the timbre from other areas, primarily from Australia's Northern Territory. Ten days into INTERFET's mission, an impressive degree of communication and co-ordination appeared to have already been established with other organisations in the field. An interagency co-ordination mechanism involving all pertinent organisations was well in place in Dili and in the operational staging ground of Darwin, Australia, and was meeting on a daily basis to share security information, determine geographic and sectoral responsibilities, co-ordinate logistics, and to avoid duplication of efforts. Particularly compared to crises in the Balkans? most recently, in Kosovo? Where the chaotic combination of a multi-lateral military force structure, UN agencies, and non-government organisations has occasioned struggles for turf and authority and a significant waste of resources, the focused attention on efficient co-operation to achieve the desired objectives could be a model for future international emergency responses.

An early attempt was being made as well to keep the local population informed of security threats and the availability of food and services. Even with electricity not yet restored in much of East Timor, the Catholic radio station, Caritas, began test-broadcasting of "Radio UNAMET" on 1 October.

Rebuilding East Timor

East Timorese should be included from the earliest planning stages in all aspects of reconstruction, from roofs to clinics to a new legal system. People's hunger for ownership of their country is palpable, and there are many trained and skilled Timorese eager to design everything from new public buildings and plazas that make use of traditional Timorese architectural motifs to innovative primary school programs that champion East Timorese culture and history. The temporary vacuum created by vast displacement of so many talented and experienced Timorese should not mislead the international community into mapping out their nation on their behalf. The process is bound to be messy and slow; but the overwhelming participation in, and comprehension of, the 30 August ballot among even the least educated of the local population suggest that East Timorese are not to be underestimated when it comes to taking charge of their lives and their future.

Everything remains to be done: the new country needs a new constitution, legal, education, and taxation systems, civil administration, and popularly elected leadership. Xanana Gusmao, the resistance leader and longtime political prisoner who is universally expected to head East Timor's first democratically elected government, has tentatively suggested that elections be slated for a year from now, with the UN managing - and subsidising? a temporary administration in the interim. Gusmao and his fellow independence leader, Jose Ramos-Horta, have welcomed the financial and technical support of the international community, which should be encouraged to respond with significant, comprehensive assistance packages including everything from large-scale infrastructural projects to political party-building advisors.

Accountability: Documenting Atrocities and Moving toward Justice and Reconciliation

The international community, through the Geneva-based UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR), has made a commitment to investigate the manifest crimes committed against the people of East Timor and to determine who is to be held responsible for those crimes. So far, however, no explicit provision has been made for the protection of crime scenes or of eyewitnesses to alleged atrocities, although INTERFET and UNAMET are sensitive to the concern that members of the various militia, the Indonesian military, or police have a keen interest and indeed have threatened and, in some instances, already attempted, to cover up evidence of these crimes.

Human rights organisations are also concerned that the UNHCHR resolution lacks the mandate and necessary resources to insure an independent, impartial, and ultimately effective Commission of Inquiry. For example, it is critical that a Committee of Experts be brought in as a full partner in the investigation, to determine whether in fact violations of international humanitarian law have in fact occurred and to define them. Only then can appropriate testimony be collected, with the proper consent of witnesses, that might be used in any eventual judicial proceeding under the principle of universal jurisdiction applicable to crimes against humanity. To rush the process of taking testimony risks inconsistencies between statements, should further statements become necessary, not to mention subjecting witnesses or victims repeatedly to trauma.

The Australian chapter of the International Committee of Jurists (ICJ) has committed itself to taking the lead in documenting alleged atrocities. While it is important that the testimonies taken be standardised so that they can be readily accessed and cross-referenced by an eventual team of prosecutors, and while ICJ has promised to devote significant resources, including the time of 50 jurists, and plans to complete its work as soon as possible, it is not clear that it is necessary or advisable either to proceed hastily or for a single organisation to undertake this formidable task.

For one thing, UNAMET staff have already compiled a substantial dossier of reported incidents dating from June 1999 and are working in close consultation with a number of non-government human rights organisations with extensive experience in war crimes documentation to create an efficient, prosecutor-friendly data base. Second, there is a significant East Timorese NGO and human rights community which, while temporarily displaced, has credibility and a substantial track record. East Timorese trained in human rights work ought to be involved in this process at every level, from affording witnesses the sense of security and comfort they need to provide complete statements, to finding appropriate interpreters for individual witnesses, to providing trauma counseling where necessary, to furnishing such pertinent information as they may have available, such as the identity and whereabouts of the accused. Such groups as FOKUPERS and Yayasan-HAK have experienced, sensitive staff who are trusted by the East Timorese and who should be enlisted to play central roles in talking to witnesses and victims.

Recommendations

Easing the humanitarian crisis

The UN Secretary-General and the international community should press the Indonesian authorities to grant UNHCR and other international agencies immediate, full, and uninhibited access to the refugee camps in West Timor and permission to feed people, treat those in need of medical assistance, and assist the refugees in safely returning home or resettling where they wish.

Rebuilding

The international community should remain aware of the local capacity of, and appetite among East Timorese to take the lead in rebuilding their country in every possible domain.

Foreign exchanges might be set up rapidly, for the current academic year, so that while the physical reconstruction gets underway, professional East Timorese might be getting the training they will eventually need to set up, to take a few examples, East Timor's first independent judiciary, media, a viable currency, economic program, and international commercial relations.

Accounting for the past

Protection of evidence of atrocities must be made an explicit and immediate INTERFET and UNAMET priority, lest vulnerable witnesses or victims be targeted or valuable material disappear or be tainted.

Trained and experienced East Timorese should be included in the war crimes documentation process as much as possible and should play a key role in taking testimony from witnesses and victims.

All measures should be taken to ensure that the UNHCHR Commission of Inquiry is established, staffed, and equipped so that it can produce a credible, independent report for the UN Security Council on the alleged human rights violations that have taken place, as follows:

• Commission membership should be predicated solely on experience and expertise in the human rights field, forensic medicine, gender-based violence, and in international humanitarian and criminal law;

·         The Commission must be free to investigate wherever evidence is believed to exist, whether that be in East Timor, other parts of Indonesia, or other countries where witnesses or victims willing to testify may have sought refuge, and Commission members and prospective witnesses must be assured protection in the course of their work;

·         The Commission must have sufficient resources to carry out its mandate in the broadest, most robust sense. It must have the authority to require all officials or persons who witnessed or who allegedly participated in human rights violations to appear before it and to testify, and to compel UN-member states to turn over all relevant intelligence and/or other material, even if classified, that might inform its investigation;

·         General information regarding the Commission's work must be made public so that victims and their families can have access to information, safely present evidence, and make sure that autopsies of deceased family members are carried out by medical personnel;

·         Under UN Security Council Resolution 1264, which calls for taking "all necessary measures" to insuring that "those responsible for such acts be brought to justice," INTERFET and UNAMET are obliged to co-operate with the Commission in protecting Commission members, witnesses, crime scenes or other evidence; in furnishing logistical assistance, identification of alleged perpetrators, or any other pertinent information, and in arresting and detaining any and all suspects and arranging for their transfer to any foreign countries preparing to try crimes against humanity in national courts;

·         Commission co-operation with Indonesia's National Commission on Human Rights, or Kompass-HAM, while welcome, must be pursued within the context of clearly spelled out terms that guarantee the protection and integrity of sources. Kompass-HAM, which has little credibility among the people of East Timor, should play a facilitating role in sharing and seeking information, gaining co-operation, where appropriate, from Indonesian authorities, and arranging access to relevant parties who may be located in other parts of Indonesia;

A full report of the Commission should be submitted to the UN Security Council which will make clear the scale of the crimes committed, recommend whether or not breaches of international humanitarian law have occurred, and, if so, advise as to the form of judicial system deemed most appropriate for their prosecution. The report should also suggest measures that might be taken to obtain not only compensation for individual losses, but also reparations to the new nation of East Timor for the harm done to individuals as well as to private and public property.

[1] UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA) briefing for humanitarian organisations, Darwin, Australia, 12 October 1999.

[2] The estimate of 100,000 was made by UN spokesman David Wimhurst, 1 October 1999. Access to these camps was negotiated with the Indonesian government in late September; however, as of 2 October, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was only allowed to visit certain camps in Atambua, West Timor, in the company of Indonesian authorities. Three of these camps lacked shelter, forcing people to sleep out of doors. In late September UNHCR reportedly negotiated an agreement with Indonesian authorities to allow international relief agencies unfettered access to the camps and to permit the UNHCR to begin screening families in the West Timor camps as to whether they want to stay where they are, to return to Dili, or to be resettled elsewhere in Indonesia. Two UNHCR screening offices were set up in Atambua, but as of 4 October, Indonesian authorities had not yet permitted free access to the squalorous camps. However, Indonesian officials did agree on 2 October to allow those refugees wishing to leave the camps in Kupang, West Timor, to return home aboard UN-chartered flights. Refugee safety remains an issue, however; the Indonesian authorities have demanded advance lists of those who want to return home, and human rights organisations fear that those people could well be targeted by anti-independence militias as they wait to be evacuated.

[3] The Carter Center Weekly Report on East Timor No. 11, 28 September 1999.

[4] Australian television broadcast.

[5] Witnesses saw militia members wielding standard-issue military weapons (ICG interviews with refugees); militia arms caches turned over to the INTERFET made clear that, as INTERFET Major David Moon put it, "These were no ragtags".

[6] ICG interviews with Timorese UNAMET staff, Darwin, Australia, 1 October 1999.

[7] OCHA briefing, Darwin, 1 October 1999.

[8] ICG interviews with relief organisation personnel, 2 October 1999.