Time Runs Out for Timor Justice

Sian Powell
22nov04

East Timor now seems the United Nations is ready to end its investigations into the
atrocities in East Timor in 1999, leaving hundreds of murders unresolved
and a legacy of impunity likely to dog the infant nation in years to come.

There was diplomatic outrage when the Indonesian military and its militia
proxies wrought carnage in East Timor in the months before and after 1999's
independence ballot. The UN supported investigations into the atrocities
and Indonesia felt compelled to set up its own ad hoc tribunal to examine
the violence.

East Timor was hammered in those bloody months, with murders, rapes,
lootings, assaults and the burning of whole villages. Priests were shot
dead, nuns killed, children murdered, villagers beaten to death. The notion
of an independent East Timor drove the Indonesian military and the militias
to deadly violence. The international community was appalled.

But five years later, there is broad agreement that the UN-backed Serious
Crimes Unit investigations into the killings will cease at the end of this
month, with perhaps only half the murders examined.

Investigations by the unit into 1500 murders will wind up with only about
800 murder victims named on the indictments. The unit's chief, Nick
Koumjian, concedes many murder cases have lain dormant since the
investigations began. "Undoubtedly we will not have indicted every person
involved in those killings," he says from his office in the East Timorese
capital of Dili.

Overwhelmed by an enormous case-load and the difficulties of working in a
poor and technologically unsophisticated infant nation, the unit's
investigators did not even get to some of the places where the murders were
less commonplace.

It was extremely difficult, Koumjian says, to estimate how many murders
would go unresolved.

"Many I'd say, I'm sure the number is in the hundreds, but I don't exactly
know."

About 60 people in East Timor have been convicted (most with extremely
lenient sentences) for the atrocities. Two have been acquitted and a
further 20 or so are awaiting their verdicts. Meanwhile, the masterminds in
Indonesia have escaped scot-free, with just one conviction stemming from
the Indonesian ad hoc tribunal's proceedings (and that conviction, of an
East Timorese militia leader, is likely to be overturned).

On the eve of the Serious Crimes Unit investigations being shut down,
probably for good, questions have been asked about the limits of justice
for the East Timorese dead.

The US envoy to the UN, John Danforth, last week bluntly told the Security
Council that the international community should take action.

"As we have stated numerous times, there must be accountability for the
human rights violations committed in East Timor," he said. "The
international community has a responsibility to address this issue."

The US wants a team of independent experts to go to East Timor and
Indonesia to work out ways of providing justice. Analysts say it will never
happen while the East Timorese Government rates good relations with
Indonesia so highly and while Indonesia remains so jealous of its sovereignty.

East Timor is surrounded on three sides by Indonesia, a nation of 230
million people which invaded East Timor in 1975. So the tiny country of
perhaps 925,000 people usually prefers realism to idealism.

East Timorese leaders have flatly refused to endorse calls for an
international tribunal to examine the 1999 violence and privately say they
will leave it to foreign governments to make demands for justice. Yet with
the exception of a few forceful statements from the US, these demands are
muted at best.

Reporting on the UN mission's past six months in East Timor, and
recommending a further six-month extension (which was agreed to), UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan recently told the Security Council that
various plans for justice were under consideration.

"As noted in my previous reports, it may not be possible for the serious
crimes process to fully respond to the desire for justice of those affected
by the violence in 1999 within the limited time and resources that remain
available," Annan said.

Annan said the unit's investigative work had to be wound up because all the
trials had to be finished by next May, as the council had stipulated. "I
firmly believe that the perpetrators of the serious crimes committed in
1999 in East Timor should be brought to justice," he said.

"I repeat my previous call for the full co-operation of member states to
ensure that impunity does not prevail."

The UN mission chief in East Timor, Sukehiro Hasegawa, also addressed the
Security Council and explained that Annan would consider various options
for the future, including the continuation of the current serious crimes
process and an international tribunal or international truth and
reconciliation commission.

Yet experts rate the chances of any of these options actually coming to
fruition as extremely small.

Indonesia would not be happy about any of them.

East Timor is so concerned about Indonesian sensibilities that last year
the Government refused to send an arrest warrant for former Indonesian
armed forces chief Wiranto to Interpol, infuriating many ordinary East
Timorese.

President Xanana Gusmao has repeatedly indicated he prefers reconciliation
to the hunt for justice and was even photographed being hugged by Wiranto
after a meeting in Bali during the presidential campaign. Australia, too,
will never publicly press its important northern neighbour on the sensitive
question of East Timorese justice.

Meanwhile, Serious Crimes Unit officials in Dili are spending time sorting
and filing thousands of interviews, statements and other documents for
whoever might take over the investigations.

Mission chief Hasegawa has established several working groups to ensure all
parties are agreed on East Timor's direction. And one of the groups will
deal specifically with justice for the serious crimes of 1999.

"They are looking at what has been accomplished to date," Koumjian
explains, "what remains to be accomplished, what the international
community or the UN will be thinking about post-UNMISET (the UN mission in
East Timor)."

There are also plans to be made for the return by the Serious Crimes Unit
of as many as 80 corpses or skeletons. About 17 have been identified and
will be returned to the families, while 70 are unidentified. Koumjian says
respectful burials will be arranged with the church and the government.

Although the serious crimes process in East Timor is incomplete, it is a
long way ahead of the proceedings of Indonesia's ad hoc tribunal on East
Timor and of the appellate courts in Jakarta, which have overturned almost
all of the few tribunal convictions.

Of the verdicts for the 18 defendants, who are mostly Indonesian military
and civil officials, only one conviction stands.

East Timor's former governor, East Timorese national Abilio Soares,
actually spent three months in prison before his sentence was quashed. And
the conviction of Eurico Guterres, a particularly bloodthirsty East
Timorese militia leader, is also widely expected to be overturned. Guterres
remains free while his appeal is considered.

The entire process has been called a whitewash and a sad indictment of
Indonesia's judicial system. Excepting Soares's few months in prison, only
one Indonesian has been officially punished for the 1999 violence: an
Indonesian soldier convicted and imprisoned in East Timor.

It remains to be seen, of course, whether Indonesia's attitude to the
crimes of 1999 will change under the nation's new leader, Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono. As Indonesia's first directly elected president, Yudhoyono
presents an image of moderation and talks about the importance of the rule
of law. Yet the former general served as an army commander in East Timor in
the 1980s and has never publicly criticised the ad hoc tribunal.

Others have been more forthcoming. Danforth told the Security Council that
Indonesia's ad hoc tribunal process was "seriously flawed".

"It failed to provide a full and credible accounting for the crimes
committed in East Timor in 1999," he said.