Human rights tribunal fails to uphold justice
The Jakarta Post
January 29, 2003
M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta
A human rights watchdog on Tuesday denounced the government for poorly
handling the ad hoc tribunal for human rights violations in East Timor,
saying that the trials were a complete failure.
The executive director of the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy
(ELSAM), Ifdhal Kasim, said that the tribunal was defective from the outset,
hence it came as no surprise that it failed to bring the perpetrators
of
crimes against humanity to justice.
He also proposed that the government amend Law No. 26/2000 on the human
rights court and provide the law with a separate criminal code procedure,
to
ensure that human rights violations would not take place in the future.
"The presidential decree on the establishment of the tribunal stipulates
that
the court try only human rights violations that took place in Liquica,
Dili
and Suai from April to September 1999. This means that human rights
violations in other areas were untouched," Ifdhal said.
He also said that during the trial, the presiding judges and prosecutors
did
not make any serious effort to ensure that justice was upheld and meted
out.
"The judges and prosecutors do not have enough understanding on
the concept
of human rights, as many of them came from administrative and civil law
backgrounds," he explained during a discussion evaluating the human
rights
tribunal.
The tribunal has thus far handed down verdicts to 15 defendants for human
rights abuses committed after the people of East Timor voted for independence
from Indonesia in a UN-sponsored ballot in 1999.
Most of the 15 were either acquitted or remained free.
"The court's decision to let them free sets a bad precedent for
the
recurrence of future human rights violations," Ifdhal remarked.
Asmara Nababan, formerly a member of the now defunct Commission of Inquiry
into Human Rights Violations (KPP-HAM) in East Timor, said that the lack
of
political will from the government had contributed to the poor performance
of
the human rights tribunal.
"The fact that the convicts are not yet behind bars is a strong
indication
that the government has no intention to punish the human rights violators,"
he emphasized.
Asmara feared that if the government did not take the human rights tribunal
seriously, the international community, as well as the families of the
East
Timorese victims, could bring the cases to the International Court of
Justice
at The Hague.
Aware of the fact that most cases of violations in East Timor were committed
by military personnel, the watchdog body urged the government to provide
protection for all judges and prosecutors involved in the trials, in addition
to improving their knowledge and capabilities in dealing with human rights
issues.