Received from Joyo Indonesian News
The Washington
Post
April 6, 2003
Rights Groups Fault Indonesian Tribunal : Most Acquitted So Far for East Timor Atrocities; Higher-Ups Avoid Prosecution
By Ellen
Nakashima
Washington Post Foreign Service
JAKARTA,
Indonesia -- On a recent day in a weathered courthouse in Jakarta
sat defendant Tono Suratman, an army brigadier general accused of failing
to
prevent two massacres in East Timor during its bloody breakaway from
Indonesia in 1999.
Beside him were eight defense attorneys.
Opposite them was the prosecution: two lawyers called out of retirement.
In the audience
were more than a dozen members of the military, including
soldiers with the army special forces, their signature red berets tucked
into
their epaulets, there to provide moral support to their accused comrade.
And in the
witness chair was Gen. Wiranto, once the head of Indonesia's armed
forces, who human rights advocates said should also have been in the dock.
The scene
captured much of what human rights advocates and international
observers say is wrong with Indonesia's first-ever human rights tribunal.
Created last year, the tribunal was an opportunity, they say, for the
emerging democracy to show its commitment to human rights. Instead, they
argue, it is a sham, with disengaged prosecutors outgunned by well-prepared
defense attorneys, witness intimidation, weak evidence and charges that
fail
to capture the gravity of the crimes and name those ultimately responsible.
Most of
the defendants have been charged with acts of omission, the failure
to prevent atrocities. But court observers and rights activists say they
also
should have been charged with acts of commission, to reflect allegations
that
they played active roles in planning and perpetrating the violence, which
killed more than 1,000 civilians in East Timor.
"The
violence was not a spontaneous act, but the result of careful planning
by members of the armed forces together with the members of the militias,
who
acted as their proxy," said Helmy Fauzi, an investigator with the
National
Commission of Inquiry on East Timor Human Rights Violations.
Of 18 people
indicted by the tribunal, 11 have been acquitted -- 10 of whom
are military or police officers. Five have been convicted, including two
military commanders and one civilian governor. Suratman and one other
high-ranking military officer have not received verdicts.
The two
convicted military commanders were sentenced to five years in prison,
half the minimum required by Indonesian law. All five of the convicted
men
are free, pending appeal.
Indonesia
had assured the United Nations that it could handle a tribunal on
its own, forestalling the establishment of an international human rights
court similar to those created for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
The Indonesian
government asks for patience. "We would be the first to
acknowledge that there are, no doubt, shortcomings in the trial, but they
are
owing more to technical deficiencies, not by any intentional and deliberate
miscarriage of justice," said Marty Natalegawa, a spokesman for Indonesia's
Foreign Ministry. "It may not be perfect, but even our most harshest
critics
would have to acknowledge that we are trying to do the right thing."
But East
Timor's foreign minister, Jose Ramos-Horta, said in a recent
interview that the trials are threatening to do a "disservice to
the good
image" of Indonesia.
"The
entire process has been fatally flawed, lacking in integrity and
credibility," said Ramos-Horta, who shared the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize
with
East Timor's Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo.
The United
States banned military assistance to Indonesia for its use of
lethal force in response to the 1999 violence and has not made any effort
to
restore the aid, nor will it "absent further progress in human rights,"
a
senior U.S. official said.
"On
balance, I'd have to say the trials are disappointing," the official
said. But he added that a recent conviction was "a noteworthy development
and
reminds us that we need to suspend definitive assessments until the process
is over. Moreover, we hope that the trials will not be the last work in
the
country's effort to address that problem."
Indonesian
human rights officials who investigated the violence said there
was overwhelming evidence linking the Indonesian military to the militias
that carried out the killings but that prosecutors failed to use it.
"We
found dozens of cartridges similar to those used by the Indonesian armed
forces in a church compound where killings had taken place," Fauzi
said. "But
there was no follow-up by the attorney general's office to investigate
the
case."
Officials
in the attorney general's office said the criticism is too harsh:
Prosecutors were given two months' training before they started. The
40-member investigation team probed for eight months before charges were
brought based on Indonesia's 2000 human rights law, which requires that
evidence be corroborated by at least two people.
Prosecutors
said they followed up on the national commission's report, which
recommended that Wiranto and Gen. Zacky Anwar Makarim be investigated,
but
did not find evidence to charge the top commanders, according to Bachtiar
Pangaribuan, head of the human rights division at the attorney general's
office. He said that in some cases, witnesses recanted their testimony
or
refused to testify. In other cases, militia members identified by witnesses
had disappeared. Moreover, he said, the law specifies that a commander
can be
tried only if his subordinates carried out the crime. In many instances,
witnesses accused the militiamen of carrying out the killings.
"Honestly,
we as prosecutors were disappointed," Pangaribuan said, stressing
that they would appeal the acquittals.
Of more
than 40 witnesses from East Timor called to the tribunal, no more
than 10 have agreed to travel to Jakarta to testify despite assurances
that
they would be protected, Pangaribuan said. Rights workers said the witnesses
were uncomfortable being approached by government officials, staying in
government housing and facing courtrooms full of soldiers and militia
members
who support the Indonesian government.
By the end
of last year, some witnesses were allowed to testify by video
link. But critics said that was too little, too late.
Part of
the problem is the tribunal's structure, said David Cohen, director
of the War Crimes Studies Center at the University of California at Berkeley.
Indonesian government lawyers are the prosecutors. Indonesian military
and
police officers are the defendants. Indonesian military and police officials,
and some civilian experts, form the majority of the prosecution's witnesses.
"It's
one thing when you hold a war crimes tribunal after you have a change
of regimes," Cohen said. "But when you have a power structure
that is
essentially investigating itself, that's the problem."
The judges
are often inexperienced, said one judge who has participated in
five of the trials. A minority have experience in international or criminal
law, he said.
Last month,
in a proceeding separate from the trials in Jakarta, East Timor's
serious crimes unit indicted Wiranto, Suratman, Makarim and four other
military commanders -- among 58 indicted -- for their roles in perpetrating
the violence. Makarim and Suratman were charged with forming, financing
and
directing the militias that attacked pro-independence East Timorese.
Wiranto
has said he sought to keep the peace, not promote violence. "I am
not
a criminal against humanity," he told reporters.
When Wiranto
was testifying in Jakarta, he brought a videotape he had
narrated, showing how he had tried to reconcile the warring factions.
He also
gave each judge a copy of his book, "Farewell to East Timor: The
Struggle to
Uncover the Truth -- The Way it Was, According to a Man named Wiranto."
Suratman,
a trained member of the elite Kopassus army special forces, was
promoted to armed forces deputy spokesman in August 1999, four months
after
attacks at a church in Liquica and at independence leader Manuel
Carrascalao's house in which at least 70 people are estimated to have
died.
Ines Soares,
32, a housewife in Dili, East Timor's capital, said two of her
relatives were killed in the violence. When the trials began, she had
hope
they would bring a measure of justice. But now, she said, "I don't
believe in
the court anymore."