July 10, 2005 11:08pm

Jakarta, July 8 (ANTARA) - A number of human rights non-governmental organizations questioned the Indonesian government's rejection of the recommendation of a UN appointed panel of experts following the settlement of human rights violation cases in East Timor.

"The government remains steadfast to use the existing mechanism of the truth and friendship commission which has undergone a disorientation," Usman Hamid, Chairman of the Commission of Missing People and Acts of Violence (Kontras), said in a press conference here on Friday.

He also saw the Foreign Ministry's reaction to the recommendation on the setting up of an ad-hoc tribunal for the East Timor case as panic-stricken reaction.

"The Foreign Minister might have failed to read the recommendation objectively," Usman said, adding that the recommendations still respected Indonesian law objectively, as the experts only wished to review the whole
process of the ad-hoc tribunal on East Timor human right violation.

The experts did not directly recommend that the case be passed on to an international tribunal he said.

Disappointment

Indonesia and East Timor expressed disappointment over a report by a U.N.-appointed panel of experts that calls for prosecution of mostly Indonesian figures allegedly involved in the violence that wracked East Timor in 1999 after its people voted for independence.

The stance was made at the conclusion of the third meeting of the East Timor-Indonesia joint ministerial commission during which Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda and his East Timorese counterpart Jose Ramos-Horta issued a joint statement.

"Both parties expressed their disappointment towards the report of the Commission of Experts appointed by the (U.N.) secretary general," the joint statement said.

"Both parties shared the view that the secretary general's report of the Commission of Experts to the U.N. Security Council does not promote the process of reconciliation," it added.

In the report, the commission reportedly recommends that the United Nations invoke its charter to set up an international tribunal to try those involved in the East Timor violence if Indonesia refuses to prosecute them
within six months under international supervision.

It reportedly says that prosecutions made so far by an ad hoc human rights tribunal set up by the Indonesian government in response to international pressure to try those responsible for the violence, have been "manifestly inadequate" with "scant respect or relevant international standards."

In February, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan announced the establishment of the independent Commission of Experts to prove the issue of bringing to justice those responsible for the violence that followed a U.N.-organized referendum in which the East Timorese voted overwhelmingly for independence.