Indonesia Outlines Plan to Disarm Militias

Indonesia has set out a timetable for disarming gangs terrorizing East Timorese refugees, aid workers and U.N. peacekeepers, but it has rejected a Security Council mission to Jakarta to discuss the crisis.

Gen. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesia’s coordinating minister for political, social and security affairs, traveled from Jakarta, the capital, to brief council members Tuesday on measures he said Indonesia will take to quell militias operating with near-impunity around refugee camps in West Timor.

He told reporters afterward that the government will ask the gangs to voluntarily give up their weapons next week. After next Tuesday, the Indonesian police and army will begin disarming the militia, by force if necessary, he said.

“We will combine persuasive and repressive types of method in conducting the disarmament process,” he said. The forceful measures will be “to make sure there are no weapons concealed or possessed by the militia,” he added.

But Yudhoyono, as well as Indonesian Foreign Minister Alwi Shihab, said that an intended visit from Security Council ambassadors would be unproductive at this time and would be viewed by the Indonesian public as interference in the nation’s affairs.

“I think there is a crisis of distrust, and we have to solve this,” Shihab said. “We are not defying the U.N. resolutions. It is only the timing.”

“If this mission should be dispatched now, it will be seen as an intervention,” he said.

British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock told reporters that “the minister said there was no need for a Security Council mission, and that was disputed by every member of the council.”

Foreign relief workers fled West Timor after a militia-led mob stormed an office of the U.N. refugee agency in the Indonesian province Sept. 6, killing three foreign employees, including an American.