Exchange of fire in Indonesia

New Zealand troops opened fire and killed an Indonesian soldier last weekend. GREG ANSLEY reports on the tense political background and how the shooting happened.

In the dense bush that runs to the banks of the riverbed separating East and West Timor, New Zealand soldiers last weekend killed a serving member of another army for the first time since they were in the jungles of Vietnam a generation ago.

The body of a sergeant of the Indonesian TNI (Indonesian army), out of uniform and with a standard-issue assault rifle nearby, was found after an exchange of fire that is now being investigated by United Nations, New Zealand and Indonesian officials.

There is an urgency to the inquiries: Jakarta's political stability remains fragile after the ousting of former President Abdurrahman Wahid - in which the TNI played an important role - and in four weeks East Timor goes to the polls for its first democratic election.

On both sides of the braided river system bisecting Timor there is a determination to ensure that the death of 21-year-old First Sergeant Lirman Hadimu does not provide the tinder for renewed tension and militia fire along the border.

At the highest levels, political leaders are trying to heal the wounds opened by the carnage that followed the 1999 independence ballot and the intervention of the UN military force, which still maintains about 8000 troops in East Timor.

This week in Canberra United States Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld placed Indonesia and Timor at the top of their regional agenda in talks with Australian Prime Minister John Howard. Howard flies to Jakarta in two weeks to meet new Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

Jakarta has demonstrated its determination not to let Lirman's death touch that process, or to inflame still-volatile passions in Timor as it struggles towards nationhood in the east and tries to deal with armed, bitter militias and 100,000 refugees still camped in the west.

The TNI has accepted responsibility, conceding both that the New Zealand patrol was probably justified in returning fire across the border and that firmer action is needed to bring the militias to heel.

Major-General Willem da Costa, whose Bali-based command includes West Timor, said that he believed the 1RNZIR section from Whiskey Company had not breached the UN's strict rules of engagement. But he suggested that the New Zealanders' reactions could have been influenced by last July's militia shooting and mutilation of Private Leonard Manning near the border village of Fato Mean, to the north of last Saturday's incident.

"The killing of Manning ... was considered sadistic by the UN forces," da Costa said.

"I think that [the New Zealanders] were so afraid that they strictly implemented the operational procedures on border surveillance issued by the UN command."

At the same time there is a recognition that the militias need to be brought to heel and tensions permanently defused, with the Jakarta Post reporting that the TNI intended to use the death to tighten security along the border.

This week da Costa ordered his troops to arrest militiamen still operating from refugee camps in West Timor, urging the surrender of all weapons and warning that soldiers were permitted to shoot any militia engaged in violence.

But even so, the details of last Saturday's action must be determined and accepted by all parties, who need to know UN rules were obeyed fully.

Then responsibility can be formally apportioned, any sovereignty issues can be addressed and the natural emotions aroused by the death of a comrade can be settled.

The importance of recognising borders was dramatically demonstrated by the fury that erupted shortly after the UN Interfet troops arrived in 1999, when Australia's then-Defence Minister, John Moore, demanded the right for troops to pursue fighting militias operating from West Timor.

Soon afterwards Australian and Indonesian troops shot off hundreds of rounds in a firefight near the western town of Balibo. This had been the crossing point for the 1975 Indonesian invasion of East Timor and the site where five Australian-based journalists, including New Zealand cameraman Gary Cunningham, were killed.

When one Indonesian died each side blamed the other until a UN investigation found that the fault lay in the maps the Australians used. The lessons have not been forgotten.

A system of close, daily liaison has been established between peacekeepers and the TNI, largely carried out by UN military observers (UNMO) but complemented by joint military meetings from brigade to company level.

Under this high level of coordination, each side knows what the other intends, avoiding potential and possibly fatal misunderstandings.

New Zealand Army spokesman Major Bede Fahey, one of the first Kiwi soldiers into Timor and now back for a second tour, said that by and large the system was working.

"The relationship with the TNI has been good, really, from the outset," he said. "There are regular meetings and dialogue. People are well aware of the rules we're operating under and they meet regularly to discuss a wide range of issues. Ways are always found to make things work."

So what went wrong last Saturday?

Details are sketchy because the only witnesses to the clash, in the jungle northwest of the New Zealand battalion's Suai headquarters, are subject to investigation.

The New Zealand inquiry, carried out by Fahey, is expected to be completed this weekend.

Peacekeeping spokesman Captain Isabelito Sanchez said the UNMO investigators had been told to report as soon as possible.

The New Zealanders were operating as a section of six to eight men based at Tilomar, a hamlet perched high on one of the ridges that run east-west through Timor and fall steeply to the sharp valleys cut by the border river system.

This is not new country to Whiskey company or the larger force designated in Timor as NZ Battalion 4, named for its rotation through the island and to embrace members not normally attached to the regiment's first battalion. This was the battalion that led New Zealand into East Timor, with many of its members veterans of the initial deployment that secured the southern half of the border region.

The area around Tilomar was a heartland for the militia, supported by the confused and often contradictory mix of politics, family and village loyalties and feared by Timorese terrorised by beatings, rapes, killings and destruction.

The main militia operating in this area was the Mahidi group led by Cancio de Carvalho, responsible for massacring 200 people at Suai Cathedral, where about 950 villagers from Tilomar had fled for sanctuary after brutal raids on their homes.

Mahidi rebels have never really left. They fired on New Zealanders in January last year, infiltrated south of Tilomar last September in a raid that killed Nepalese peacekeeper Private Devi Ram Jaishi and ended with the death of one of their own, and have continued probing despite losing two other militiamen late last year.

Although there has been little recent militia activity the region is patrolled constantly, either by high-profile patrols in UN blue caps to bolster village confidence in the run-up to the August 30 election, or by sections operating in the border jungles with deadly intent.

The Tilomar patrol was one of the latter, operating close to the border in a sweep that would take a week or more and which, around midday last Saturday, took them to the fringe of the bush about 6km from their base.

At this point of the border the canopy runs almost to the riverbank on both sides, climbing steeply back into the hills. There is little water in the river at this stage of the dry season, its gravel beds reminiscent of the South Island's West Coast.

According to reports unable to be confirmed because of the investigations, UN helicopters - probably RNZAF Iroquois operating out of Suai - reported several sightings of unidentified armed men in the area on Friday and Saturday.

About 10.30 am on Saturday five unarmed men in civilian clothes and carrying backpacks were seen walking back from Tilomar towards the Indonesian border. It is not known if this party played any part in the later gunfight.

Two hours later, according to an initial statement by UN spokesman Sanchez, a group of men fired a single shot at the New Zealand patrol. A later statement by the NZDF said a person in civilian clothes had fired the shot. The New Zealanders returned fire and pulled back to safety.

At first it was thought no one had been hurt, but UNMO later said Lirman's body, dressed in civilian clothes, had been found close to the western side of the order.

A military-issue SS1 rifle - an Indonesian-made version of the FN New Zealand used before the present Steyr rifles - was near the body. Unconfirmed Indonesian reports say he had been shot four times.

Late on Saturday night the Indonesian commander in West Timor, Colonel Budi, called the deputy-commander of the UN Peacekeeping force in Dili, Lieutenant Colonel Boonsrang Niumpradit, and accepted responsibility for the incident and the outcome.

He later said Lirman was shot as a consequence of his undisciplined behaviour in wandering close to the border without a uniform or a companion, and that he had not sought clearance from his post to be in the area.

After Budi's call, Boonsrang rang da Costa at his Bali headquarters to express the UN's regrets at the killing and to discuss investigations into the incident.

The investigations will determine exactly where the action took place, the sequence of events and the New Zealanders' adherence to the rules of engagement that determine when UN peacekeepers are allowed to fire their weapons.

In Timor, Sanchez said, these rules had been amplified so peacekeepers could fire without the warning signal the UN usually required, with the decision to engage an opponent left to the discretion of the commander on the scene.

If a contact appears hostile to the troops, endangering the lives of peacekeepers, the peacekeepers have the right to self-defence, he said.

On the border between the two Timors, the aim now is to make that option redundant.

Feature: Indonesia

CIA World Factbook: Indonesia (with map)

Dept. of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia

Antara news agency

Indonesian Observer

The Jakarta Post

UN Transitional Administration in E Timor

East Timor Action Network