Hundreds call for U.N. commission to investigate abuses in E. Timor

(Kyodo) _ Hundreds of students and National Alliance for an International Tribunal members demonstrated Tuesday at Dili Airport to press a U.N. Commissions of Experts to seriously investigate abuses in East Timor in 1999.

The protesters underlined the lack of action on abuses perpetrated on East Timorese by wearing black gags emblazoned with "We need Justice" across their mouths.

They also carried banners calling for the U.N. commission to bring the "perpetrators of crimes against humanity" to an international tribunal and for the U.N. "not to wash its hands of the serious crime process in East Timor."

Edio Borges, one of the demonstrators, told Kyodo News the United Nations must take responsibility for crimes that took place in East Timor, stressing the perpetrators must be brought to justice.

Borges blasted an Indonesian ad hoc tribunal that failed to convict most Indonesians accused of crimes against humanity and he also questioned the work done by the U.N. serious crimes unit in East Timor, which is now ending its mandate.

"The crimes against humanity must be sent to an international tribunal because we don't believe the Indonesian ad hoc and the serious crime unit in East Timor is going to finish this now," Borges said. "So we want to tell the U.N. not to wash its hands of the crimes happened in East Timor."

The three members of the U.N. Commission of Experts, appointed last month by Secretary General Kofi Annan are to spend five days in East Timor.

The commission members, Prafullachandra Bhagwati of India, Yozo Yokota of Japan and Shaista Shameen of Fiji, will meet President Xanana Gusmao, other leaders, the East Timor Commission of Truth and Reconciliation and victims and families of victims in East Timor's 13 districts.

Hundreds of thousands of East Timorese were killed, abused or displaced in the bloody aftermath of a U.N.-administered referendum on independence for the former Portuguese colony in 1999.

After Portugal abandoned East Timor in 1975, Indonesia invaded and occupied the colony until rejected by the East Timorese voters in 1999.

Many change the Indonesian leadership and military with widespread abuses during the occupation and in the aftermath of the referendum, but few people have been convicted of any crimes.