FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Statement by Ambassador Stuart Holliday,
Alternate U.S. Representative
to the United Nations for Special Political Affairs, on the Situation
in East Timor, in the Security Council, May 16, 2005
We welcome the Secretary-General's end of mandate
report on the UN Mission of Support in East Timor, UNMISET, and
Special Representative Hasegawa's presentation to the Council. UNMISET
has done an outstanding job and we would like to commend all who
have contributed. In particular, we would like to thank Special
Representative Hasegawa for his leadership and commitment.
The people and the government of Timor-Leste have
come a remarkable distance in the short time since independence,
and their spirit and determination is admirable. We would also like
to recognize the substantial achievement on the part of the international
community - clearly demonstrating that peacekeeping can be successful.
There is a time for peacekeeping and a time for peacebuilding. It
is now time to move on to supporting Timor-Leste in building its
own capacity for self-reliance and self-governance.
We fully appreciate the challenges that Timor-Leste
will continue to face as a new state. Timor-Leste will continue
to need concrete support from its friends, including the United
Nations, for some time to come. We hope that the support of the
new Special Political Mission in Timor-Leste, UNOTIL will provide
the additional assistance and transfer of skills necessary for the
Timorese to achieve further self-sufficiency. As we stated last
February, this transition from peacekeeping to a sustainable development
framework represents an extremely significant and positive milestone
in Timor-Leste's history.
We remain committed to achieving credible accountability
for the crimes committed against humanity in 1999, and we look forward
to the upcoming report of the Secretary-General's Commission of
Experts tasked with
reviewing current judicial processes and recommending additional
measures, if necessary. We would like to commend the Serious Crimes
Unit for its thorough and careful work, and again express our concern
about proper handling and preservation of the crucial evidence gathered
by that body. In that context, it is imperative that the United
Nations preserve a full copy of the SCU files, as specified by Security
Council resolution
1599. We welcome the Secretary-General's decision to maintain a
core international staff to ensure that the SCU files are copied.
Since the Commission of Experts' report will not be completed until
after the closure
of UNMISET on May 20, we would support a delay in the liquidation
of the SCU until the Council can consider the recommendations of
the Commission of Experts. We hope that the Government of Timor-Leste
and UNOTIL, as well as Timor-Leste's bilateral partners, will provide
all necessary facilities for this staff to continue to make a complete
copy of all the SCU records.
As one of Timor-Leste's largest bilateral donors,
our assistance has been focused on rehabilitating the local economy,
promoting free and open markets, strengthening democracy, improving
the judicial sector, and
training the police and military forces. We hope that Timor-Leste's
bilateral and multilateral partners will continue to work with the
people and government of Timor-Leste to further institutional capacity-building
and security sector training. It is important that the government
of Timor-Leste take increasingly more responsibility for the nation's
future. During this final year of specialized UN political assistance
through UNOTIL, we hope that the mission will be able to transfer
the necessary skills to build Timor-Leste's capacity to provide
for its own
security with special focus on policing.
