East Timor may not seek UN tribunal if Indonesia's trials fail: FM
November 18, 2002
JAKARTA
(JP): East Timor may not seek a United Nations tribunal to try cases
of militia atrocities three years ago even if Indonesia's human rights
court
fails to deliver justice, AFP reported.
East Timor
foreign minister Jose Ramos Horta said Monday that his government
is considering an alternative solution to satisfy the public's demand
for
justice, taking into account East Timor'sgood relations with its former
occupier Indonesia.
"We
have to think about the consequences if we are to demand an international
tribunal, what problems will emerge especially as far as our relations
with
Indonesia are concerned," he told reporters.
Horta said
his ministry would meet President Xanana Gusmao to discuss an
alternative solution should the ongoing rights trials in Jakarta fail
to
satisfy East Timorese demands for justice.
"Maybe
it won't be an international tribunal but an idea of justice, although
not 100 percent justice," he said. He did not elaborate.
Pro-Jakarta
militias, armed and organised by the Indonesian military,
involved in a violence in which an estimated 1,000 people were killed
before
and after East Timor's vote on August 30, 1999, to break away from Indonesia.
Indonesia
has set up the human rights court to try the atrocities to deflect
international pressure for an international tribunal.
However,
most of the defendants -military and police officers-- were freed by
the court.