How UN gloves came off in Timor

DARWIN - Last May, Indonesian authorities in East Timor quickly learned how to deal with the United Nations spokesman in Dili, David Wimhurst, after a "Bloody Sunday" massacre of unarmed civilians in southern Atara village.

Within days of his arrival in East Timor, Wimhurst was horrified to learn how a pro-Jakarta militia backed by Indonesian intelligence operatives had carried out the killings.

He demanded that the military and police arrange for a UN team to immediately inspect the murder site.

As many as 25 people had been slaughtered, including a group of men and women dressing to go to Sunday mass in the early hours of May 16.

After 24 years of being masters of East Timor, the Indonesians were unused to having outsiders' terms dictated to them and haggled about the difficulties of reaching Atara by road.

The UN Assistance Mission in East Timor (Unamet) had not reached full strength and had no vehicles, so the Dili police reluctantly agreed to escort a small team of UN officials and reporters to the site.

Delays at the district seat of Gleno and more meetings with police and military commanders delayed the convoy.

The Indonesians also claimed to be short of fuel and the number of vehicles had to be cut. Then police were concerned that the road into Atara was too rough.

By mid-afternoon the convoy reached Atsabae, only 20 minutes from the massacre site. The mood turned ugly and local military officials warned the visitors that the militia had informed them it would be dangerous to proceed any further.

As negotiations continued, militiamen associated with the group responsible for the atrocity filed down from nearby hills and trooped into a barracks to receive military instruction from an Army officer.

Wimhurst and the small media party witnessed this.

The next day Wimhurst issued his first news release, characteristically blunt and direct. It condemned the murders and the failure of local authorities to curb illegal militia activity.

His prompt rebuke won respect from the gathering media horde in Dili, warm praise by the local diplomatic community and grumblings from the Indonesians. The gloves were off.

Wimhurst is 50 years old and married to a Portugese woman. He is a Canadian national educated in Britain, and a former wire-service reporter who speaks fluent French and Portuguese, having served for 18 months in Angola as the UN spokesman on that mission.

Unlike his boss, Unamet head Ian Martin, Wimhurst has so far avoided contracting malaria in East Timor.

His mornings usually start with a yoga session - on his own admission he would be unable to survive the day without time off for therapeutic meditation.

Until last week, before his evacuation to Darwin, a 9 am news briefing for foreign reporters preceded a separate conference for the Indonesian media then based in East Timor's dowdy provincial capital.

His outspokenness, especially on the Indonesian authorities' failure to investigate or arrest perpetrators of violence against pro-independence supporters, resulted in Government officials in Dili saying that Wimhurst was biased and the UN supported the independence side.

Like the former UN spokesman in Cambodia, Eric Fault, Wimhurst has a knife-edge temper, but unlike Fault, he seldom tries to hide bad news.

And like Cambodia, there was no shortage of bad news in East Timor.

However, when at least one foreign UN staffer was deported for sexual misconduct in the back of a parked vehicle, it did not make the morning briefing notes.

In Dili, Wimhurst could be contacted at virtually any time of the day or night.

Most of the Dili media pack respect his forthright appraisals of the situation faced by the UN in the troubled territory.

Asked to provide biographical details for this story, the self-deprecating spokesman said he did not consider it right for UN information officers to be put on a pedestal.

The UN briefings are continuing at midday in Darwin until Wimhurst can return to Dili. - SYDNEY MORNING HERALD