<nettime> East Timor Digest (burning, torture, killing journalists)

[nettimes_digestive_system <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>]

Date:     Wed, 22 Sep 1999 09:22:28 -0400
From:     Chris Simpson <simpson@AMERICAN.EDU>
Subject:  Timor is burning

Friends --

Thank you to Harry Hummel of Amnesty International for passing along
the news report below (picked up from the Web) concerning AUSLIG imagery
of Dili, Timor, in flames.  Any updates on publicly available, recent
imagery of Timor that persons on this list can share would be greatly
appreciated, especially if higher resolution materials have been made
available as a public service by private sector imaging companies.
Relief organizations are particularly interested in materials that may
provide leads concerning recently bulldozed earth, razed villages and
other indicators of possible mass graves.

Because the region is a center of petroleum exploration, mining,
resource management and related activities, it is quite possible that 5m
to 15m ground resolution imagery is already routinely collected for this
area.

If agencies and/or companies are willing to share such data, I believe
we can reach agreement on copyright or intellectual property protection
for these data that is fair and agreeable to everyone concerned.

Regards,
Christopher Simpson
School of Communication
American University
Washington DC 20016-8017  USA


From: bfmedia@pop.peg.apc.org (BUSHFIRE MEDIA)
Subject: Clear satellite shots of burning Dili

Some chilling pics from the LandSat satellite, of Dili burning at 10am
8th September. Infrared filters picking up the fires in the town.

Just imagine how good the military satellite pictures are - the intel
agencies of the West would have been able to see the refugee camps being
constructed in West Timor, and probably the mass graves.... as they
could in Bosnia.  But on this occassion, strangely not a word.

http://www.auslig.gov.au/acres/referenc/dili.htm

With thanks to AUSLIG.

______________________________ B U S H F I R E  M E D I A
                               PO Box 9
                               Annandale 2038
                               Sydney
                               Australia
                               Fax +612 9660-1804

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Tortured to death
Date: 23/09/99
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD


By LINDSAY MURDOCH, Herald Correspondent in Dili

The bodies of up to 30 tortured East Timorese have been found dumped in
a
well behind the Dili home of the independence leader Mr Manuel
Carrascalao.

Australian troops were yesterday led to the massacre site, the first of
many they expect to find following the campaign of terror launched by
Indonesian soldiers, police and militia against East Timorese three
weeks ago.

The discovery came as a Dutch journalist was killed, apparently by
Indonesian Army soldiers, and there were warnings of a rampage by
Indonesian troops due to be pulled out of Dili tomorrow.

Witnesses who went to the Carrascalao house said a women's battered body
was on top of the stack of corpses in the well. Her head had been
severed.

Australian troops found dried blood and meat hooks in the garden near
the
well. Locals said they believed the victims had been hung by the hooks
and cut before being dumped in the well. Clothes were scattered around
the garden. 

Mr Carrascalao's house is only metres from the base of Aitarak, the
pro-Indonesian militia group whose leader, Eurico Guterres, in May
ordered his men to go to war with the Carrascalao family. 

The same day, 100 of his men stormed Mr Carrascalao's house, killing 12
people including his 18-year-old son.

The collapse of Indonesia's military command structure in East Timor
threatened a new wave of violence as the Australian-led multinational
force expanded its control of Dili.

The troops stepped up their campaign to disarm people in the streets,
confiscating hundreds of rudimentary weapons, with only minor
resistance. 

As well, about 150 men were sent aboard Black Hawk helicopters to the
eastern town of Baucau to secure the territory's biggest airport.

But hundreds of Indonesian troops due to leave soon were vandalising
their military buildings, ignoring the 2,000-plus heavily armed
Australian, New Zealand, and British Army Gurkha troops who have secured
Dili's airport, wharf, UN compound and Australian consulate.

Major S. Ahmed, of Indonesia's 521 battalion, said on the eve of his
1,000 troops withdrawing: "You just wait ... all hell will break loose."

Military sources said last night there were strong indications that
Indonesia's military commander in East Timor, Major-General Kiki
Syahnakri, would not be able to stop last-minute revenge attacks by
angry troops.

The Indonesian soldiers have been vandalising buildings and loading
tonnes of furniture, food and other goods on trucks and ships bound for
West Timor.

The sources said General Syahnakri will be ready to tell the head of the
multinational force, Major-General Peter Cosgrove, within days that
Indonesia is no longer responsible for security in East Timor.

Under a UN-brokered agreement, Indonesian security forces were to secure
the territory until the country's supreme legislature, due to meet in
November, ratified the results of the independence ballot.

The dead Dutch journalist, Mr Sander Thoenes, 30, is believed to have
been shot on Tuesday night by six Indonesian soldiers as he rode on the
back of a motor bike through the town of Becora, a few kilometres from
Dili.

A British journalist and United States photographer were attacked by a
convoy of locally-recruited Indonesian Army soldiers on Dili's
outskirts. 

More than 100 Australian soldiers, supported by helicopters and armoured
personnel carriers, went to rescue them, but their local driver was
badly
hurt and taken away.

The attacks prompted a warning from General Cosgrove of the dangers to
the hundreds of foreigners who have returned to East Timor this week. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Uniformed men kill, mutilate journalist
Date: 23/09/99
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

By LINDSAY MURDOCH, Herald Correspondent in Dili

The attackers, allegedly Indonesian soldiers, who murdered Sander
Thoenes
cut his ear and took it away as some sort of bizarre souvenir.

The 30-year-old Dutch journalist thought it was safe enough to take a
ride late on Tuesday on the back of a motorbike through the Dili suburb
of Becora, a one-time independence stronghold that is now a wasteland.

We all had a false sense of security, after seeing hundreds of heavily
armed Australian troops arriving in the devastated capital of East
Timor, and hearing from Interfet commander Major-General Peter Cosgrove
about the co-operation of the Indonesian military, or TNI.

But they had only secured the airport, wharf and United Nations
compound.
The rest of Dili remains a dangerous no-man's land.

Motorbike rider Florindo Araujo knew he and Mr Thoenes were in trouble
when he saw six men dressed and equipped as Indonesian soldiers on the
road about 200 metres ahead shortly before dusk. Although militias
sometimes wear bits of uniform, Mr Araujo has no doubt these were
Indonesian troops.

"I saw them lift their automatic rifles towards us and motioned us to
stop. I tried to turn around but they started shooting, maybe 10 or 20
times. There were bullets all around. My motorbike was damaged and we
went down. The journalist looked asleep. It looked like they were going
to continue shooting so I ran away."

Shortly after dawn the body of Thoenes, who works for London's Financial
Times and the Dutch weekly Vrij Nederland, was found by friends face
down
behind a gutted Becora house, his notebook lying just in front, his body
battered and apparently mutilated.

American photographer Chip Hires and British journalist Jon Swain were
not greatly worried when they saw a convoy of Indonesian soldiers on the
edge of Dili about the same time as Thoenes was killed. But the
soldiers, East Timorese from one of the two locally-raised TNI
batallions, stopped their taxi.

"For me it was sort of the year of living dangerously all over again,"
said Hires. "They started hammering our driver - then his eye came out.
He was beaten very badly. They put him on the back of a truck and were
still beating him."

One of the soldiers then pulled out a pistol and shot out the taxi's
tyres.

Hires said he and Swain, a veteran Asian journalist who survived Pol
Pot's occupation of Phnom Penh in 1975, were then told to go away. "They
fired in our direction but not at us," Hires said. "We took cover in a
small village and called our office in London on a mobile telephone."

The call mobilised more than 100 Australian soldiers, armoured personnel
carriers and Black Hawk helicopters. The men were rescued early
yesterday
morning.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

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