April 8, 1999
LIQUICA, Indonesia, April 7 - Militiamen who oppose independence for East Timor, backed by the Indonesian Army, killed at least 25 people on Tuesday, the region's Roman Catholic Bishop said today. Saying he was "ashamed to be an Indonesian," Bishop Carlos Belo condemed the violence in an emotional news conference held after inspecting a bloodied churchyard in Liquica where the killings took place.
"This is a massacre," he said. Citing witnesses' accounts, he said he feared the toll might rise in the town, 18 miles west of East Timor's capital, Dili. Bishop Belo called for calm and demanded that President B. J. Habibie investigate Tuesday's violence, the latest between bitterly divided armed groups that either support or oppose independence from Indonesia, which annexed East Timor in 1976. The Bishop, who was awarded the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, also demanded that the international community help prevent more violence in the territory.
In Jakarta, East Timor's jailed Gusmao, rebel commander, Xanana Gusmao, said his supporters had been "killed like animals." He accused the miitary of trying to cover up the extent of the killings. The violence has cast a shadow over plans by the United Nations to hold a referendum for East Timor's people in July on whether to remain within Indonesia as an autonomous state or to become independent.
Mr. Gusmao has abandoned calls for peaceful negotiations and urged his people to stage an insurrection and a new wave of guerrilla attacks against Indonesia as violence in East Timor escalates.
The former Portuguese colony has been wracked by guerrilla warfare and human rights abuses since Indonesia invaded in 1975. Many of Tuesday's dead were civilians who, had taken shelter in the church and an adjacent priest's home after days of communal violence.
Bishop Belo said the death toll had been confirmed in a letter from East Timor's military commander, Col. Tono Suratman, who accompanied him with journalists to Liquica under heavy armed guard today.
The Rev. Rafael dos Santos, Liquica's parish priest, said hundreds of armed militia gang members fired at 2,000 terrified villagers cowering in his house and the church. Hundreds had fled when security personnel fired tear gas. "When they ran outside they were chopped down by the militias with swords," Father dos Santos said. Dozens of Indonesian police officers fired into the air or simply watched the carnage, he said. Initial reports had put the number oi victims at 45.
Colonel Suratman warned earlier that his troops would take tough action to prevent more bloodshed, but pro-independence activists have accused soldiers of provoking unrest.
