LtGen (Inf) (ret) Muh. Yunus Yosfiah
Information Minister
Yunus Yosfiah was mentioned as one of President Habibie's six closest advisors in the decision in January 1999 to give East Timor an almost immediate referendum under UN supervision. It was he, in his capacity as Information Minister, who together with the Foreign Minister made the announcement on 27 January that the Habibie government would recommend to the highest law-making body, the MPR, to let East Timor go if the East Timorese voted against a special autonomy package.
However, it seems he had no intention that the East Timorese be allowed to choose freely. In February 1999 he invited a number of senior East Timorese figures to his Jakarta home for dinner to discuss funding for a militia force. Tomas Goncalves, a district head in Ermera who defected in April 1999 and fled overseas, revealed that in his conversation that day, Yunus Yosfiah said East Timor military commander Tono Suratman was 'a coward' for taking so long to act on the formation of militias.
Yunus Yosfiah should be investigated for his role in organising funding for the murderous militias.
Within a fortnight of this meeting, according to a SBS television documentary by the Australian Mark Davis, the equivalent of more than two million Australian dollars arrived in Dili from a source in Jakarta. The funding came from the transmigration department (headed by Hendropriyono, another former Kopassus soldier), but also from the agriculture, the forestry and the foreign affairs departments, as well as (later) from World Bank poverty relief funds. Much was initially passed directly to the pro-integration group FPDK, but later it passed through the regular government structure in Dili, earmarked for the 'autonomy socialisation' program. The latter was confirmed by Joao da Silva, head of the budget section in the Department of Finance in Dili. 'All departments must donate', he said. Six months later the equivalent of about Australian twelve million dollars had been spent and still it was not enough.
On 12 July Yunus Yosfiah joined a dozen-strong cabinet delegation led by Feisal Tanjung on a visit to Dili. He warned that civil servants who supported independence would be sacked.
Leaked Australian intelligence intercepts show that Yunus Yosfiah also took part with Hendropriyono, Feisal Tanjung and Zacky Anwar Makarim in discussions about the population transfer to Indonesian West Timor after the ballot result was announced on 4 September 1999.
Background
Born in South Sulawesi in 1944, he graduated from the military academy in 1965. His military career has been as a 'fighting animal' (to quote one Indonesian general) within Kopassus and its predecessors. He may have been involved in the 1965-66 anti-communist purges, then fought in Kalimantan to suppress PGRS (Hendropriyono was there too).
Taking part in the initial invasion of East Timor in 1975, he had several tours of duty there culminating in the post of East Timor regional commander (Komandan Korem 164) 1985-87. Yunus Yosfiah belonged to a group of officers of Bugis/ Makassar descent who were close to Prabowo and had invested a lot of their lives in the East Timor project. Others in this group included Sjafrie Syamsuddin (a subordinate of Yosfiah in Operasi Seroja) and Gerhan Lentara. He was the founding commander of the 'East Timorese' battalion 744. On 16 October 1975 he was responsible for the execution of five foreign journalists at Balibo. UN civilian police investigators recommended in January 2001 he be prosecuted over these deaths. However, UN prosecutors have taken no action thus far.
By 1994 he had risen to command a military area - Kodam Sriwijaya in southern Sumatra. In 1997 he was appointed Chief of the Armed Forces Social and Political Affairs Staff (Kassospol Abri), the key military office for controlling civilian politics of all kinds.
Habibie appointed him to his cabinet as Information Minister in May 1998. No doubt the Fort Leavenworth (Kansas, USA) thesis he wrote in 1979 on 'The Role of the Mass Media in Developing Countries' stood him in good stead. He has also enjoyed prestigious military training courses in Fort Bragg, USA (in psychological warfare), and at the Royal College of Defence Studies, London.
He was regarded as close to Feisal Tanjung.
