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08-08-2005
12:05:00. Fonte LUSA. Notícia SIR-7226500 East Timor: Dili, Jakarta to formalize bilateral atrocities commission Thursday Dili, Aug. 8 (Lusa) - The presidents of East Timor and Indonesia will formally launch a joint Truth and Friendship Commission later this week to investigate Indonesian atrocities committed in 1999 in the run-up to the independence of East Timor, officials in Dili confirmed Monday. They said East Timorese President Xanana Gusmão and his Indonesian counterpart, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, would meet Thursday to formally set up the commission and install its 10 members - five from each country - in Denpasar on the Indonesian island of Bali. The Truth and Friendship Commission (TFC) has a renewable one- year mandate to investigate, but not to accuse or try, officials and officers responsible for the Indonesian scorched-earth campaign that ravished East Timor around the time of its independence plebiscite in August 1999. The constitution of the bilateral commission, arising in the wake of largely frustrated UN-backed trials in Dili and the highly criticized "ad hoc" crimes against humanity court set up by Jakarta, has been condemned by human rights groups in both East Timor and Indonesia. The United Nations has not given its blessing to the bilateral commission, but appears unlikely to take independent action. A three-member panel of UN experts, mandated by Secretary- General Kofi Annan, proposed in June that the UN set up an international tribunal, but the Security Council has said it did not intend to debate the proposal. Both East Timor and Indonesia have opposed the constitution of an international tribunal. The months-long wave of atrocities in 1999, carried out by anti- independence militias backed by Indonesian forces, resulted in the death of some 1,400 East Timorese, the forced displacement of another 250,000, and the destruction of about n75% of the country+s infrastructure. The UN panel that looked into the way Jakarta and Dili separately tried the crimes against humanity committed in 1999 proposed that the UN Security Council give Indonesia a six-month deadline to bring those responsible to justice or face the creation of an international court, along the lines of those established for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. East Timor+s government, diplomats and analysts say, is keen to stabilize its diplomatic relations with Indonesia, preferring to work together with its powerful neighbour to reach a compromise solution, rather than stir up sensitive issues of the past. In its report issued in June, the UN panel specifically underlined that the "ad hoc" court set up in Jakarta had largely exonerated the 18 senior Indonesian officials and officers it tried. It also noted that Indonesia+s Armed Forces chief of staff and defense minister at the time of the atrocities, General Wiranto, had not been charged. EL/SAS. Lusa |
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Copy Right: JSMP-DIli,
June 2004
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