East Timor’s salvation is still a long way off. Days after the peacekeepers arrived, the streets of Dili remained deathtraps. Gunshots rang through the air, and mysterious fires sporadically erupted in the few buildings that hadn’t already been torched. Rumors of imminent militia attacks swirled through makeshift refugee camps along the rocky waterfront. Though many of the Indonesian-backed militiamen fled to Indonesian West Timor, some gunmen have remained behind. The enemy was moving into guerrilla mode: militiamen traded their black T shirts and red and white headbands (representing the Indonesian flag) for civilian clothes–or changed into Indonesian Army uniforms. “We don’t know who’s who anymore,” says Jose Riveiro, a refugee. One officer with the peacekeeping troops admits to a sense of helplessness: “The guy waving at you during the day could be cutting your throat at night.”
Despite official pledges to help the peacekeepers, the Indonesian military continues to haunt East Timor. Discredited at home and pilloried by the international community, the soldiers aren’t leaving without getting their final revenge. Although five of the 11 Indonesian Army battalions in East Timor, about 11,500 soldiers, are withdrawing–including the most undisciplined and murderous unit, largely made up of East Timorese–the 4,500 who remain can continue the violence. As the troops withdrew, they burned their barracks, including their bivouacs, as well as government buildings. One Indonesian officer told the terrified East Timorese caretaker of a church dormitory that many soldiers would stay behind disguised in civilian clothes and team up with the militias. “Don’t relax,” he warned. “We’ll continue the terror.”
On the streets, the soldiers waged a bloody vendetta. In Becora, just on the outskirts of Dili, Sander Thoenes, a 30-year-old Dutch Financial Times correspondent, was shot to death by men in Indonesian Army uniforms. The soldiers chased Thoenes, who was riding on the back of a motorcycle, firing wildly at him with automatic weapons. Thoenes was hit and killed; his East Timorese driver escaped by scrambling through the bush. Minutes earlier, uniformed soldiers manning a checkpoint in the area stopped a car carrying a British reporter and an American photographer. The soldiers robbed them and beat the driver with the butts of their automatic rifles, forcing his eye out of its socket. They kidnapped the driver’s companion, then fired at the journalists as they escaped into a deserted village. The journalists were later rescued by Australian peacekeepers.
The Australian troops, meanwhile, struggled to gain control. At first, Maj. Gen. Peter Cosgrove, commander of the International Force for East Timor, called Interfet, concentrated most of his 3,000 troops at the airport and port areas, leaving much of Dili unprotected; the security situation in Dili, he said, was “unsatisfactory.” “We have control only as far as we can see,” said one of his officers. At the weekend, the Australians went on the offensive; infantry and armored personnel carriers cordoned off neighborhoods of Dili, as Black Hawk helicopters hovered overhead. Soldiers arrested at least three militiamen, including Caitano de Silva, the powerful platoon leader of a brutal militia group called Aitarak. “The message is, you can’t run, you can’t hide, justice is here,” said Interfet spokesman Maj. Chris Heriss-Andersen.
The East Timorese certainly hoped so. Parades of young men on motorcycles celebrated on Dili’s waterfront, waving the East Timor flag and posters of their leader, Xanana Gusmo, who was released recently from prison in Jakarta. Most refugees were still struggling to make sense of the violence. Tobias Alvarez Pereria, 58, says at least five men were killed in his Dili neighborhood. The militia decapitated three of them and placed their heads on stakes. “I have never seen such a stupid war, with armed soldiers killing defenseless civilians,” he says.
The East Timorese are praying that the departure of the Indonesian military will finally bring peace. But Indonesian soldiers are likely to stay until Jakarta’s People’s Consultative Assembly ratifies East Timor’s independence in November or December. Though the peacekeepers were scoring significant victories against militia leaders, the gunmen, operating under the protection of the Army, could continue to intimidate and kill. The East Timorese have no choice but to pick up the pieces of their lives. De Fatima, who watched soldiers and militiamen gun down three young unarmed men, burn her village and loot the clinic she ran, is planning to go home now that the peacekeepers are fanning out beyond Dili’s center. “Once the Indonesian military is gone,” she says, “we can begin again from zero.” East Timor’s tragedy isn’t over yet.
