LtCol Tatang Zaenuddin (Djainudin) SW
Commander, combat Sector B (western East Timor)
The sectoral combat commands played an important role in training, arming and managing militias. They also controlled combat troops who often conducted joint military operations with militias, and they nominally controlled the intelligence units SGI, though the latter were in practice independent. Sector B was in 1999 based in Ainaro. Locals knew it as Nanggala 55, a somewhat anachronistic name that betrayed its Kopassus links. Its area of authority included the districts of Ambeno, Bobonaro, Liquica, Aileu, Ermera, Manufahi, Ainaro, Covalima, and possibly Manatuto, in each of which many killings were reported.
Tatang has always denied his links with the militia violence. He told KPP HAM in January 2000 that he was responsible for this command from mid-August 1998 to 21 July 1999. He claimed he therefore bore no responsibility for the abuses of September 1999. He told journalists after his questioning that he was not ordered to hand over his responsibility to any other officer. Zaenuddin said he had little knowledge of the activities of the pro-integration militias, contending his office was merely charged with territorial defence and helped build houses and churches for the community and opened farmland. He said his command also provided much needed medical services, sanitation and schoolteachers to the community. Zaenuddin conceded that some militias were trained in the area, but said this was under the direct authority of the East Timor military commander. 'We were just overseers of the training and not directly involved.'
However, there are strong indications that precisely the sectoral command was deeply involved with arming and organising the militias in 1999. On one occasion a militia leader may have directly implicated this officer as the one who supplied him with arms. Ambeno militia leader Laurentino 'Moko' Soares probably intended this officer when he gave partial names of two Kopassus officers who had given him weapons.
At least four non-territorial combat battalions were active in Sector B in 1999. All are accused of human rights abuses. They were Battalions 141, 143, and 144 (see LtCol Saripudin, commander of the notorious Battalion 143), and Battalion 301 (Maj Rahmat Pribadi).
This Kopassus officer (serial number 29354) probably combined some Kostrad position with the command of the western Sector B in East Timor. According to TNI Watch! he is an intelligence officer.[5] Afterwards he lectured at an army training facility in Bandung.
His deputy commander was LtCol Nus Rahasia, also from Kopassus. The following officers also acted under Zaenuddin's command in Sector B (based on 1998 data):
· Capt (Inf) Hartomo. Institutional home: Infantry Brigade 15; position: Head, Operational Section (Kasi Ops) Sector B; Serial no. 31155.
· Lt (Lettu Inf) JU Pangabean. Brigade 15; Head, Intelligence Section (Kasi Intel) Sector B; Serial no. 11930079760271.
· Capt (Inf) Cecep Lukman. Army Training Centre (Pusat Pendidikan Teritorial TNI-AD); Head, Territorial Section (Kasi Teritorial) Sector B; Serial no. 34077.
Infantry Brigade 15 (Brigif 15/ Kujang), mentioned twice in this list, belongs to the Siliwangi command in West Java. It has three battalions: 310, 312, and 327. Battalion 310 arrived in Dili (together with Battalion 321) in the immediate aftermath of the ballot in the event of 'the worst' happening. Nothing else is on the public record about these three men in East Timor in 1999. Hartomo may be the same individual who as Kopassus chief in Jayapura was later implicated in the November 2001 murder of Papuan leader Theys Eluay.
