Ozzie Sas Torture And War Crimes

[Georgie-Porgie]

Home > Specials > East Timor > Article

Army faces new claims of torture

By Deborah Snow

November 5, 2003

New allegations of torture have been levelled against Australian troops who served in East Timor, with former Timorese militia members claiming they were beaten and kicked and had their heads forced down excrement-filled toilets.

On SBS's Dateline program tonight, two of the men also say they were forced into cubicles where wasps' nests were present, with their Australian interrogators allegedly stirring up the nests so the detainees would be stung.

The group also claims that one of their number, Yani Ndun, is missing, having last been seen alive in the custody of Interfet, the Australian intervention force.

The program reports that the six men were picked up by the Australian Army on or about September 22, 1999, days after the Australians had landed in the strife-racked province.

The six were members or suspected associates of the Aitarak militia, a feared anti-independence group that went on a rampage after East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia in the UN-sponsored referendum of August 30.

advertisement

advertisement

Three members of the group interviewed by SBS say they were marched by their Australian Army captors from the Aitarak headquarters in Dili to an empty football stadium. There they were forced into the wasp-infested toilets and had their heads pushed down toilet bowls.

One of them, Jao Ximenes, told Dateline: "They put our faces in fresh shit in the toilet and they made us sleep there.They pushed our heads into the toilet and put a foot behind our necks so we couldn't move."

At nightfall they were taken to a high school and told to sleep on outdoor tennis courts. There, they say, some members of the group were beaten and kicked and one was struck with a rifle butt.

The army has confirmed it held two of the men, Jao Ximenes and Caitano Da Silva, in custody from "some time prior to September 26" until September 27 in Ximenes's case and until September 29 in Da Silva's.

In written responses to the allegations, the army denies having any information on the missing Yani Ndun. With regard to the claims of torture and beatings, the army maintains the "interrogation techniques used by Australian Interfet soldiers in East Timor were in accordance with the Geneva conventions".

It refuses to discuss those techniques for "operational security reasons".

Previous claims of mistreatment of Timorese detainees were included in a three-year inquiry conducted by the army. Those included reports that prisoners had been held at an Australian Army interrogation centre near Dili and were not allowed food or water or to sleep.

They had been forced to sit blindfolded in stress positions, and had been paraded past the corpses of two Timorese militiamen, it was claimed.

The army report on that incident, released in April this year, admitted the need to improve the "operational procedures" for holding prisoners.

[the gentleman]

Its war.

[dr_Pat_Pong]

and war brings out the animal in us all.

[Georgie-Porgie]

Its war.

Just as I thought. According to you, that doesn't seem to be any excuse for American troops.

[the gentleman]

Georgie boy, I have never put down the American troops regarding them being at war, I have only made judgements about your governments reasons for being there in the first place! - go reread some of my posts!

[Georgie-Porgie]

I will, but I seem to recall posts and remarks concerning supposed war atrocities, much like these. Why is it OK for your troops?

[the gentleman]

I will say it again - War is War, a soldier will do what he has to do, to get the outcome he wants - sounds like getting intel to me - that is their job that there government gave them, as in any war zone - all about gain again Georgie!

Killing Children and Raping women is not - that is cruelty!