Word: militiaization
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...Flash forward a few years. Two months ago, East Timor became an independent nation, though at a terrible price. In 1999, when Timorese voted to cut their ties with Indonesia, militia proxies of the Indonesian military went on a murderous rampage that left the country in ruins. Few foreigners have been able to forget the scenes of bloodshed and burning; tourists in East Timor are practically nonexistent. But it's time now to forget. The men who caused the destruction have fled, leaving behind a people basking in freedom and peace. They have also left behind one of the most...
...Next stop: Baucau. Thanks to an enterprising Catholic bishop who paid off the local militia in 1999, the town was spared much of the death and destruction that befell the rest of the country. His song should be sung. Baucau's old city?built in the shadow of a limestone cliff overlooking the ocean?is home to some of the finest examples of Portuguese architecture in East Timor, including the newly restored and renamed Pousada Baucau, once the infamous Hotel Flamboyan. Now under Timorese management, this grand hotel is the place to enjoy spicy Portuguese-Timorese fusion food...
...From the start, however, the government has been accused of being less than vigorous in its prosecution. The indictments drawn up by the Attorney General's office focus on specific incidents, rather than attempting to prove a systematic campaign of terror by the military and its militia proxies. They charge military and police leaders (and Guterres) with failing to prevent the violence. The implication is that the murders, maimings and firebombings being dissected at the trials were a few extreme acts in an otherwise just and orderly operation. That's how the military wants its actions...
...neck?than to saving his own skin. Guterres is a central figure in the first ever human-rights trials held on Indonesian soil, a highly public attempt to account and atone for the carnage that occurred in East Timor in 1999 when the Indonesian military, in conjunction with local militias, viciously turned on supporters of East Timor's pro-independence movement. But Guterres, the leader of one of the most brutal of the militia gangs, wears the look of someone whose conscience is clean as he asks, "What do I have to be concerned about...
...Today's testimony concerns a joint military and militia raid on the home of pro-independence leader Manuel Carrascalao's in April 1999. One witness recounts seeing a friend killed, before being shot and stabbed himself; Guterres yawns. Another claims to have helped dispose of the bodies of the 11 people killed that day; Guterres smiles at a joke from one of his six lawyers. A third says he was forcibly conscripted into Guterres' militia under fear of death. The defendant taps his foot and glances around the room. Guterres was videotaped before the raid calling for the destruction...