INTERFET defence warning to journalists

Financial Times
Thursday September 23 1999

EAST TIMOR: Militia gunmen kill FT reporter

By our International Staff

The death of Sander Thoenes, the Financial Times Jakarta correspondent, was confirmed yesterday after he went missing while reporting on the deployment of the international peacekeeping force in East Timor.

Mr Thoenes, 30, was shot by gunmen while riding on the back of a motorcycle taxi in the suburb of Becora on the outskirts of Dili, the East Timor capital, on Tuesday evening. His body was recovered yesterday by Australian troops.

Richard Lambert, editor of the Financial Times, said Mr Thoenes, a Dutch citizen, was one of the newspaper's finest foreign correspondents.

"He was full of enthusiasm and showed great initiative and flair in everything he did. He was devoted to getting the truth. We are all devastated by this tragedy and extend our deepest sympathies to his partner and family."

In New York last night, Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General described him as "an outstanding young journalist". He was deeply shocked to learn of his death.

Mr Annan said that, like other journalists in East Timor - and in too many other parts of the world - Mr Thoenes "faced danger from those who wished to hide the truth of the existence of their crimes".

"It was largely thanks to the courage and determination of men and women like him that these horrors and their perpetrators are brought to the attention of the world conscience."

Mr Annan said that he understood that the international peacekeepers and the Indonesian military would hold a "thorough joint investigation" into the murder of Mr Thoenes. He said he hoped that those responsible for this and other violent acts in East Timor would be held accountable for their actions.

Mr Thoenes was killed hours after arriving in Dili from Jakarta. The motorcycle taxi driver, who escaped on foot, said six gunmen in Indonesian military uniforms riding three motorcycles ordered them to stop. He tried to drive off but the gunmen opened fire.

Mr Thoenes was hit and died at the scene. His reporter's notebook and pen were found by his hand.

Australian military officials conducting an inquiry said preliminary investigations contradicted reports that his body had been mutilated by his attackers.

The British and Dutch governments condemned the killing.

Robin Cook, the foreign secretary, said he told Ali Alatas, Indonesia's foreign minister: "We would want full co-operation from Indonesia both in the investigation of his death and to hold responsible anyone found to blame for his death."

Financial Times
Thursday September 23 1999

EDITORIAL: A very personal sense of loss

The violent death of a correspondent is the worst thing that can happen in the life of a newspaper. In a business that depends to a great extent for its success on teamwork and mutual support, such a tragedy represents a very personal loss for everyone involved in the organisation. And editors are forced to confront their own responsibility in placing a member of their staff at risk in this way.

Sander Thoenes, the Financial Times Jakarta correspondent who was killed in Dili on Tuesday, was a journalist with much experience of the country, and of operating in unstable and sometimes dangerous places.

He had worked as our Central Asia correspondent, based in Almaty, until his move to Indonesia two years ago: he spoke the language fluently, and he knew Dili well.

In these circumstances, we thought the undoubted risks of covering this story were justified by the importance to the region of what is happening in East Timor, and by our wish to give our readers the best possible account of the events as they unfold.

But this time, things went tragically wrong. The hope that the arrival of the International Force for East Timor (Interfet) would put a swift end to the brutal killings of recent weeks turned out to be too optimistic. East Timor has yet to be freed from the terror of the pro-Indonesian militias.

As a result we have lost a colleague of great flair and initiative, a clever and entertaining man with a future of real potential, and someone who had been providing outstanding coverage of the current crisis. We mourn him, and we thank those people from around the world who have already sent their condolences to his friends and family.

It is not normally the job of a Financial Times reporter to be charging into the centre of action on the front line. Our readers are looking more for judgment and analysis than for colourful accounts of violent conflict. But good journalists cannot form a view of the world from the CNN screen in the safety of their hotel room. Sander Thoenes was an excellent correspondent. He had a fierce determination to get to the heart of a story, and to report with accuracy and authority. His death is a terrible blow.

News organisations can seek to minimise risks, but cannot eliminate them. People living in the security and comfort of the developed world cannot close their minds to the horrors of the world's trouble spots, and this event brings home in the most shocking way just what that can mean. So, with a period for sadness and reflection, we get on with the job.

Financial Times
Wednesday September 22 1999

OBITUARY: Outstanding journalist dies in action

By Peter Montagnon, Asia editor, and Quentin Peel, international affairs editor

Sander Thoenes, who was brutally killed on Tuesday in Dili, the capital of East Timor, on an assignment for the Financial Times, was a foreign correspondent of outstanding potential, driven by a joyful natural curiosity and a determination to get to the bottom of the story.

He had been reporting from Indonesia, a country which had always fascinated him, for the past two years, after starting his journalistic career in Moscow. Aged 30, he had already been a cub reporter on the Moscow Times, a stringer for US News and World Report in Russia, and FT correspondent in Central Asia, before he arrived in Jakarta. He spoke fluent Russian and Bahasa, Indonesia's national language, as well as being virtually bilingual in English and Dutch.

He came to Indonesia just as the rupiah was collapsing in September 1997, undermining the 30-year-rule of President Suharto. His boundless enthusiasm and tireless cultivation of Indonesian contacts meant that within weeks he was coming to terms with the extraordinary complexity of the country.

When Sander first came to the FT for a job interview, he was asked whether he liked reporting in Russia. "I enjoy every minute of it," he declared, "and every day I am amazed that they pay me for it, too." It was an enthusiasm he never lost.

His first job for the FT was as a researcher in the Moscow bureau in 1992, shortly after graduating in Russian and post-Soviet studies from Hampshire College, in Amherst, Massachusetts. Within two months he had moved on to a proper job at the Moscow Times, the daily English-language newspaper.

That was when he also started reporting for Vrij Nederland, the Dutch political magazine, in which his descriptions of cycle tours of Moscow brought the Russian reality alive for his readers.

In Moscow, Sander impressed his colleagues and contacts alike with his energy and profound knowledge of the Russian language and people. Unlike many other foreign correspondents, Sander learned to see Russia largely through Russian eyes, building up a wide circle of friends away from the workplace.

He was always determined to get back to the FT, however, and his break came in February 1996, with the chance of the correspondent's job in Kazakhstan, covering the whole of central Asia. There he plunged into the intricacies of oil industry politics, and in just a year made sure that the newspaper was paying attention to a forgotten part of the world.

Then he suddenly announced that he was going home to the Netherlands to learn Bahasa, at his own expense, to prove that he was the right man for Indonesia. That determination, always exercised with a charming smile, he showed in all his work.

It was in covering the turbulent fall of President Suharto that Sander's innate reporting skills showed through at their best. Working from his house in a quiet residential neighbourhood of central Jakarta he assembled a loyal and devoted staff who helped win him the first-hand contacts that foreign correspondents covet but do not always enjoy.

He was a popular figure among colleagues who respected not only his integrity, but also his congenial manner. He rejoiced in a great sense of natural justice which refused to accept humbug from any of his sources.

He showed it as much in his probing questions of World Bank officials as in his sense of outrage at behaviour of some members of the Suharto regime and the military.

For the Financial Times, Sander opened up Indonesia just as it was becoming a truly important international story. He immersed himself with gusto in the affairs of this inward-looking and complex country which has never been easy to report.

His verve and energy will be much missed. Among colleagues in Jakarta and around the world there is a sense of devastation and disbelief that he is gone, and at the wanton brutality of his passing.

+++niuswire

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