NZ Backs Timorese Tribunal
09.08.2004
By KEVIN TAYLOR
The Government is backing calls by human rights groups for an international
tribunal to try those responsible for 1999 crimes in East Timor.
Foreign Minister Phil Goff yesterday criticised an Indonesian appeal
court's decision to overturn convictions against four Indonesian
security officers, one of them a major-general, who had been convicted
by the country's Ad Hoc Tribunal.
The appeal court also halved to five years the sentence of militia
leader Eurico Guterres.
Mr Goff said the decisions were a blow to those seeking justice
for the terrible abuses during and after the Timor independence
vote. International peacekeepers, including New Zealand soldiers,
deployed to the country in force to stop the troubles.
Mr Goff said the United Nations was consulting concerned countries,
including New Zealand, about how to respond.
"New Zealand's view is that the failure of the Ad Hoc Tribunal
requires the establishment of an international crimes tribunal ...
notwithstanding the opposition which might exist to this path being
followed."
Mr Goff said of 18 original defendants, only two had been convicted,
both of them ethnic Timorese.
The abuses came as East Timorese voted for independence from Indonesia,
sparking a spree of destruction and killing by pro-Jakarta forces
in which up to 1500 people died.
Maire Leadbeater, of the Auckland-based Indonesia Human Rights
Committee,
said the trials had been "an unequivocal travesty" of
justice.
NZ condemns Indonesia's acquittal of alleged human rights abusers
in E. Timor
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (DPA): New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister
Phil
Goff has condemned an Indonesian court's decision to overturn convictions
against four men accused of human rights abuses in East Timor.
The decision was a blow to those seeking justice for the human
rights abuses in East Timor during 1999, Goff said in a statement
issued on Monday.
He said the Indonesian Supreme Court had freed four members of
Indonesia's
security forces, one of them a major-general who had been convicted
by Indonesia's Ad Hoc Tribunal. It also halved the 10-year sentence
of militia
leader Eurico Guterres.
"The Court has also upheld the earlier decisions of the Ad
Hoc Tribunal to
exonerate 10 others accused of crimes against humanity in East Timor.
Of the 18 original defendants standing trial for these crimes, only
two have been sentenced, and both happen to be ethnic Timorese,"
Goff said.
He said the Ad Hoc Tribunal's record repesented a failure to deliver
justice and it meant an International Crimes Tribunal should be
set up to try Indonesians accused of human rights abuses in Timor.
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