Massacre
According to the International Commission of Inquiry on East Timor's report to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, several hundred persons had sought refuge in the Ave Maria church from attacks of the pro-Indonesia Laksaur militia in the city. Then the militia, with the support of the military of Indonesia, killed up to 200 people. Twenty-six bodies were identified that had been buried across the border in West Timor, but eyewitnesses claim many more were killed.
Five Indonesian officials—Lieutenant Colonel Liliek Kusardiyanto, Captain Ahmad Syamsudin, Lieutenant Sugito, police Colonel Gatot Subiaktoro, and District Head Herman Sedyono—were tried in Indonesia for these crimes but were acquitted. The UN named them and eleven other men in an indictment filed by the UN Serious Crimes Unit in Dili, accusing them of 27 counts of crimes against humanity including murder, extermination, enforced disappearance, torture, and deportation.
Liquiçá is one of the municipalities of East Timor. Its capital is also called Liquiçá.
The International Force East Timor (INTERFET) was a multinational non-United Nations peacemaking task force, organised and led by Australia in accordance with United Nations resolutions to address the humanitarian and security crisis that took place in East Timor from 1999–2000 until the arrival of UN peacekeepers. INTERFET was commanded by an Australian military officer, Major General Peter Cosgrove.
The Liquiçá Church massacre was a mass-killing that occurred in April 1999, during East Timor's bid for independence. It was the first case to be heard by the Second Special Panel.
Besi Merah Putih, meaning 'red and white iron' in Indonesian, was the official name of an East Timor, approximately 200-strong, pro-Indonesia militia (Wanra). It operated in Maubara, in the district of Liquiçá, and in the neighbourhood of the river Lóis, west of the capital Dili, under the leadership of Manuel de Sousa and with the support of Leoneto Martins, the district administrator (Bupati) of Liquiçá. It was founded on 27 December 1998 in Cai-Cassa, East Timor. The Indonesian ex-general Prabowo had direct links to Besi Merah Putih and trained members at a Kopassus base near Bogor in West Java. Tomé Diogo is also rumoured to have direct links to the BMP. The Indonesian army member is said to have led the militia directly.
Pro-Indonesia militias in East Timor, commonly known as Wanras, were active in the final years of the Indonesian occupation leading up to the 1999 independence referendum. They were groups of armed civilians trained by the Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI) to maintain peace and order in their region on official orders. The Indonesian Constitution of 1945 and the Defence Law of 1988 stipulate that civilians have the right and duty to defend the state by receiving basic military training.
Aitarak was the name of a pro-Indonesia militia group in East Timor during the late 1990s. On April 17, 1999, the group conducted 12 murders at the Manuel Carrascalão House massacre in Dili. That same month members took part in the Liquiçá Church massacre. At its height, the group was led by Eurico Guterres.
Suai is a city in East Timor, in Suai Subdistrict. It has a population of 9,866 and is located 138 kilometres (86 mi) to the southwest of Dili, the national capital. Suai is the capital of the Cova Lima District, which is in the southwest of the country. It is located just a few kilometers from the Timor Sea, on the south side of the island.
Laksaur was one of the pro-Indonesia militias which committed atrocities around the time of the referendum for independence in 1999 in East Timor. They are considered the principal agents in the Suai Church Massacre, which occurred a week after the referendum. They were believed to have been supported by the military of Indonesia.
José Abílio Osório Soares was an Indonesian politician. He was the last governor of the Indonesian province of East Timor before the country's independence.
The Indonesian occupation of East Timor began in December 1975 and lasted until October 1999. After centuries of Portuguese colonial rule in East Timor, the 1974 Carnation Revolution in Portugal led to the decolonisation of its former colonies, creating instability in East Timor and leaving its future uncertain. After a small-scale civil war, the pro-independence Fretilin declared victory in the capital city of Dili and declared an independent East Timor on 28 November 1975.
The 1999 East Timorese crisis began with attacks by pro-Indonesia militia groups on civilians, and expanded to general violence throughout the country, centred in the capital Dili. The violence intensified after a majority of eligible East Timorese voters voted for independence from Indonesia. Some 1,400 civilians are believed to have died. A UN-authorized force (INTERFET) consisting mainly of Australian Defence Force personnel was deployed to East Timor to establish and maintain peace.
The Santa Cruz massacre was the murder of at least 250 East Timorese pro-independence demonstrators in the Santa Cruz cemetery in the capital, Dili, on 12 November 1991, during the Indonesian occupation of East Timor and is part of the East Timor genocide.
The Walisongo school massacre is the name given to a series of terrorists attacks by Christian militants on May 28, 2000, upon several predominantly Muslim villages around Poso town, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia as part of a broader sectarian conflict in the Poso region. Officially, the total number killed in the attacks is 367 but there is no definite figure of how many died. The number of deaths is believed to be more than the 39 calculated from bodies later discovered in three mass graves, and equal to or below the 191 quoted by Muslim sources.
The Tanjung Priok massacre was an incident that occurred on 12 September 1984, in the port area of Tanjung Priok, Jakarta, Indonesia. Government reports give a total of 24 killed and 54 injured, while survivors report over 100 killed when military personnel opened fire on protestors.
The Scorched Earth Operation refers to actions of paramilitary groups during the events of September 1999 in Dili, the capital of East Timor. The country had been under Indonesian occupation since 1975, and resistance by Timorese peaked in 1999. Following a referendum on Timorese independence, pro-Indonesian militia and military rampaged through East Timor destroying vital infrastructure.
On 22 August 2014, Shia militants killed at least 73 people in an attack on the Sunni Musab bin Omair mosque in the Imam Wais village of Diyala Province, Iraq. The attack occurred during Jumu'ah and at the time of the attack, there were about 150 worshippers at the mosque. The attack took place during the Northern Iraq offensive by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) against the Iraqi government. The attack was blamed on Shiite militias fighting alongside the Iraqi army against ISIL. In 2020 an Iraqi court found the militants to be not guilty.
The East Timor genocide refers to the "pacification campaigns" of state terrorism which were waged by the Indonesian New Order government during the Indonesian invasion and occupation of East Timor. The majority of sources consider the Indonesian killings in East Timor to constitute genocide, while other scholars disagree on certain aspects of the definition.
The Mahidi was a militia in East Timor loyal to Indonesia. Its origin is traced back to groups who lost lands and power for fighting the Portuguese and those who collaborated with the Japanese during World War II. The militia was founded in December 1998 and its operations were centered around the Cassa area in the southern Ainaro district. The location is strategic since it is at the crossroads between Manufahi, Ainaro, and Cova Lima districts. Mahidi participated in the 1999 East Timorese crisis, and the group was one of the most violent of the armed forces during the crisis. They were linked to the Suai Church massacre which led to around 200 deaths as well as other mass killings.
The Axum massacre was a massacre of about 100–800 civilians that took place in Axum during the Tigray War. The main part of the massacre occurred on the afternoon and evening of 28 November 2020, continuing on 29 November, with smaller numbers of extrajudicial killings taking place earlier, starting from 19 November and during the weeks following the 28–29 November weekend. The massacre was attributed to the Eritrean Defence Forces (EDF) by Amnesty International, Associated Press, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC), Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Adigrat University lecturer Getu Mak.
