For Sander Thoenes, Indonesia was a dream posting. After reporting from Moscow in the early 1990s, the young Dutch reporter joined this newspaper keen to be sent to the south-east Asian country that had long fascinated him. He eagerly lobbied the foreign editor, and learnt the Bahasa Indonesia language on his own initiative. Two years after he arrived in Jakarta, and 25 years ago this weekend, Thoenes was shot dead by Indonesian soldiers in a suburb of Dili, capital of East Timor. He was just 30.
Two Indonesian officers were indicted for his murder by East Timor’s government after a UN-led investigation in 2002. But no one has ever been brought to justice for that crime — or for 13 civilian deaths on the same day amid the rampage by withdrawing Indonesian troops that Thoenes flew in to cover after East Timor voted overwhelmingly for independence from Jakarta in a UN-sponsored referendum. It seems ever less likely that they will be.