Sunday, Apr 10, 2005
Yudhoyono visits East Timor massacre site
DILI (EAST TIMOR), APRIL 9. The Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, on Saturday prayed during a landmark visit to a cemetery in East Timor where Indonesian troops massacred hundreds of demonstrators in 1991, an event that galvanised the territory's independence struggle.
The visit was the first by an Indonesian leader to the graveyard, and the most clear symbol yet of the improving ties between the two countries since East Timor broke away from Jakarta's brutal 24-year rule in 1999 in a U.N-sponsored ballot.
But it will not satisfy human rights activists, who are pressing for an international tribunal to try Indonesian officers accused in the violence.
Mr. Yudhoyono — a former general who commanded a battalion in East Timor — prayed and laid a heart-shaped wreath at Dili's Santa Cruz Cemetery, where Indonesian troops opened fire on some 3,000 unarmed protesters commemorating the death of an activist on November 12, 1991.
Troops then bayoneted survivors and hauled off the dead bodies in trucks. More than 250 persons were killed and about 270 went missing in the massacre. The event focused international attention on East Timor's independence struggle.
— AP
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