Mahidi
The Mahidi was one of the pro-Indonesian militias that terrorized the population in occupied East Timor in 1999 around the independence referendum .
The head of the militia was Câncio Lopes de Carvalho . In December 1998, on behalf of the Kopassus , he revived a pro-integration youth movement that he had led in the early 1990s. He renamed it Mahidi ( Mati Hidup Demi Integrasi , German death or life for integration ). On January 1, 1999, the militia was sworn in in the presence of the chiefs of the Indonesian police and the military in Ainaro. Some members are said to have been forced into the militia. Carvalho's brother Nemecio (also Remecio or Remesio ) held the post of intelligence officer in the militia. The militia was founded as a result of the increasingly militant mood of the independence supporters in the Ainaro district . Some houses had gone up in flames. In April 1999 Mahidi had 1,000 to 2,000 members and around 500 firearms. Carvalho told the BBC in an interview that he had received an automatic weapon from the military command in Ainaro.
Mahidi had their headquarters in Cassa in the south of the district. There were offshoots in every village of Ainaro. A second center was founded in Manutaci under Daniel Pereira . In some cases, the militia under Vasco da Cruz extended to the neighboring district of Cova Lima .
During 1999 the militiamen committed a variety of acts of violence. The violence did not end until the international intervention force INTERFET arrived . Carvalho went to the Indonesian West Timor , where he settled. In January 2000, he and his militiamen threatened to burn down the local capital, Kupang , if Indonesia forced the East Timorese refugees to return to East Timor. In October 2000, Carvalho announced that he had sent men from his militia to guerrilla action in East Timor. At the same time, he offered the Secretary-General of the United Nations information about the Kopassus' involvement in the 1999 violence in exchange for an amnesty if they returned to East Timor. The UNTAET refused.
22 Mahidi militiamen were charged on February 28, 2003 with crimes against humanity. This included murder, torture, displacement and disappearance. Among them Vasco da Cruz, Câncio Lopes de Carvalho, his brother Nemecio and Orlando Baptista . The indictments highlighted the murder of eleven civilians and the eviction of residents of the village of Mau-Nuno on September 23, 1999, the murder of two youths on January 3 in Manutaci, the murder of independence supporters on January 25, and murder and persecution by some students in the Cova Lima district on April 13th. At that time, all of the defendants were no longer in East Timor, but in Indonesia. Arrest warrants were in the District Court of Dili requested and to the Prosecutor General of Indonesia and Interpol forwarded. Some militiamen have been sentenced to prison terms.