Received from Joyo Indonesian News
E Timor PM Call For Intl Tribunal Draws Fire From Jakarta
DILI, East
Timor, June 10 (AP) -- East Timor's prime minister drew fire
from Jakarta Tuesday after resuming his call for an international tribunal
to try Indonesian officers for alleged rights abuses during the country's
bloody fight for independence.
Prime Minister
Mari Alkatiri's suggestion had already been flatly rejected
by Indonesia, and pressing the issue could complicate efforts to improve
bilateral relations when the two countries meet for talks starting
Wednesday in Jakarta.
Unlike President
Xanana Gusmao and other Timorese leaders, Alkatiri has
been a vocal critic of the Jakarta courts that are trying 18 senior
Indonesian officials over their alleged roles in the 1999 violence, which
left up to 1,500 people dead.
Calling
the Jakarta proceedings a "theater," Alkatiri said last month
that
an international tribunal should be established in a neutral country.
On Tuesday,
he reaffirmed his support for a tribunal but emphasized he
would not bring it up in meetings with President Megawati Sukarnoputri
Wednesday unless she broached the subject first.
"The
U.N. has an obligation to establish an international tribunal in a
neutral country," he said before flying to Jakarta for a four-day
visit.
"If
Ms. Megawati wants to discuss the comments I made before about the
tribunal, then I will discuss them in detail," he said. "But
my mission in
Indonesia is not to talk about the justice system. My mission is to talk
about bilateral cooperation and border issues."
Marty Natalegawa,
an Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman, said he was
"perplexed" by Alkatiri's comments, adding that he thought the
prime
minister had retracted his earlier statements and told Indonesian
authorities that he was misquoted.
"Suggestions
from the government of East Timor that an international
tribunal should be established would concern Indonesia," he said.
"Indonesia's
position is that this issue is one that should be addressed by
national means, through our own legal process," he said. "We
have a
national process which is still ongoing. We should respect this process.
We
would absolutely reject calls for a tribunal."
The Jakarta
trials have so far acquitted 12 suspects and convicted five,
all of whom are free pending appeals. The last defendant, Maj. Gen. Adam
Damiri, is expected to go free after prosecutors recommended that he be
acquitted of all charges.
Alkatiri's
comments will likely cheer rights activists, who have called the
Jakarta courts a sham and demanded that a tribunal be established similar
to what was used in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
Indonesian
troops and their militia proxies destroyed much of East Timor
before and after voters approved a U.N.-sponsored independence referendum
in 1999. East Timor became independent May 20, 2002.
Gusmao has
said that maintaining ties with its giant neighbor is more
important than pursuing justice for those accused in the violence.
Prosecutors
in the capital Dili are pursuing their own war crimes trials.
They have indicted more than 250 people, including the former chief of
the
Indonesian military, Gen. Wiranto. Thirty-two people, mostly former
Timorese militiamen, have been convicted.
But Indonesia
has rejected demands by Dili prosecutors to extradite many of
the higher ranking Indonesian military officers including Wiranto, making
it highly unlikely they would be tried for alleged war crimes.