East Timor’s Warring Factions Sign Peace Agreement

After 24 years of civil conflict, leaders of East Timor’s two warring factions signed a peace agreement Thursday in a ceremony that was met with neither celebration nor a firm conviction that the killing is finally over.

The agreement, presided over by a Nobel Peace Prize-winning bishop and Indonesia’s military chief, was an important one, coming as Indonesia and Portugal negotiate East Timor’s future at the United Nations. But it fell short of dealing with the issues that have torn this impoverished island province asunder.

The four signatories--two secessionists and two nationalists--avoided eye contact as they sat facing each other in the courtyard of Catholic Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo’s compound here.

After the signing, Manuel Carascalao, a leader of the pro-independence movement, could not bring himself to return the embrace of Domingo Soares, chieftain of a paramilitary group that wants East Timor to remain part of Indonesia. Jakarta invaded the Portuguese-ruled colony in 1975 and later annexed it, despite international condemnation.

“Does this make me feel safe to go home? Absolutely not. I will continue to stay at the police station,” Carascalao said privately later. He has been living under police protection with his family and 49 pro-independence refugees since marauding gunmen attacked his home Saturday, killing his teenage son and about a dozen others.

Carascalao is the only prominent pro-independence leader who remains in Dili, East Timor’s capital. The others have fled, mostly to Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, as anti-independence militiamen with hit lists have hunted down and often killed their enemies, bringing a sense of terror to this shabby seaside city.

For three weeks now, Dili’s streets have been deserted by dusk. Gangs of illiterate young men armed with machetes and primitive rifles are roaming the city in the name of Indonesian nationalism. By 3 a.m., gunfire is rattling through scattered neighborhoods. And Dili awakes each morning to count its dead and wounded.

“We get a steady stream of patients with high-velocity penetrating wounds--in other words, gunshots,” said Dan Murphy, a volunteer doctor from the United States at a small clinic here.

On the steps outside Murphy’s clinic, Augusto Dasilva, 50, his hands wrapped in gauze and bandages, sat sweating in Dili’s breathless tropical heat. He said he has no idea why he was shot. He isn’t for anything political except peace, he said.

“Three men came in my home with guns Sunday,” he said. He held up his hands to them, as if to say, “Don’t shoot.”

“They never said a word,” he said. “They just shot me through the hands, then they walked out.”

The violence in East Timor has escalated dramatically in the past month. Behind the upsurge is the likelihood that the 830,000 East Timorese will soon be asked in a U.N. referendum whether they want independence or continued association with Indonesia, but with more autonomy.

Although the death toll has been rising mostly in ones and twos, two particularly shocking attacks raised the tempo of international calls for peace in East Timor: the one at Carascalao’s home, and another on April 5, when anti-independence militiamen attacked a Catholic parish in Liquica, 18 miles south of Dili, where 2,000 terrified villagers had taken refuge. Twenty-five of them were shot or hacked to death. In neither case did the army or police make any attempt to intervene.

“I’m ashamed to be an Indonesian,” Bishop Belo said after the Liquica massacre. Belo, who won the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, had said that he was giving up attempts to broker a peace deal because of the Liquica slayings, but he remained the key figure in bringing the warring sides, and the military, together.

The agreement specified that the two sides will end their hatred, intimidation and violence, work toward peace and support the establishment of a national peace and reconciliation commission for East Timor.

Earlier in the day, the accord was signed in Jakarta by the leader of the independence movement, Jose Alexandre “Xanana” Gusmao, who is under house arrest.

But the pact was short on specifics and made no mention of a cease-fire or the disarming of the anti-independence militias. The Indonesian military, known as Arbi, recruited and armed the militias under the pretense that its 15,000 soldiers in East Timor were not enough to provide security.

“That’s exactly the problem,” said an Indonesian human rights worker in Dili. “Arbi could stop the killing in a flash if it wanted to. Meanwhile, all the world is paying attention to Kosovo and we are getting slaughtered. Doesn’t anyone care we are being slaughtered?”

Although Gen. Wiranto, head of the Indonesian armed forces, pledged Wednesday that his troops will be neutral and safeguard all Timorese, whether they be pro- or anti-independence, it will take more than words to convince Timorese that Arbi has their interests at heart.

After losing more than 10,000 soldiers during a generation of warfare, many military men think giving East Timor independence would sully their honor and diminish their sacrifice. Additionally, Jakarta fears that if the Timorese choose independence, other troubled provinces in Indonesia might be encouraged to make similar demands.

President B.J. Habibie, in a stunning reversal of policy, announced Jan. 27 that Indonesia is willing to give East Timor autonomy, including its own flag, parliament and political system. If the Timorese reject the offer, he said, Indonesia is prepared to walk away, which would mean that East Timor either would revert to being a Portuguese colony or became independent.