Govt to announce E. Timor mayhem suspects

Govt to announce E. Timor mayhem suspects

JAKARTA (JP): The government on Wednesday will announce the
names of suspects implicated in last year's violence in East
Timor in spite of a controversial constitutional amendment that
many feel has virtually shielded past human rights abusers.

Yushar Yahya, chief spokesman of the Attorney General's
Office, confirmed on Tuesday the planned announcement but
declined to give further details.

The announcement culminates months of protracted
investigations of the role played by top officers of the
Indonesian Military (TNI) in the East Timor mayhem.

Among those questioned was the TNI commander in chief at the
time, Gen. Wiranto, who has since seen both his military and
political careers plunge, resulting in his resignation from the
Cabinet as coordinating minister for political affairs in
February.

Wednesday's announcement comes on the heels of controversy
over the constitutional amendment by the People's Consultative
Assembly (MPR) last week which guarantees the rights of people
from being prosecuted under new laws for past crimes.

Human rights activists say that under the amendment, past
violators of human rights would get off lightly because they
could only be tried for ordinary murders under the criminal code
and not for crimes against humanity or war crimes.

The House of Representatives is still debating the
establishment of a human rights court.

Assurances given by legislators and top government officials
that crimes against humanity would be exempted from the new
article in the Constitution failed to convince activists that
past human rights abusers would not invoke their newly
established constitutional human right in court.

More assurances came on Tuesday from Hari Sabarno, a senior
member of the TNI/Police Faction in the House, who denied that
the "non-retroactive" principle was intended to protect past
human rights violators.

"Cases of human rights abuses could still be processed," Hari,
a retired Army lieutenant general, told reporters.

He suggested however that these cases be referred to a truth
and reconciliation commission which would be established at the
behest of the MPR meeting last week.

The commission would determine whether these cases should be
prosecuted in court, he said.

"It's not true that the (human rights) cases would be dropped
because of Article 28I (1)," Hari said referring to the
controversial paragraph in the amended 1945 Constitution.

Many past TNI officers have been put under investigation for
alleged human rights abuses in East Timor, Aceh, Irian Jaya and
even Jakarta. With the exception of a few officers who served in
Aceh, most of these cases have not reached the court.

Hari warned against generalizing these investigations and
grouping them all as human rights abuses, saying that some of the
cases being looked into were genuine military operations against
armed rebel movements, like the one in Aceh.

Joining the fray, Yan Juanda Saputra, a member of the team of
lawyers representing several top TNI officers in these
investigations, suggested that the country's criminal code would
be sufficient to try past human rights abuses.

On the East Timor investigation, Yan said the case against TNI
officers should be dropped because the government had exceeded
the six-month deadline given by the National Commission of Human
Rights to send the case to the court.

He invoked the government regulation in lieu of a statute
(Perpu) No.1/1999 which set a time limit on how long cases could
be processed by the government. (bby/jun)