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East Timor: eyewitness to massacre
By Peter Boyle
Melbourne Community Aid Abroad worker Bob Muntz was still in shock as he turned up for his first press conference since he arrived back in Australia from Dili, where he was one of several foreigners who witnessed the November 12 massacre of unarmed East Timorese demonstrators. Both arms were bandaged and his left arm was in a sling. His voiced quivered a little as he spoke, and his eyes were red around the edges.
"The claims of the Indonesian military are nothing more than lies to cover up the atrocity that has just been committed on the East Timorese people", he said, referring to attempts by the Indonesian authorities to blame the Timorese with provoking the shooting. "This was a premeditated, unprovoked and well-planned attack on the youth of Dili who had the temerity to stand up in the street and express their fervent desire for a free and independent East Timor.
"The Indonesians have claimed that a grenade was thrown but did not explode, and this provoked the troops into opening fire. I have also heard claims that a shot was fired from amongst the crowd. I think it is nonsense to suggest this was the case. I was in an excellent position to see this if it had happened, but saw nothing of this sort. Muntz attended the church service in the grounds of Motael church. "At the end of that mass, most of the participants, numbering about 2000, surged onto the streets holding banners, calling for independence for East Timor", he said. Muntz said that he only lost sight of the rally for a while when the leading contingent of youth ran past the governor's residence. There were no shots fired then and no obvious signs of a disturbance. He then took a brief shortcut behind the residence to catch up with the rally.
"There were very few military people in sight at this time. The only military I saw were a handful of guards (perhaps 10 or 12 of them), some with batons and a few with guns, outside a military establishment that the rally went past. These soldiers were 30 metres from the rally and made no attempt to interfere and nor did the rallyists interfere with them."
The rally continued on down the street, past a school, and stopped at the gates of the Portuguese cemetery, he said. The crowd displayed banners on the wall of the cemetery and chanted slogans. He saw them do nothing else: no stone-throwing, no confrontation with military forces.
Muntz moved through the crowd taking photographs for about 15 minutes. "I am absolutely convinced that there was no sign of provocative behaviour on the part of the rallyists. I saw no sign of anything resembling a hand grenade, I saw no sign of anything resembling a weapon, firearms or any other sort of weapon.
"After 15 minutes I noticed a military vehicle full of uniformed, helmeted and armed military personnel carrying full-length riot shields. I observed this vehicle for some time, and I was quite apprehensive for my own safety. But together with other foreign tourists, I decided to stay with the rally in the hope that the presence of western tourists taking photographs might deter the military from beating up the demonstrators."
"I was on the far side of the rally, which was then made up of about a thousand people outside the cemetery and a smaller crowd inside the cemetery. I saw the back of the military vehicle open and about 20 soldiers come out. It was obvious that they were going to make some effort to disperse the rally, so I began walking away from the rally down the street past the cemetery.
"I had barely walked 20 paces when there was a sudden onslaught of automatic weapons fire, intense fire. I was pretty staggered by it. Along with everybody else on the street, I began running as fast as I could.
"I ran down the street and around the corner behind the cemetery and amongst the houses on the northern side of the cemetery. The intense automatic fire continued for about two minutes. It is difficult to estimate the number of shots that were fired, but I think it was in the thousands rather than the hundreds.
"It was not a case of isolated volleys of fire or of single shots but it was sustained automatic weapons fire from many guns for a full two minutes into a crowded street which had almost a thousand people in it who had no possibility of taking cover.
"I did not look behind me for obvious reasons, once I started running, so I cannot tell you that I saw bodies fall but I find it impossible to believe that they were not falling and there is more than ample evidence from other witnesses to say that did in fact happened.
"In order to get away from the firing I ran in between houses on the far side of the street. I ran through yards, climbed over fences and moved as fast as I could through the housing allotments north towards the beach in the direction of my hotel.
As I did that, the intense automatic fire died down but sporadic automatic weapons fire, six or 12 shots at a time, continued for about 30 minutes. Some came from behind me, but there was also occasional fire from either side of me in amongst the houses.
"As I was running, to my left and to my right I could hear small bursts of automatic weapons fire. At one point, I was moving away from one lot of fire when I saw, about 30 metres ahead of me, an Indonesian soldier come around the corner of a house. I turned and ran in the other direction and then I heard a small burst of fire, maybe six or 10 shots."
"After this I continued through houses until the firing ceased. I finally took shelter in a house belonging to a local man who agreed to bandage my injured arm. He indicated that I should hide in the house. He left me alone, and I hid there for half an hour to an hour. Then he returned with a representative of the International Red Cross.
"This man, Antonio Amadi, offered to take me to the Dili hospital. But I declined because was afraid I would be arrested. He also told me that my companion of the previous few days, Kamal Bamadhaj, had been taken by him to hospital after he had found him, bleeding profusely from a gunshot wound, on the road outside the cemetery. He told me that he had to argue vigorously with the military, who wanted to take away Kamal. But eventually he persuaded the military to allow him to take Kamal to the Dili public hospital. He had lost consciousness before he arrived at the hospital, and it subsequently transpired that he died in hospital."
"When the firing began, this man took shelter in a small concrete shelter located inside the centre of the cemetery. He told me that he saw Indonesian troops firing into the cemetery where many people had run to avoid the firing in the street outside. Some of these people were children as young as 10 or 11 years old. There were four young girls who sheltered with him in absolute terror that they were going to be shot.
"He said that in the cemetery he saw many people who had suffered gunshot wounds. About half an hour after the firing had ceased, the Indonesian soldiers entered the chapel, found him there and took him outside and beat him with rifle butts and fists. He was taken to a police station and released an hour later.
"The other British national took shelter behind a gravestone and watched the troops fire into the cemetery. He estimated that there were about 100 wounded people lying on the ground in the cemetery.
"He saw the Indonesian troops beat with rifle butts the injured people lying on the ground. He himself was threatened but not beaten. He was taken to a police station where he was held until 5.30 p.m. While he was at the station, he counted 12 trucks arrive at the police station with approximately 30 Timorese in each truck. They were stripped naked to the waist and their hands were tied behind their back."
"Another tourist got back to the hotel earlier than I did and then after the firing had died down got onto a motorbike and rode around the area near the cemetery. The whole area was cordoned off by the military, which appeared to be conducting a house-to- house search."
Muntz sought medical assistance from a Timorese nurse, who put some stitches in his left arm. He was told by the nurse that, the day after the shooting, the military authorities had estimated the previous afternoon that 84 people had died on the spot and 13 others had died after being taken to hospital.
"I cannot give further confirmation of this figure but I am satisfied that it has high credibility. "If this is true, it means that 97 people were confirmed dead by the Indonesian military by late Tuesday afternoon. Of course, the death toll could have risen since then".
"Other informants observed two trucks leave the military hospital at about 5 p.m. Each vehicle had two armed soldiers in the cabin with the driver, and the backs of the trucks were completely covered. One truck drove east towards the town of Bacau and the other drove west towards the airport. The informants believe that these trucks contained bodies which the Indonesians intended to dispose of in mass graves outside the town."
About an hour and a half before Muntz left Dili, a bulldozer drove east along the coast road, past the hotel in which he was staying. It was followed by the front of a prime mover which had a manned machine gun on the roof of the cabin. Muntz believes they could have been going to bury Timorese in mass graves.
This article first appeared in Green Left Weekly issue number 36, dated November 20, 1997.