The head of the militia was Câncio Lopes de Carvalho. In December 1998, on behalf of the
Kopassus, he revitalised a pro-integration youth movement that he had led in the early 1990s, and renamed it Mahidi. On 1 January 1999, the militia was ceremonially sworn in in the presence of the heads of the Indonesian police and military in
Ainaro. Some members are said to have been pressed into the militia. Carvalho's brother Nemecio (also Remecio or Remesio) held the post of intelligence officer in the militia. The militia was formed as a result of the increasingly militant mood of independence supporters in the district of Ainaro. 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 its headquarters in
Cassa, Ainaro in the south of the municipality. There were branches in every village in Ainaro. A second centre was founded in
Manutaci under Daniel Pereira. Under Vasco da Cruz, some of the militia extended into the neighbouring municipality of
Cova Lima. In the course of 1999, the militiamen committed a large number of acts of violence during
Operation Guntur, whom human rights supporters accuse of many crimes. The violence only came to an end with the arrival of the international
INTERFET intervention force. Carvalho went to West Timor in Indonesia, where he settled and lived in camps. He had sought assistance from the Indonesian government, citing a perceived unreciprocated patriotic service to Indonesia. In January 2000, in his unrelenting patriotism, he threatened to burn down the local Indonesian provincial capital,
Kupang, with his militiamen if Indonesia forced the East Timorese refugees to return to East Timor. In October 2000, Carvalho declared that he had sent men from his militia to East Timor for guerrilla operations. At the same time, he offered the
Secretary General of the
United Nations information about the involvement of the Kopassus in the violence of 1999 in return for an amnesty on return to East Timor.
UNTAET refused. By October 2001, several members had already went back to East Timor including 378 refugees led by
Nemecio Lopes de Carvalho, the deputy commander of Mahidi. on 28 February 2003, 22 Mahidi militiamen were charged with
crimes against humanity. This included murder, torture, expulsion and abduction. Among them were Vasco da Cruz, Câncio Lopes de Carvalho, his brother Nemecio and Orlando Baptista. The indictment highlighted the murder of eleven civilians and the expulsion of the inhabitants of the village of
Mau-Nuno on 23 September 1999, the murder of two youths on 3 January in Manutaci, the murder of four pro-independence activists on 25 January in Galitas, and the murder and persecution of several students in the district of Cova Lima on 13 April. However, all of the accused were no longer in East Timor at the time, but in Indonesia. Arrest warrants were applied for in the
Dili District Court and forwarded to the
Attorney General's Office of Indonesia and
Interpol. With this notification, some militiamen were sentenced to prison. == References ==