Indonesia Must Do More in West Timor
Guterres' detention "important action in right direction"
By Judy Aita
Washington File United Nations Correspondent
United Nations -- The United States remains deeply concerned about the
situation in West Timor refugee camps and the failure to disarm
anti-independence militia, U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke said
October 12.
Holbrooke, the chief U.S. envoy to the United Nations, said that none
of the U.S. concerns about the situation in West Timor refugee camps
containing about 120,000 refugees "have disappeared and nor would I
even say they have abated."
Holbrooke talked with journalists outside the Security Council after
he spoke with Indonesian Foreign Minister Alwi Shihad in the morning
of October 12. The Indonesian foreign minister was scheduled to hold a
private meeting with the entire 15-member Security Council later in
the day.
The U.S. ambassador said that in his private meeting with Shihad he
expressed appreciation that Eurico Guterres had been arrested and
detained. Guterres, the leader of one of the most notorious of the
anti-independence militias, is thought responsible for much of the
violence following East Timor's independence vote in August 1999.
Holbrooke also said that he expected the Indonesians to accept a
Security Council Mission to the region sometime in mid-November "which
is fine with us."
Nevertheless, the ambassador said, the United States remains "deeply
concerned about the situation in the West Timor camps. We remain
concerned at the arming of the militia. None of our concerns have
disappeared, nor would I even say they have abated."
"However, I think we should recognize that the Indonesian government
is acting, insofar as the United Nations side of the ledger goes, in
the direction they said they would be moving," the ambassador said.
The arrest of anti-independence militia leader Guterres for attempting
to thwart the disarmament of militia groups in West Timor, Holbrooke
said, is "another important action in the right direction."
But the ambassador added that he believes that Guterres' arrest is
related to the fact that members of the Security Council, especially
the United States, are rethinking their decision earlier this year not
to set up a war crimes tribunal.
"We all have to accept the fact that (the arrest) is a positive step,
but it is not in any way definitive," the ambassador said.
Asked about the situation in the West Timor refugee camps where U.N.
aid workers were withdrawn after several were killed by militia in the
past few months, Holbrooke said that "the Indonesian Government has
repeatedly said that people who do not wish to return to East Timor
will be given assistance in settling on other islands but they have
never moved anyone in any significant numbers off the island of Timor.
That is part of the problem."
A decision to send aid workers back into refugee camps in West Timor
"is a decision to put the bravest people in world -- unarmed civilian
refugee workers, people who are risking their lives to help other
people -- at risk of losing their own lives," the ambassador said.
"I cannot even begin to judge whether they should be sent back in," he
said. "I want those people back in the camps, but I don't want to see
more United Nations personnel killed. We have at least five deaths (of
aid workers) in East and West Timor in the last eight weeks."
(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International
Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site:
http://usinfo.state.gov)
|
NEWSLETTER
|
|
Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list
|
|
|
