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Justice at a crossroads in East
Timor
By Jill
Jolliffe
DILI - Justice is at the
crossroads in East Timor, with the United Nations
formally moving to check the impunity of those
accused of war crimes committed during Indonesia's
bloody withdrawal from the island in 1999 and
Timorese and Indonesian leaders proposing that all
such charges be dropped.
UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan announced in New York
on Friday that he was appointing a commission of
experts to review Timor war crimes prosecutions
and assess why a 1999 Security Council resolution
to try those accused of war crimes has failed. He
named the three experts as Justice Prafullachandra
Bhagwati of India, Professor Yozo Yokota of Japan
and Shaista Shameem of Fiji.
It seemed symptomatic
of the world's slide into apathy over Timor
atrocities that the official UN statement said the
experts would "recommend possible future action
over the 1999 anti-independence violence in which
dozens of people were killed and hundreds of
thousands fled".
Dili records show that UN
lawyers have investigated more than 1,400
homicides, not "dozens", since they arrived in
2000, and have indicted various Indonesians and
Timorese over the deportation of around quarter of
a million people, who did not "flee", but were
forced from their homeland at gunpoint.
Hours before the UN leader's statement, a
new director of the Serious Crimes Unit (SCU) in
Dili - set up under the 1999 Security Council
resolution - was sworn in to office by Timorese
President Xanana Gusmao, with the task of
terminating the unit's work.
Former
Canadian minister Carl DeFaria has the job of
handing over hundreds of case files to the East
Timorese government and ending SCU business by May
20, when the current UN mission ends. He succeeded
Nicholas Koumjian, who left recently to work in
Kosovo.
Under three preceding directors,
the SCU has convicted only 74 of 317 people
indicted for the violence that racked East Timor
after an overwhelming independence vote in August
1999. Most were Timorese militiamen, who are seen
as taking the rap for their commanders. Jakarta
refuses to act on arrest warrants issued for
around 300 people at large in Indonesia. Former
defense minister and presidential candidate
General Wiranto is among the senior officers
enjoying apparent immunity from prosecution.
Under the same UN resolution, Indonesia
was to try its own citizens, but all except one of
18 perpetrators judged by a special ad hoc court
were acquitted.
However, as DeFaria
pointed out to Asia Times Online, the dedicated
work of the unit's investigators and jurists is
there for possible future use. "Obviously, we
would like to have all of the people who have been
indicted brought to justice," he said. "It will be
up to the Timorese government. I'm sure if they
decide to pursue it they will have a lot of
support from the international community."
President Gusmao chose his words carefully
at DeFaria's investiture. He has been under fire
by domestic critics, including the Catholic
Church, for his December deal with Indonesian
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to set up a
Truth and Friendship Commission, which would have
a public truth-telling function but would drop
charges against accused war criminals.
He
praised the SCU's work as representing "more than
just punitive justice; it endeavors to be a form
of justice that reports historical truth for the
victims". He referred guardedly to prosecutions,
stressing instead "the establishment of truth and
reparation to the victims" - values he is
championing in the Indonesian accord.
President Gusmao and Foreign
Minister Jose Ramos Horta began work to establish
the Truth and Friendship Commission late last
year, supported by Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.
The decision to form the joint commission came
after the UN Security Council expressed concern
over Indonesia's failure to punish those
responsible for the violence.
Ramos Horta traveled to New York with his
Indonesian counterpart Hassan Wirayuda in December
to discuss the commission with Annan, who fell
short of endorsing it. The United States was also
cool to the proposal, while conceding that it
could complement the work of the commission of
experts.
In November, US Ambassador to the
United Nations John Danforth had urged the
Security Council to demand responsibility for the
Timor bloodshed. "There must be accountability for
the human-rights violations committed in East
Timor," he asserted. "The international community
has a responsibility to address the issue."
An Agence France-Presse report said both
Wirayuda and Ramos Horta indicated during their
visit that they hoped to avoid the new UN inquiry,
with the Indonesian minister, saying the Truth and
Friendship Commission was "meant as an alternative
to the idea of establishing a commission of
experts".
The Truth and Friendship
Commission was formalized in Bali later in
December between presidents Yudhoyono and Gusmao.
As the deal was being cobbled together by
politicians, East Timor's powerful Catholic Church
weighed in on the argument. The Bishop of Dili,
Dom Alberto Ricardo da Silva, criticized the
culture of impunity, saying victims deserved
justice.
"If there was a crime, there has
to be justice," he said, "It's always been the
position of the Church."
Bishop da Silva,
who replaced Nobel peace laureate Carlos Ximenes
Belo last year, after his retirement from ill
health, said his view represented "all" of the
deeply Catholic East Timorese. "They say they're
not satisfied ... they come to me constantly
saying they want justice," he stated.
The
61-year-old cleric said he had difficulty
understanding what Timorese politicians meant by
reconciliation: "When a person steals, and they're
not tried, where are we?" de Silva asked. "If you
reconcile, does justice remain to be done, or is
it not going to be done?"
Both President
Gusmao and Ramos Horta have since explained their
proposal to church leaders, including Bishop da
Silva, and consulted party leaders.
Criticism has also come from Timorese
human-rights workers. Like the bishop, lawyer
Aderito de Jesus Soares is puzzled. "It's
demoralizing seeing Xanana, Mari Alkatiri and
Ramos Horta asking them to forget," he said. "I
agree with concern over border stability, but
hugging all these generals doesn't make any sense
to me."
He feels deceived: "Justice and
human rights are the values we fought for during
24 years, and suddenly we see them betray all
those principles."
Annan has written to
the presidents of both nations asking for their
cooperation with the commission of experts, and
further suggested that its work "could complement
that of the Truth and Friendship Commission".
Observers in Dili believe that it will be
difficult for the UN to revive prosecutions with
so little enthusiasm being expressed by Timorese
leaders. Judging by the UN's factual errors in
describing Timor's history, it doesn't care much
either.
Jill Jolliffe, a
frequent contributor to Asia Times Online, has
recently returned from Dili.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact us for information
on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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