by Brooke Shelby Biggs

The primary hurdles to peaceful self-determination in East Timor are the increasingly powerful pro-integration paramilitary militias.

It is impossible to know how many civilians have been killed since the 1975 invasion by the Indonesian army and their militias, largely because former Indonesian President Suharto blocked entry to the region to international human-rights groups and journalists from 1975 to 1989. Five Australian journalists who made it into East Timor in 1975 were slaughtered by the Indonesian army in Balibo. What we do know comes largely from secondhand accounts by the few journalists, activists, and aid workers who have been in East Timor and made it out again in the past 25 years.

Just this May, a contingent from Amnesty International was permitted to visit East Timor for the first time. In a report published in June, Amnesty reported that "in late 1998 and early 1999, new pro-integration militia groups were established in various districts," and that "there are at least 22 new militia groups now reportedly operating in East Timor."

The pro-Indonesian militias were born back in the 1970s, even before the invasion by the formal Indonesian military and police forces (ABRI), although they were -- and continue to be, according to many observers -- at least partially armed and funded by the Indonesian military. But a recent surge in new militias and a marked increase in those groups' recruiting efforts have been interpreted by many as the military's response to President B. J. Habibie's surprising decision to permit a popular vote on the future of East Timor.

One of the most brutal of the militias is known as Mahidi, and is headed by the loquacious Cancio Carvalho. It is joined in its marauding ways by the Halilinta and Gardapaksi militias in western East Timor. They, like other militia groups, all employ tactics of intimidation and fear: Nighttime abductions; torture; murder of known independence activists; and the systematic rape of East Timorese women and young girls. According to some witnesses, entire East Timorese villages have been slaughtered and buried in mass graves.

"[T]here is strong evidence that these militias were established, and continue to operate, with the support of the Indonesian National Army, and to a lesser extent the police, with the objective of undermining progress towards achieving a political solution for East Timor," the Amnesty report says.

The Indonesian government admits that it has recruited and trained members of these groups, but only as unarmed "village guards" meant to keep the peace. Yet the militia leaders themselves openly boast of the support they receive from ABRI, despite the official denials.

In fact, the Indonesian Regent of the Manufahi District in East Timor, Nazario Jose Tilman De Andrade, outlined his own plan for "the socialization of the special autonomy package" in a document obtained by the MoJo Wire. His proposal: to channel nearly $17,000 into several "organizations," including the United Forum for Democracy and Justice (FPDK), the political front of several large militias, and ABLAI, a militia operating in his district.

AsiaWeek magazine has called the system of militias in East Timor "organized anarchy."

The irony is that the militias are, for the most part, made up entirely of East Timorese who, for want of power or favor, the Indonesian military has succeeded in recruiting to kill their fellow Timorese.

Longtime Timor-watcher Matthew Jardine, in his book "Genocide in Paradise," quotes a young East Timorese man who spent time in a pro-integration militia:

My friends and I were forced to join the Indonesian Army. We were warned; all who didn't join the army had to take the consequences. ... If you don't fight, you get killed yourself.

I went on operations to kill other Timorese, ordinary people. Then I felt strange. None of us felt good. At first we are sad, we have remorse, but after two or three years, it was easy.

I had to kill my best friend. I don't want to talk about it. I don't feel good when I think about it. ... They knew he was my best friend and I was forced to shoot him. They do these things to test you.

Popular theory among pro-independence groups is that the Indonesian government has created these militias to give the international community the impression that the East Timorese are themselves divided on the issue of independence and in the midst of a civil war.

"In the eyes of the world they [the military] want to be seen as saints, but behind our backs they will use the East Timorese to kill one another," Xanana Gusmão, president of the pro-independence group CNRT, told reporters this month. "They want the East Timorese to look as if they can't conciliate and solve their own problems."

According to Amnesty International's report, "Since the establishment of the new groups [militias], the Indonesian security forces have appeared to take a less direct role in commiting violations, giving the conflict the appearance of an intra-Timorese problem. However, the [Indonesian military] is often present and in some cases actively involved when militia operations take place."

In fact, the head of one prominent militia known as Aitarak, Eurico Guterres, was appointed by the Indonesian military to lead the "security forces" which are charged with providing a safe and fair environment for the UN-sponsored vote on August 30. Part of the agreement struck between the UN, Portugal, and Indonesia assigned peacekeeping duties to the Indonesian security forces. Guterres has openly threatened violence against pro-independence factions in his role as militia commander. The UN High Commissioner on Human Rights has condemned the appointment.

In February, militias attacked the district of Suai, killing six people, including a pregnant woman and a 15-year-old boy, according to witnesses. In a separate incident in Turiscai, a teenage boy was arrested and disembowelled by the Mahidi while still alive, presumably as a warning to other pro-independence Timorese. An old man, two small children, and another pregnant woman were mowed down by Mahidi forces in Galitas and then mutilated with machetes. The Mahidi took the old man's scalp as a souvenir and tried to cut the fetus out of the woman's belly, according to witnesses (including the old man's grandson, who hid nearby).

The militias are no longer just the East Timorese people's problem. On July 4, militia members attacked a UN convoy just outside of Liquisa. Since then, UN monitors have received death threats and been harassed near the United Nations Assistance Mission in East Timor's (UNAMET) regional outposts. The UN, human-rights groups, Britain, and the US have all called upon Indonesia's government to rein in the militias. But can it, even if it wants to?

Xanana Gusmão, the jailed president of the East Timor independence coalition, said the wide chasm between what is being said in Jakarta -- President Habibie seems genuinely to favor a referendum on East Timor independence and promises to abide by its result -- and what is being done by the Indonesian military may indicate that the Indonesian military is no longer entirely loyal to the Indonesian government.

In an interview with Australian journalist Mark Davis in the March 1999 documentary "License to Kill," Gusmão said: "ABRI as an armed force is confused. It's going through a period of collapsing morale and psychological torture. We can't say whether General Wiranto [head of Indonesia's military] and Habibie and Alatas agree with each other, whether ABRI will abide by their decision. There are many interests involved and ABRI is defending its own interests."

(ABRI recently split into two parts: TNI, the Indonesian National Army; and the civilian police force.)

José Ramos-Horta, 1996 Nobel Peace Prize recipient and exiled leader of the pro-independence movement, told the MoJo Wire that he believes the Indonesian government truly wants a fair vote in East Timor, but that the "real power" in the region is the military, which has other plans.

"Militia groups recruited in Indonesian West Timor from among criminal gangs in Kupang and Atambua and as far away as Jakarta operate as TNI's surrogate army in its dirty war against East Timor," said Ramos-Horta. "At least 60,000 East Timorese villagers [have been] displaced by the terror campaign and are [being] held as hostages by the criminal gangs with the active complicity of the Indonesian army."

According to Sidney Jones, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Asian task force, "The Indonesian military retains control over the militias, with the possible exception of Besi Merah Putih in Liquica. Even there," she said, "the army's influence is strong; it's just not clear whether the army can call off the violence as easily as they've sparked it, even if they had the inclination to do so."

Furthermore, members of these militias told documentarian Davis that they fear a vote for independence, because they are certain that, without the Indonesian army to back them up, they will be killed by Falintil, the armed wing of the pro-independence movement.

The human-rights group Kontras, based in the East Timor capital of Dili, says it believes the continued violence by the militias may also be intended to justify the continued presence of the Indonesian army in the region. The rich and landed Indonesians who have taken ownership of large tracts of East Timor land fear that they will be in physical danger and risk losing those riches and advantages in a free East Timor.

Witnesses say the militias have stepped up recruiting since Habibie announced in January that the independence vote would be held.

Amnesty International's report says, "There are many credible reports of people being coerced into joining militia groups. Recruitment operations have targeted whole villages. In one case, 12 people in Atara Village in Ermera District were killed on May 16, 1999, apparently because the village had refused to join the militia group Tim Pancasila."

Australian journalists and humanitarian aid workers have also said that many militia members only joined because their only other option was death by machete. The spirit in the militia-controlled towns is driven, it seems, less by a nationalist passion for Indonesian "unity" than by a sense of "kill or be killed."

Gusmão told reporters on Aug. 17: "If Falintil ever get(s) hold of one gun given out by the militias, we will track TNI down and kill them. Because they are the ones who make East Timorese kill East Timorese."

Human-rights groups are quick to mention that Falintil, while seemingly not as vicious as the integrationist militias, is not exactly angelic. Some evidence shows that Falintil has been responsible for several ambush-style attacks on militiamen and TNI soldiers in which a number of civilians were killed.

The integrationist militias are clearly getting bolder and more active as the months pass. In March, the BMP militia surrounded a convent in which nuns were providing medical care to victims of militia violence. The militia threatened to kill the nuns, but eventually set them free. In April, the BMP militia and a band of TNI soldiers shot 13 pro-independence youths in Dato (near Liquisa), killing five, according to Amnesty International. The incident caused 2,000 locals, fearing for their lives, to hide in the Liquisa church. The militiamen fired tear gas into the church, and attacked the crowd with machine guns and machetes as they streamed out of the building. The number of dead was estimated at 57. It was one of dozens of similar attacks in western East Timor that month. Almost every day the East Timor Action Network reports new outbreaks of violence and killings.

Calls have come from all sides of the negotiating table for the militias and Falintil to lay down their weapons before the vote. Those calls went largely ignored until last week when, in what came as a surprise to many observers, some 600 members of the Aitarak militia surrendered 150 of their mostly handmade weapons in Dili's soccer stadium.

No one is certain what will happen if the vote comes off and the majority votes for independence. Many fear even greater violence, in no small part because the militias have threatened virtually everyone in East Timor with slaughter should they vote against Indonesian rule. In the unlikely event that a fair vote ends with a majority for integration in Indonesia, the Indonesian military may interpret the outcome as carte blanche for further violence and repression.

Photo courtesy of East Timor Action Network