By Jon Lamb
Over the past few weeks Indonesian military, security agents and pro-integration youth thugs from GARDIPAKSI have terrorised East Timorese youth in Dili and other regional centres.
Scores of young Timorese have been rounded up, detained and interrogated by police and military officers in a search for those responsible for the death of an off-duty conscript hired to kill Nobel Peace Laureate Bishop Belo on December 24. The police are holding at least 15 Timorese youth in relation to the incident. Their whereabouts and safety are unknown. The police chief for East Timor, Lieutenant-Colonel Atok Rismanto, has vowed to arrest more and there is now a self-imposed curfew in Dili.
"After the whole incident took place, quite a number of young people where arrested ... no one feels safe to go out at night time because they know that the'hit men' are out there. They will pick up the young people, take them away and they will be killed", Abel Guterres, Australian representative for the National Council of Maubere Resistance (CNRM) told Green Left Weekly.
The CNRM issued a report in early January based on information from church sources, which cited at least three attempts to assassinate Belo. The first occurred at Dili airport where two Indonesian agents disguised as priests were discovered with guns and grenades and chased away by the crowd. The second attempt was halted when an Indonesian secret policeman, armed and in civilian clothing, aroused the suspicion of Timorese youth responsible for the protection of Bishop Belo. He was detained and disarmed by the youth who passed him on to church authorities, then on to the police.
The report says that, "The third incident in Colmera, in front of the SGI [Indonesian intelligence] office, involved a soldier called Alfredo Dos Santos, a first corporal belonging to the KOREM [Regional Military Command], born in Bobonaro and resident in Dili, who was sent by SGI to assassinate the Prelate F X Belo."
Dos santos was discovered as he made his way towards the Bishop's vehicle with his gun drawn. He was disarmed and beaten to death by an incensed crowd. He was later found to have an unsigned cheque for $5 million rupiah in his pocket, issued by the Indonesian intelligence.
"The whole strategy was to use those East Timorese who work for the Indonesian government to kill him", Guterres told Green Left Weekly. "If the plan had been successful, Indonesia would have simply washed its hands of it, saying it was the Timorese who killed their leader and that it had nothing to do with Indonesia.
"The attempt was foiled because the youth wing of the church provided the security, not Indonesian personnel. All the people were also alert with their eyes and ears", Guterres said.