Asia Times: Disinformation sows fear in Timor refugees



	October 14, 1999	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

Disinformation sows fear in Timor refugees
By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - East Timorese, held by Indonesian-backed militias in West Timor, are receiving disinformation about conditions back home, apparently to discourage them from returning, according to a top US official.

Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Harold Koh says the presence of the militias in some dozen camps in West Timor is ''pervasive'', as are the ties between the militia and the Indonesian military.

Koh, headed a delegation that spent last week in Jakarta, East Timor and Indonesia-controlled West Timor.

He told reporters that his biggest concern at the moment was the safety of East Timorese who fled or were forcibly deported to West Timor after the Indonesian army and the militias conducted a ''scorched earth'' campaign in East Timor following the vote for independence from Indonesia in the August 30 plebiscite.

''The safety considerations are absolutely predominant,'' he said. ''People in the camps are living in fear of the militias. International humanitarian NGOs, and particularly NGO workers, are ready to help, but the militia presence in the camps is so pervasive that they can't enter the camp safely to do this kind of work.''

Koh said the Indonesian military (TNI) played a major role in the mayhem in East Timor after the plebiscite, particularly in Dili, the capital.

''We heard with great consistency that the destruction that was done in Dili was done first by TNI military, who would go into houses, steal television sets, break windows, and that the broken windows would then be signs that militia should come in, loot the rest of the buildings, and then burn them to the ground,'' Koh said.

This campaign also included an effort to forcibly depopulate much of the territory, particularly the area closest to West Timor, he said. Out of a total population of some 800,000, some 200,000 East Timorese were forced to cross the border into the Indonesian part of the island.

Most of these people are being held in camps largely controlled by the militias and the TNI. While Indonesian civilian officials promise to permit them to return home, it remains unclear when - and whether - they will be allowed to do so.

Koh said residents of the camps were not receiving any accurate news about the situation in East Timor. ''With regard to the question of free choice [whether to return], we were struck by the degree of disinformation in the camps. The individuals with whom we spoke had little information about what was going on in East Timor, and virtually all the information that they had was inaccurate,'' he said.

''There's a widespread belief that Interfet [international peacekeeping] forces are persecuting individuals who are returning to East Timor, and there is a great fear that if they were to be returned, they would face this kind of problem,'' Koh said. ''Most people were bewildered, confused, afraid to talk to us. It's very clear that they have no current information.''

He added that the Indonesian press was also disseminating ''disinformation and misinformation'' about the Interfet operation.

Koh stressed that the line separating the militias from the TNI was unclear, particularly in West Timor. In the camps visited by his delegation, ''many people were wearing the traditional militia garb, which was camouflage pants [and] tee-shirts, [but] some were wearing full-fledged TNI garb . . . We also heard reports that a number of the militia were seen signing up for and joining the military and becoming absorbed into the military. There seemed to be a pervasive interconnetion between the militia activities and the TNI activities.''

Koh stressed that Washington strongly favors an investigation of abuses committed by the militias and the TNI, and that much of his time in both Dili and Jakarta had been taken up with discussions on that subject.

(Inter Press Service)

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©1999 Asia Times Online Co., Ltd.