UN forensic experts continue probe at massacre site in East Timor.
4 February - A team of investigators working at a gravesite in the Oekussi
enclave in East Timor recovered today the first body with gunshot wounds, the
UN mission in East Timor said.
According to a pathologist at the site, the victim’s injuries indicate an
execution. Most of the victims exhumed so far – 26 bodies and the incomplete
remains of six others – suffered bodily injuries and skull fractures, most
likely inflicted by machetes, the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor
(UNTAET) said.
The investigation team, made up of two UNTAET forensic
experts and investigators from UNTAET and the International Force in East Timor
(INTERFET), has identified 25 gravesites in a 400-meter area in Passabe, near
the border with West Timor.
A UN spokesman said the team, in piecing together what may have happened, has
learned that on the evening of 9 September, some 70 East Timorese men from two
villages were tied in pairs with their hands behind their backs and marched by
militia across the river into West Timor, where they were hacked with machetes.
In the morning, the militia brought nearby villagers to the site, ordering them
to bury the bodies. Some men are believed to have survived the attack. The UN
believes those responsible for the massacre are still in West Timor, the
spokesman said.
The Passabe gravesite, which may represent the worst
single mass killing of the post-referendum violence, is only one of many mass
graves in East Timor. Speaking to the Security Council in New York yesterday,
the head of UNTAET, Mr. Sergio Vieira de Mello, said teams had so far exhumed
71 different sites and found 300 bodies. He also said UN Civilian Police had
registered a total of 467 murders alleged by eyewitnesses, which would point to
the likelihood that further victims may yet be found...... (For Mr. Vieira
de Mello's full speech to the Security Council, click here.)
In other news from East Timor, more than 4,000 East Timorese are expected to meet tomorrow at different points of the border between East and West Timor in family reunions that are fast becoming a regular weekly event.
The reunions started in early December and were initiated by the population who, feeling unsafe to cross the border to visit relatives, asked the UN Military Observers for help in setting up a free zone where no weapons would be allowed. The Military Observers help organize the reunions and ensure that visitors from both sides are screened before and after the meetings.
