By Norm Dixon
Ignoring worldwide calls for an investigation independent of the Indonesian government, President Suharto on November 17 decreed the establishment of a commission of inquiry made up entirely of Indonesians linked to either the military or the regime.
Human rights organisations, aid groups and East Timor's liberation movement, Fretilin, are stepping up their international campaign for a genuinely independent, impartial inquiry into the Indonesian army's November 12 massacre of up to 180 peaceful demonstrators in Dili. There is also strong pressure on governments around the world to cut military aid to the Indonesian government.
Suharto's decree said this "free, detailed and just" inquiry would consider all aspects of the "incident" which "led to civilian victims as well as among security forces". Indonesia has rejected international participation in the probe, claiming it would represent interference in its internal affairs.
In announcing the decree to the press, state secretary Major-General Murdiono was already pre-empting its findings, saying, "There were provocations, previously prepared by certain elements, which had sparked the bloody incident".
The make-up of the commission also reinforced doubts about its impartiality. Its chairperson, Supreme Court Judge Jaelani, is a former armed forces major-general who once commanded an elite commando unit. The current inspector-general of the armed forces is also on the panel, and all other members have armed forces and government connections. There are no nominees from Indonesia's very active NGO sector. It is unlikely that East Timorese witnesses will be game enough to appear before such a government-dominated panel.
The Indonesia Human Rights Campaign, TAPOL, derided the commission as "a futile attempt to fend off international calls for an independent inquiry ... The commission will include representatives from the armed forces, the ministry of justice, the interior ministry and the foreign affairs ministry. All these bodies are dominated by the military and can only be expected to produce a cover-up."
Portugal denounced the planned inquiry as "a sad farce". The Portuguese Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the probe "does not meet any requirements of credibility or impartiality".
Senior Fretilin official Jose Ramos Horta, in Paris to press European governments to support UN action against Indonesia, described the commission as a farce. "These are the same people who orchestrated the killings. It is the same as asking Pol Pot to investigate the crimes of the Khmer Rouge."
Australian Fretilin representative Alfredo Ferreira said the Indonesian commission was "a big joke". He added that the people of East Timor want a UN team sent to the island and that witnesses to the Dili killings will speak only to such a probe.
The Indonesian armed forces intelligence agency, BAIS, is to carry out a separate inquiry. BAIS is responsible for investigating the activities of "subversives". TAPOL charges that "the aim of the BAIS inquiry will be to back up the army's claim that [the] demonstration was a riot instigated and infiltrated by the armed resistance".
The chances of the commission being permitted to reach conclusions critical of the military can be judged by a speech made by the commander in chief of the Indonesian armed forces (ABRI), General Try Soetrisno, just days after the killings.
The speech, at a seminar of graduates from the National Defence Institute, was reported in a Jakarta newspaper. He told his audience that the East Timorese resistance must be crushed. "These ill-bred people have to be shot", he said bluntly. Later in the speech he again emphasised his threat: "... ABRI will never allow itself to be ignored. In the end, they had to be shot. And we shall shoot them."
Calls for an independent and impartial inquiry, as well as the convening of talks under international supervision, continue to multiply. Amnesty International has demanded an investigation under the auspices of the United Nations. The human rights group Asia Watch has insisted that the commission of inquiry be composed of people who are independent "of any institution, agency or person that is a subject of the inquiry".
The influential US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations passed a motion on November 19 condemning the massacre and urging US President George Bush to "reassess" military aid to Indonesia (the committee's chairperson, Clairborne Pell, had earlier demanded the suspension of all US military aid).
The committee backed calls for a UN investigation into the massacre and called on the US president to encourage the UN secretary-general, the Indonesian and Portuguese governments and the East Timor resistance "to arrive at an internationally acceptable solution that addresses the underlying causes of the conflict".
It is expected that the full Senate and US House of Representatives will pass similar resolutions. Such motions, however, are not binding on the US administration, which has so far avoided calling for an independent inquiry or supporting any UN role in East Timor.
Jose Luis Guterres, Fretilin's UN representative, asked for implementation of UN Security Council resolutions adopted after the 1975 Indonesian invasion of the former Portuguese colony. He called on the US to help organise an internationally supervised referendum on East Timor's independence.
"If President Bush links aid to human rights and is ready to fight for freedom all over the world, he should give us a chance for democracy. We are fighting against one of the bloodiest regimes in the world", Guterres said. Portuguese Prime Minister Anibal Cavaco Silva has also called on the US to take a firmer stand on the issue. "There is much hypocrisy in international politics", Cavaco Silva commented in a television interview on November 19. He added that Portugal will bring the East Timor issue before the European Community after it takes over the rotating EC presidency on January 1.
On November 21, the Dutch government, under pressure from its parliament, announced that evidence indicated that the "Indonesian military fired indiscriminately at the Dili cemetery without provocation". It suspended any new aid. The Netherlands will ask the UN to initiate an inquiry into the massacre.
That same day the European Parliament in Strasbourg voted 160 to 8 that the EEC and UN impose an arms embargo on Indonesia. The parliament also called on EEC and UN members to cut or suspend aid to Indonesia.
Sixty-three members of the British parliament have tabled a motion that condemns "the killing and wounding of hundreds of unarmed civilians ... in occupied East Timor"; expresses dismay at the British government's refusal to impose an arms embargo against Indonesia; and calls on the British government "to immediately introduce an arms embargo ... and to call for the United Nations Security Council to be convened to discuss the latest tragedy in illegally-occupied East Timor".