Annan issues delayed report on E. Timor tribunal
Annan issues delayed report on E. Timor tribunal
Reuters, United Nations/Vientiane
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan went around the Security Council on Wednesday and formally issued a UN expert panel's report recommending an international tribunal to try Indonesian and local militia leaders blamed for a deadly 1999 rampage in East Timor.
The experts had submitted their findings on May 26 to Annan, who gave their report to the 15-nation council in June.
Normally such a document would be officially published at that time.
But Indonesia has brushed off a call in a United Nations report for an international tribunal to try Indonesian and militia leaders blamed for a bloody 1999 rampage in East Timor.
"We continue to oppose an international tribunal, which we find totally unnecessary," Foreign Ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa said on Thursday in Vientiane, a day after a report issued by Annan recommended one.
The UN and the international community should support joint Indonesian and East Timor investigations, Marty told reporters in Laos on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific security conference.
The council decided instead to delay its release indefinitely, and council diplomats gave murky explanations when pressed to say who had made the decision and whether the report would ever be published.
They said council members feared offending a new Indonesian government at a time its ties with East Timor were improving.
That prompted 12 human rights groups to write Annan asking him to ensure the report was published "as soon as possible" and its findings discussed by the council.
Although he said earlier it was not his decision to make, Annan within days informed the council he intended to issue the report "as a document of the Security Council," which happened on Wednesday.
About 1,500 civilians were killed, 250,000 left homeless and others raped and tortured when the Indonesian army and proxy gangs and militia razed much of East Timor in 1999.
The rampage occurred after mainly Roman Catholic East Timor voted in a referendum to break free from mostly Muslim Indonesia after 24 years of tight rule.
East Timor finally won independence in May 2002 after 2 1/2 years of UN administration, putting behind it centuries of Portuguese colonial rule and Indonesian occupation.
Under international pressure, Indonesia set up a special court to hear cases of crimes against humanity stemming from the 1999 rampage. But no high-level officials were indicted and only one of the 18 people brought to trial was convicted.
Annan in February named the panel of three outside experts to determine whether justice had been done, despite pleas from Indonesia and East Timor to leave the matter to them.
In their 149-page report, the experts faulted the earlier special court as deficient and said the Indonesian officials and gang leaders should be tried by an international tribunal if Jakarta did not agree to prosecute them within six months under international supervision.