Endemic Abuse and Impunity in Papua’s Central Highlands
This 81-page report is the product of more than a year of research. The report documents daily abuses by police officers and other security forces in the mountainous and isolated Central Highlands area of the Indonesian province of Papua, located on the western half of the island of New Guinea.
Police Violence and the Beginnings of Impunity in East Timor
This 60-page report is based on dozens of interviews with witnesses and victims of police abuse in East Timor. It documents excessive force during arrests, torture and ill-treatment of detainees by the National Police of East Timor (PNTL). Several people interviewed had to be hospitalized because of the severity of their injuries.
Indonesia's Sham Prosecutions, the Need to Strengthen the Trial Process in East Timor, and the Imperative of U.N. Action
The world watched in horror in September 1999 when the Indonesian National Army (TNI) and Timorese militias went on a campaign of murder, arson, and forced expulsion after the people of East Timor voted for independence in a United Nations administered referendum.
This report is based on interviews with more than one hundred East Timorese returnees in transit centers in Dili, the capital of East Timor. It documents the continuing obstacles to return for East Timorese refugees in West Timor and other parts of Indonesia.
On January 19, 1999, as Muslims around the world were celebrating the end of the fasting month,a fight broke out on the island of Ambon, in Maluku (Molucca) province, Indonesia, between a Christian public transport driver and a Muslim youth. Such fights were commonplace, but thisone escalated into a virtual war between Christians and Muslims that is continuing.
The months of May, June, and July 1997 seemed to mark an intensification of the conflict in East Timor, with guerrilla attacks on both Indonesian military targets and civilians in Dili, Baucau, Ermera, and Los Palos, and intensive operations by the Indonesian army to find and punish those responsible.
Abuses in East Timor, involving possible extrajudicial executions, torture, disappearances, unlawful arrests and detentions and denials of freedom of association, assembly and expression, continue unabated. The perpetrators are the police and army, as well as a group operating in civilian dress, locally known as “ninjas,” who operate as masked gangs reportedly organized by the military.
For the last few years, the watchword of the Indonesian government has been “openness.” It was both a policy — the Indonesian equivalent of letting a hundred flowers bloom — and a prescription, from President Soeharto himself, for a dynamic, developing society.
Summarizing the findings of an Asia Watch visit to Jakarta and Dili in March 1993, including the results of interviews conducted, direct observation of the trial and an analysis of documents obtained, this report addresses fair trial and human rights issues directly related to the trial of a guerrilla fighter.
The Trial of Xanana Gusmao and a Follow-up on the Dili Massacre
The trial of Xanana raised several important human rights issues. It should be noted at the outset that Asia Watch has never taken a position on the political status of East Timor nor on the jurisdiction of Indonesian courts there.
Between May 29 and June 6, 1992, nine soldiers and one policeman were tried by military or police courts in Bali for their role in the massacre in East Timor on November 12, 1991 when the Indonesian army opened fire on a crowd of unarmed demonstrators. The trials were open to diplomatic observers and the press; the sentences were light, ranging from eight to eighteen months.
In early September 1991, the Indonesian military forced the country's leading newsweekly, Tempo, to kill a story scheduled for the September 7 issue about the plight of young East Timorese workers who had been promised training and high-paying jobs by President Suharto's eldest daughter, Siti Hardijanti Hastuti, better known as Mbak Tutut.
Over 60 East Timorese, many of them students, remain in detention in Jakarta and Dili, capital of East Timor in the aftermath of the November 12 massacre in Dili in which upwards of 75 demonstrators were killed when Indonesian troops opened fire. All are facing trial, some on criminal charges, some on charges of subversion.
Asia Watch has studied the preliminary report of the National Commission of Inquiry prepared by the seven-person team appointed by President Suharto to investigate the killings in Dili, East Timor on November 12, 1991, when Indonesian armed forces opened fire on unarmed demonstrators.
On November 12, 1991 in Dili, the capital of East Timor, anywhere from 75 to 200 people are estimated to have been killed when Indonesian troops opened fire on a demonstration. The demonstrators were calling for the independence of East Timor, the former Portuguese colony of some 700,000 people on the eastern half of the island of Timor, off the north Australian coast.
