E. Timor amnesty is injustice: NGO

E. Timor amnesty is injustice: NGO

Agencies

The U.S.-based Human Rights Watch on Saturday urged East Timor's parliament to exclude serious human rights crimes from a general amnesty bill that proposes to pardon culprits in the country's 1999 bloodbath.

"The law could undermine the work of Timorese and international bodies investigating and prosecuting the grave abuses that took place in East Timor during the country's 1999 referendum on independence from Indonesia," said the human rights advocate group in a press statement made available in Jakarta.

The bill, introduced in parliament last week, is part of the government's efforts to reconcile with the past and move forward as the country prepares to celebrate the second anniversary of its independence May 20.

"It is bitterly ironic to mark East Timor's second anniversary of nationhood by undermining justice for the most serious crimes that accompanied the country's independence," said Charmain Mohamed, East Timor researcher for Human Rights Watch.

"There can't be reconciliation without judicial accountability for violations of basic international human rights," she added.

In a United Nations-backed referendum in August 1999, the East Timorese voted for separation from Indonesia, unleashing a wave of murder and mayhem blamed on pro-Jakarta militias which the Indonesian military did little to prevent.

More than 1,000 were killed and 500,000 were forced to flee in the anarchy, which had to be quelled by a UN peace-keeping force.

A UN-created Special Panel for Serious Crimes in East Timor has indicted among others four Indonesian generals, including retired Gen. Wiranto who is now a presidential candidate, for committing "serious crimes" in the 1999 incidents.

He was then defense minister and military commander-in-chief.

Also, the Dili-based Judicial System Monitoring Program -- an independent group working since 2001 to monitor the new nation's justice system -- said that the law, if applied, "will grant impunity to high-level economic crimes such as bribery and fraud committed."