E. Timor's patience wears thin over rights tribunal

E. Timor's patience wears thin over rights tribunal

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The East Timor transitional government is considering turning
to an international tribunal due to the repeated delays in the
trial of officers allegedly involved in the 1999 human rights
abuses in the former territory.

Philipe Rodriguez of the East Timor Public Administration's
Department of Foreign Affairs said in Jakarta on Thursday that
the East Timor people's wish to see the perpetrators taken to the
court of justice has not materialized.

Rodriguez said that East Timor has observed every development
in the Indonesian government's plan to bring the perpetrators to
the ad hoc tribunal.

"We trust the Indonesian government to handle the case and see
it as its domestic affair, believing that the trial would be
fair.

"But we don't see that Indonesia has truly the will to do it.
If this situation persists, we want an international tribunal to
take over the trial," Rodriguez said in a seminar.

The government has established an ad hoc tribunal but the
trial schedules have been repeatedly delayed because President
Megawati Soekarnoputri has not yet approved the names of the
judges which are already in her hand.

The names of the judges were proposed by the Supreme Court
and the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM). In the
latest promise, the trial would start on Jan. 15.

The seminar also featured Albert Hasibuan, former chairman of
Komnas HAM team assigned to investigate the human rights
violations following the 1999 referendum that led to East Timor's
independence.

Lawyer Adnan Buyung Nasution, who represents the Indonesian
army generals allegedly involved in the rights abuses also spoke.

Rodriguez declined to say if East Timor had set any deadline
before it turns to the UN to set up an international tribunal.

Albert said the commission concluded that more than 100 people
from the military, police and civilians in fact deserved to be
named as suspects.

Among the big names that the commission believes deserve to be
declared suspects are (ret) Gen. Wiranto, former Udayana Military
commander Maj. Gen. Adam Damiri, and former Wiradharma Military
Command chief Brig. Gen. Tono Suratman and Brig. Gen. A. Noer
Muir, he said.

The commission cited the principle of chain of command when
implicating Wiranto.

The Attorney General's Office, however, cut the list of
suspects to 23, arguing that "Wiranto was not directly involved
in the riots", Albert said.

The credibility of the investigation by the Attorney General's
Office was questioned after Wiranto was removed from the list of
suspects. He was supposed to be the most important decision maker
in the operation that led to the violation of human rights.

Albert Hasibuan said he believed that the delay was due to a
political compromise between Megawati and "certain groups" in the
military.