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JAKARTA - Testifying at the Truth Commission Indonesia-Timor, former Bishop Carlos Belo of Dili said that Indonesian forces and their militia allies had systematically burned the diocese's compound as well as other churches. Several clergy and an unknown number of others were killed in these fires. Bishop Belo, who headed the Archdiocese of Dili during the 1999 riots, was the main witness before the commission when they resumed public hearings in Jakarta.
Speaking in Portuguese - the official language of the now independent East Timor, Belo recalled how army-trained Timorese militias and soldiers systematically carried out the destruction and killings in Dili and two other districts. The carnage, in which at least 1,500 were killed, began just days after voters in East Timor - a former Portuguese colony invaded by Indonesia in 1975 - voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence in a referendum held on 30 August 1999.
Belo said that just five days later, "the militias and Indonesian military had already attacked the diocese", while priests inside were sheltering civilian refugees. "We don't know how many people were killed." He said during being questioned by the ten-member commission that human rights violations occurred, but urged both countries to 'forget the past and look to the future'.
"If we look back at the past, we will open up old wounds and delve back into the hatred," said Belo, a native Timorese who now lives abroad. The commission is set up to establish the truth behind the violence and to clarify the history of the two countries, as well as to investigate the actions of the Indonesian military when they withdrew from the territory. Local militia groups were also to be investigated.
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