[TimorLesteStudies] East Timor: Massacres and Miracles

[Warren L. Wright BA LLB]

ETLJB 9 April 2009 Melbourne In response to Jill Jolliffe's report in The
Age on 1st April 2009, it should be noted that there were several massacres
in Dili. The first occurred on 7th December 1975 when thousands of Chinese
and Timorese were murdered.

A second Dili massacre took place the day after the Indonesian invasion when
over a hundred citizens forced to the wharf witnessed the murders of Roger
East and more than a hundred victims including Isabel Lobato and Rosa Muki
Bonaparte.

Though the cemetery is in a suburb of Dili, I submit that to name it the
Dili massacre marginalises all the other massacres that took place in the
city during the Indonesian occupation.

See James Dunn 'East Timor a rough passage to independence' page 292 for
details of massacres outside Dili.

Though I don’t suppose the demonstration at the Pope’s mass at Taci Tolu in
1989 could be described as ‘taking to the streets,’ it was an extremely
courageous act since it took place in the presence of thousands of
Indonesian soldiers dressed as scout masters or tourists. They were armed
with cameras which they used to record the demonstrators, many of whom were
subsequently disappeared. Brave Timorese youths also unfurled banners which
had to be smuggled into Taci Tolu through military checkpoints. Rods
designed in interlocking sections placed their carriers in particular
danger.

Taci-Tolu is a place where thousands of Timorese had been butchered to the
extent that people attending the Pope's mass wept as they entered the arena.
‘We are walking on the bones of our loved-ones.’

For weeks before the Pope's arrival, the site at Taci Tolu was out-of-bounds
and bulldozers were observed clearing the grounds. There was much
speculation about the disposal of the remains of many thousands of Timorese.

When the youths carrying the banners ran towards the dais where the Pope was
standing, the batik-shirt brigade moved in and began to beat anyone who got
in their way. A group of Timorese standing close to the dais saw what was
happening; they found the courage to raise their fists. The cameras were
adjusted to include them. Uniformed police appeared from nowhere hurling
chairs and clouds of dust began to rise as if the Taci Tolu massacres were
being repeated.

A hundred or so Timorese found the courage to try to help the protesters;
they were beaten into the earth with riot sticks and chairs. A Filipino
journalist's camera was torn from his hands and the film ripped out. I saw
one man clutching his fractured jaw as a scout master continued to kick him.


A reporter from Darwin told me that when the protest began he asked his
Indonesian press minder what was written on the banners. While looking
straight at them, the minder had replied: ‘What banners?’

The banners read: MAUBERE PEOPLE WELCOMES PAPPA. LONG LIVE FRETILIN. VIVA
FRETILIN. POPE SAVE EAST TIMOR.

The Santa Cruz massacre did not take place during a funeral procession. When
a Timorese burial takes place the mourners lay the Bitter Flowers. When time
has elapsed so that the grief has lessened the ceremony of the Sweet Flowers
is held. On 28 October, Gomes, a student activist, had sought refuge in the
church of San Antonio de Motael. He was shot in the stomach by an Indonesian
soldier in front of dozens of astonished witnesses.

The laying of the Sweet Flowers for Sabastião was a commemoration of the
burial that had occurred two weeks earlier. On the morning of November 12th,
thousands of East Timorese marched from the church of San Antonio de Motael
to Santa Cruz cemetery after attending a memorial mass for Sabastião.
Marchers were harassed by police and intelligence agents, who pelted the
procession with rocks. As mourners entered the Santa Cruz cemetery to lay
the sweet flowers Indonesian soldiers marching slowly and deliberately fired
at them at point-blank range.

As to the numbers of the dead, Max Stahl told me he saw as many as four
hundred manacled, desperate Timorese being driven off after the massacre.

A Paz e Possivel em Timor-Leste (Peace is Possible in Timor-Leste) published
a list of their findings into the number of massacre victims in leading
Portuguese newspapers in November, 1992. Jose Ramos-Horta described how the
data was obtained:

"... has been compiled by 12 teams of East Timorese students, school
teachers, priests, nuns, nurses, paramedics, hospital staff, workers at the
morgues, totalling 72 researchers, working round the clock for three months,
interviewing household members in each bairro, immediately after 12 November
1991.”

The preliminary report reached Lisbon in February and was handed over to two
specialist groups in Portugal that had been investigating human rights
abuses in East Timor for more than 10 years. A copy was channelled to
Amnesty International for independent verification.

It took six months for the mass of detailed information sent from East Timor
to be processed and analysed. The researchers took extreme care in
double-checking each piece of information."

The Lists: 271 killed; 278 wounded; 103 hospitalised; 270 disappeared.

Google's cache of http://www.etan.org/timor/SntaCRUZ.htm is a snapshot of
the page as it appeared on 27 Mar 2009 23:30:04 GMT.

For an eye-witness report of the Santa Cruz massacre Google Democracy Now
via Santa Cruz massacre.

Max Stahl’s film footage and the subsequent reporting by Americans Amy
Goodman and Alan Nairn broke the backs of the Jakarta Lobbyist's compromised
assurances that the Timorese fared well under Indonesian rule. When Alan
threw himself over Amy in an attempt to prevent her from being assaulted by
the butt of an M16 rifle being wielded by an Indonesian soldier, he took the
blow intended for her, which fractured his skull.

The fact that witnesses survived the massacres in Dili is something of a
miracle.

I invite valid criticism of anything I publish in the interest of accuracy.

Shirley Shackleton

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