[Marinir] "Indonesia Menangis - Tossi Menangis" [Tsunami menggusur kejahatan HAM Tim-Tim'99

[YapHongGie]

Kalau Indonesia menangis dengan rakyat Aceh atas bencana Tsunami,
maka nun jauh di negeri Kincir Angin ada seseorang yang juga menangis;
Sdr. Aboeprijadi Santoso (TOSSI) meratapi terjadinya bencana dahsyat
yang melanda negara-negara di Asia.

Para korban di Aceh serasa dunianya "kiamat"; walaupun selamat, mereka
kehilangan keluarga, harta benda dan segala yang mereka miliki.
Demikian pula yang dirasakan Bung Tossi, dunianya juga serasa "kiamat"!
Bedanya, walaupun (dankzij God) tidak kehilangan keluarganya, beliau
merasakan suatu bencana dengan hilangnya perhatian, dukungan, subsidi
dari para sponsor, atas obsesi perlawanannya melawan Republik Indonesia.


Jika kita mendalami sosok seorang (Presiden) Xanana Gusmao; penerima 3
hadiah perdamaian, yang bergerilya (1978) dihutan-hutan Timor Timur melawan
TNI, kemudian ditangkap pada November 1992 dan dipenjara di Semarang
dan Cipinang, dibebaskan pada 7 September 1999, namun negarawan besar
ini memilih untuk melupakan masa lalu, untuk selanjutnya hidup berdamaian
dengan Republik Indonesia.

Mirip lagi tapi tak sama, adalah kisah "perjuangan" para petualang politik
diantara Bar & Cafe di Leidseplein, dengan bersenjata segelas Heineken Bier,
mereka menentukan bagaimana harusnya menegakan demokrasi dan HAM
di Indonesia.


Jadi, dapatlah dimengerti keprihatinan Bung Tossi, kalau negara dan lembaga
donor  --yang selama bertahun-tahun menghidupi aksi-kegiatan para petualang
politik untuk mendiskreditkan pemerintah RI qq. TNI--   sekarang tiba-tiba
mengalihkan program dan dananya untuk kepentingan rehabilitasi dan
rekonstruksi wilayah-wilayah Asia yang terkena Tsunami, maka bencana
berikutnya adalah bahwa para pendekar HAM kita harus menjadi pengamen
dan pembaca puisi diseputar de Dam dan Kalverstraat, di Amsterdam .....

"Indonesia Menangis - Tossi Menangis"

Wassalam, yhg.


---------------------------------
From:  "tossi20" <tossi20 at y...>
Date:  Sat Jan 8, 2005  8:32 pm ; Msg 6736
Subject: Tsunami juga menggusur soal kejahatan HAM di Tim-Tim 1999

From: "John MacDougall" <johnmacdougall at c...>
Date: Sat Jan 8, 2005 2:15 pm
Subject: A Truth Commission for East Timor - But Who Planned the
1999 Mayhem?

>From Aboeprijadi Santoso <tossi20 at y...>

--
Author's note:

The tsunami disaster not only shifted the attention of the
international community from Darfur and Congo, but also from
violence in East Timor in 1999 just as the UN raised this issue.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's administration wanted to bury
the issue once and for all by initiating a joint Indonesia-East
Timor truth commission to examine the events. Neither the government
in Dili (although President Xanana Gusmao formally agreed) nor the
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan seem enthusiastic about Jakarta's
initiative. The UN wants to pursue its own plan - which Jakarta has
rejected - to form an expert commission to examine the ways both
Jakarta and Deli justice authorities handled the case. Annan was
reportedly about to take up the issue when the tsunami disaster
happened. The following article was written just before the tsunami
stroked and hasn't been published before.

A.S.

A truth commission for East Timor - but who planned the 1999-mayhem?

By Aboeprijadi Santoso

Indonesia has asked East Timor to form a joint-commission of truth
and friendship to resolve the issue of the violence around the
United Nations held vote in East Timor in 1999. With 1500 deaths, a
capital destroyed, hundreds of thousands deported by force, and 17
of only 18 defendants acquitted, the crimes against humanity
allegedly committed by the Army and its proxies, have apparently
come full circle and the impunity is complete. But who's responsible
for the mayhem?

At the last celebration in Dili of Indonesia's Independence Day,
August 17, 1999, just two weeks before the UN plebiscite, Governor
Jose Abilio Osorio Soares proudly announced before UN diplomats and
community leaders that East Timor will continue to celebrate the day
because he believed the country will be united in her choice for a
special autonomy, thus remaining part of Indonesia. As he spoke,
though, violence swept over the country, and in the hall, this
writer recalls, some civil servants whispered to each other with a
sense of disbelieve. They were right: a few weeks later, the
majority of the people voted for independence.

Yet the Governor knew better. Abilio must have been aware about
local anxieties and the upcoming danger i.e. what the soldiers and
militia would do when the defeat eventually comes - "the morning
after (the vote)" problem had by then become international concerns.
Pro-Jakarta militia leaders claimed his administration authorized
them to guard the main roads and ports soon after the vote -
indicating that, far from rogue elements fighting in a "civil war",
the violence involved some planning.

When Abilio was finally acquitted by the court, law experts warned,
the verdict may endanger Indonesia's position in the international
community as the trials have been widely seen as a sham to avert an
international tribunal. Indeed, gen. Wiranto's adviser, Muladi,
welcomed it as a step to remove international criticism that only
the militaries were freed, while Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda
regretted it, saying it will "erode the credibility of the rights
tribunal".

In other words, rather than reflecting on the injustice inflicted on
the victims, Jakarta is concerned about the image of the military
and the rights trials - the two institutions most responsible for
the impunity, whose credibility are thus at stake.

A negative, possibly devastating judgment may be expected if the
Expert Commission initiated by the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan -
instead of Jakarta's proposed truth commission - is allowed to probe
the way Jakarta handled the case.

One expert who witnessed and researched the case is Professor
Geoffrey Robinson of University of California. The Canadian
Indonesia-specialist was a political adviser of UNAMET which
organized East Timor's referendum. His report to the United Nations
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, "East
Timor 1999, Crimes against Humanity" (July 2003) has been suppressed
for years, but will be published soon.

"In both 1965 (leftwing massacres) and 1999 (E. Timor)," Robinson
told Radio Netherlands recently, "the Army were directly involved in
organizing the killings. People talked of the 1999 case as if it's
just the work of some rogue elements, but it's clear that the Army
was involved in mobilizing their own soldiers to take part in the
crimes. The 1999 case was in front of the international community,
that's a big difference ..."

"One reason why (Army's) efforts failed and resulted ultimately,
although it's much too late, in the international community
intervening with military force in September, was that the military
thought on the basis of past experience they could do everything
(and) organize this violence without anybody noticed. In fact, they
were very surprised and confused that so many international, NGO's
and UN observers and journalists were there. It made it very
difficult, but they used the approach of mobilizing the militias.
(This) they thought was a good tactic because they could say these
are not soldiers, they're just ordinary people fighting for their
belief, and we try to control them, but we can't".

It's not easy, however, to explain how the massacres, rampage and
rapes were organized. Robinson: "What I think happened was that
several TNI (Indonesian military) and other officers in Jakarta
spelled out a general strategy to mobilize the militias and to use
terror and violence in order to intimidate people and to punish
them. And within that strategy as you went down the command, there
were more specific ideas about what to do. So, yes, there was
planning at some level of general strategy, but it doesn't mean that
a particular individual planned a particular massacre. There is no
smoking gun . but the links between the formal Army commands
and the militias are well documented."

"That doesn't change the level of responsibility," Robinson
insisted. For "the line of responsibility is only partly informal
and some of the formal lines of command were still operating.
Probably (the special corps) Kopassus had a separate, parallel
command, controlling certain activities separately from the formal
territorial lines of command". This conclusion is parallel to UN
investigator James Dunn's report of Feb. 2001.

Mass murderers liked to ensure and measure their success.
Hitler did it at a special conference in Wansee, Berlin, and the
Khmer Rouge kept lists of victims in meticulous details.

Not so in Timor case. But there were documents of a contingency plan
to transport people, which according to Dili's Yayasan Hak suggests
a preceding scorched-earth plan. This was the directives from the
office of the Coordinating Ministry of Politics and Security Affairs
for the Army and Police district commanders in Dili.

All these point to the use of the Army structure, in addition to
informal networks, to operate the militia. Examples abound - like
attacks on church in Liquisa, Suai and on Carrascalao's house.

The planning apparently involved the TNI headquarter, the strategic
corps Kostrad, the Kopassus and the military intelligence agency
BAIS, but also key members of President B.J. Habibie's cabinet. One
was the defense minister and TNI chief gen. Wiranto, who let his
soldiers and the militia did what they did - a very serious
omission. But at a higher level the coordinating minister gen. ret.
Feisal Tanjung played a key role as he chaired a team, called by its
Indonesian acronym TP4OKTT, which included ministers of home and
foreign affairs, of defense, justice and the BAIS chief. According
to Robinson, it is this group, who drew the general strategy.

The Indonesia-East Timor Truth Commission has yet to spell out its
aim and modus operandi. However, being a truth commission, it will
have, if any, a limited judicial power. To resolve the issue, a
truly credible court - a hybrid or international tribunal - should
precede such commission, check the above findings, and let justice
take its course.

The writer is a journalist with Radio Netherlands, Amsterdam.