The Australian
By Sian Powell, Jakarta correspondent
24may04

Justice Loses Out on Timor abuses

BENY Ludji was one of the unlucky ones. The Indonesian militia commander was sentenced last week to eight years in prison for crimes committed during the wave of brutality that swept East Timor after its vote for independence from Jakarta in 1999.

But there are many whose crimes will never be investigated, and many more again who have been indicted but will never face trial. Investigations conducted by the UN-funded Serious Crimes Unit have slowed to a crawl, and it is uncertain if the UN-backed tribunals into human rights abuses during the 1999 violence will get through the 15 or so pending cases before the UN mandate in East Timor expires in May next year.

Two men in the Oecussi enclave, where an estimated 50,000 East Timorese live cut off from greater East Timor, have confessed to murdering their compatriots during the rampage, but they will probably never face court because the lists are already full.

At least 1400 East Timorese were killed in the 1999 slaughter, and thousands more were assaulted, raped and robbed.

Although the Special Panel tribunals have already convicted 52 people, with three acquitted, many more were involved in the rampage that laid waste to the tiny half-island during its independence vote.

More than 35 militias operated with impunity in East Timor in 1999, according to the Special Panel's judges.

The Serious Crimes Unit has indicted 369 people, but more than 280 of them are in Indonesia, including 37 Indonesian military commanders and four police chiefs.

One East Timorese human rights organisation, Yayasan Hak, filed a lawsuit in the Dili District Court last week suing the UN for failing to provide justice for the East Timorese.

Joaquim Fonseca of Yayasan Hak says there are cases in East Timor where nothing has been done.

"The UN as a whole is of course expected to be responsible for that," he says.

Few of the 280-plus indicted men at large in Indonesia will ever face trial. Indonesia and East Timor do not have an extradition treaty, and the idea of using Interpol to follow up arrest warrants was dealt a blow recently.

East Timor's prosecutor-general and Interpol representative Longuinhos Monteiro made it clear he would not forward the warrant issued for General Wiranto, the former Indonesian armed forces commander who is now an Indonesian presidential candidate.

Pragmatism has won.Many East Timorese now feel it would be impolitic to offend their giant neighbour, which in 1975 occupied their tiny nation in a matter of hours.

UN observers point out that war crimes tribunals in Rwanda and Bosnia have concentrated on prime targets, rather than trying to indict and try every suspect. The Serious Crimes Unit, too, has a list of priority cases.

The report by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the Security Council earlier this year made it clear investigation resources should be reallocated to "further support the timely completion of litigation at the trial and appellate levels".

East Timor Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta skirts the issue of blame and makes it clear political considerations must be taken into account.

The problems of a grindingly poor country, he suggests, could be more pressing than justice for old wounds.

"On the politics of it, I would say there were horrendous crimes that happened in this country throughout 24 years of occupation," he says. "In 1999, almost the whole country was razed to the ground, and yet we are free. We are free because of the help of the international community and also because of the courage of some Indonesians who were prepared to cut their losses and leave."