From: Indonesia Publications/Task Force <apakabar@igc.org>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.portuguese
Date: 12 Aug 92 19:09 PDT
Subject: East Timor - Aug 12 - I
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1591800220:000:3960
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!apakabar    Aug 12 19:09:00 1992


From: Indonesia Publications/Task Force <apakabar>
Subject: East Timor - Aug 12 - I



Forwarded from PeaceNet gen.newsletter conference:
Topic 121The ACTivist July/August 92Response  1 of 21
web:act
gen.newsletter11:13 pm  Aug 11, 1992

CANADA AIDS INDONESIAN ARMY

By Maggie Helwig
The ACTivist

According to reports from a British freelance journalist, Canada
may be directly involved in assisting the Indonesian war against the
East Timorese people, by providing information on guerrilla
encampments to the Indonesian government.

Max Stahl, the Yorkshire TV cameraman who filmed the Santa Cruz
massacre last November 12, had spent several months in East Timor
during the fall. In late September, he told The ACTivist, he met
employees of an unidentified Canadian company in the eastern part
of the island. They were engaged in taking extremely high-resolution
photographs of the territory from fixed-wing airplanes, as part of
a mapping project funded by the Canadian International Development
Agency (CIDA). They were mapping this particular area
under the direction of the Indonesian government.

At that time, the FALINTIL guerrillas, the armed wing of the
Timorese independence movement, were operating mostly in
the mountains in this eastern area. Stahl believes that the
Indonesian government had requested the Canadians to take their
'mapping project' specifically to this area so that they could obtain
information about guerrilla positions with technology otherwise
unavailable to them (the Canadians described their ultra-high
resolution camera as one of only two or three of that quality in
the world). He believes that the Canadian government has either
refused to examine the implications of their project, or is aware of
the use to which it is being put but prefers to maintain a friendly
relationship with Indonesia.

CIDA has claimed, when approached in the past, that they do not
fund any projects in East Timor.

Though FALINTIL is a small and poorly armed band of guerrillas,
the Indonesian army continues to wage a bloody
counter-insurgency campaign aimed at wiping them out
completely -- as well as using the guerrilla movement as an
excuse to brutally repress the unarmed independence activists
based in the larger cities and towns of East Timor.

This is not the only case in which Canadian aid is being used to
further the ambitions of the Indonesian government and military.
Another CIDA-funded project involves building a road to Aceh, in
the western part of Indonesia, where a Muslim separatist movement
is being savagely attacked. The road would facilitate the transport
of troops and weapons to this remote area. And CIDA is helping to
fund a birth control program being inflicted on the women of East
Timor against their will (see The ACTivist, April 92).

Canadian activists are continuing to investigate Stahl's report,
hoping to identify the company involved and obtain further
information on the 'mapping project' and other CIDA projects
in Indonesia.



Forwarded from GreenNet reg.easttimor conference:
Topic 353LBH to open branch in Dili
gn:tapolreg.easttimor11:34 pm  Aug 12, 1992

LBH to open branch in Dili

Source: Jakarta Post
Date: 8 August 1992
Short news item abridged.

LBH TO OPEN DILI BRANCH OFFICE

The Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) plans to open a
branch office in East Timor in a bid to accelerate legal
development there. Luhut Pangaribuan, an LBH senior lawyer who
led the defence team for East Timorese who were tried in Dili
in connection with the Nov. 12 1992 bloody incident, told The
Jakarta Post here this week that it was the right time to open
a branch office in East Timor. "The province is left far
behind in legal development compared to other provinces."

Local residents seem to warmly welcome the LBH plan. Maria da
Costa, a civil servant said that the people here were badly in
need of this kind of legal assistance. "East Timorese have
been too weak to defend their rights."