"They
started beating us quite badly until a group of militia arrived,"
Riverio explains in a monotone. "While TNI watched, the militia
continued to beat us and stab us with their swords. I was stabbed
in the back and on the arm, but managed to break free and I ran. That
was the last time I saw my brother alive. When friends found his body
they told me he had died from the stab wounds."
More
than a year and a half has passed since the Indonesian military and
its militia marauded through East Timor in the weeks leading up to
and following a UN-sponsored referendum in which the overwhelming
majority of East Timorese voted in favor of independence from Indonesia.
According to the UN Human Rights mission in East Timor, Indonesian
forces killed an estimated 1,100 people and destroyed over seventy
percent of the country’s buildings, while more than 200,000 refugees
either fled or were forced across the border into Indonesian controlled
West Timor. In an effort to get Indonesian forces to withdraw,
UN Secretary–General Kofi Annan threatened to establish a war
crimes court to prosecute those responsible for violations of international
humanitarian law on the island.
In the wake of the killing and destruction, the United Nations sent
a Transitional Administration into East Timor (UNTAET) with a far-reaching
mandate to secure, stabilize, and govern the tiny nation until it
was deemed prepared for true independence. Undeniable progress has
been made in this nation-building experiment. Initially, it appeared
that a major aspect of the UN mission would be to follow through with
Annan’s threats and create an international tribunal to prosecute
those responsible for committing atrocities in East Timor. Today,
however, it seems the United Nations is unwilling or unable to take
the steps necessary to ensure that justice is served.
On January 31, 2000 the UN International Commission of Inquiry on
East Timor submitted its report to the Secretary General. "Confronted
with testimonies surpassing their imagination," the commission
concluded that the Indonesian military and its militia were responsible
for "patterns of gross violations of human rights which…
took the form of systematic and widespread intimidation, killings
and massacre, humiliation and terror, destruction of property, violence
against women and displacement of people."
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