"I don't think there is any coherent centralised plan of action" by an "extremely fragmented" Indonesian military behind the current terror in East Timor, a leading expert on Indonesia, Dr Benedict O'Gorman Anderson, of Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, has said.
Prof Anderson said he understood from sources close to the top command yesterday that Indonesian generals had believed from their many spies and collaborators that the recent UN-managed ballot on autonomy "was going to be OK". The generals had fully expected a 60 to 40 per cent vote in favour of autonomy and never the "tremendous" 78.5 per cent vote for independence.
The reaction to the result reminded Dr Anderson of small boys playing chess "and when one is losing, his solution is to kick over the board."
But he found it hard to believe that Gen Wiranto, the Defence Minister and head of the army, whose "record to date has not been so bad," was behind the current forced movements of people, the attacks against the people and the UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET).
Nor was lack of unity in Jakarta confined to the army, Dr Anderson said. Two of the most influential cabinet members had this week taken a welcoming line on UN peacekeepers, a source close to cabinet had told him. They had argued that things were out of control and that Indonesia needed the help. Both would like to be army commander.
"The army is extremely fragmented," Dr Anderson said, recalling a hardly publicised and "astonishing incident that happened last week where the air force took their F14s up into the sky and buzzed the Kopassus (special forces) headquarters repeatedly in central Java. No one was shot or killed but the Kopassus guys were jumping into foxholes."
The dissonance in the army, or TNI, flows from "the big split" that happened just after President Suharto's fall last year when Lieut Gen Prabowo Subianto, Gen Suharto's son-in-law, was re moved. To isolate Gen Prabowo "all his boys" were promised they would keep on getting promotions and there would be no reprisals for their actions against protesters.
Dr Anderson identified several troublesome generals of immediate relevance to East Timor: Maj Gen Adam Damiri, the Bali-based commander of the Udayana Territorial Military Command, which includes East Timor, who yesterday said the problem was created by the West; Lieut Gen Zacky Anwar Makarim, an intelligence officer who said last week, "I cannot accept losing East Timor", and Maj Gen Syasrie, a former commander in Jakarta, who was fired last year because of his role in anti-Suharto demonstrations.
"I think they are playing their own game and presenting Wiranto with a fait accompli," Dr Anderson said. "If he wants to control the military Wiranto feels he has to accommodate them in some way."
He added, "A hell of a lot of soldiers have died in East Timor." Many of the wounded are still at the Seroja (Lotus) rehabilitation centre.
But the officers' reaction to the vote was "just rage and senseless revenge. They feel it is an enormous humiliation - and thoroughly deserved."
Among the "many crazy things that have happened", showing that "there is no plan", Dr Anderson listed the driving of people west. If repartition of East Timor was part of a plan then it would make more sense to be driving them east, where the feeling for independence is strongest. The collapse of the civilian regime in East Timor meant there was no credible collaborator regime. "But as you know, the governor has fled. There is not a single credible collaborator left."