Implications of the Liquisa tragedy

Implications of the Liquisa tragedy

A military council is probing the deaths of six people in the
Liquisa regency in East Timor on Jan. 12. Law expert T. Mulya
Lubis examines the issue from both national and international
points of view.

JAKARTA (JP): What actually happened in Liquisa? Newspaper
reports say that six East Timorese, suspected to be sympathizers
of the Fretilin rebel movement, were killed in an ambush.
Tragically, one of them was a village chief who, on the previous
day, had visited the local subdistrict office.

In the aftermath, the military, including the chief of the
Udayana Military Command and the Armed Forces commander, stated
that none of the military personnel had violated policy in this
incident. Military procedure was said to have been strictly
followed. All enemies who pose a danger should be overcome. This
is just the way the military rules work. In a war, the choice is
very limited: To kill or to be killed.

The question is, was there really a war situation in Liquisa?
Was the incident so serious that resorting to bullets was
necessary? Was there sufficient reason to believe that they had
close ties with the rebels? Was there no other less violent way
to enforce security and order?

We certainly do not know precisely everything that took place
there. The official report differs from the unofficial version,
not to mention the reports from foreign mass media. Which one
should we believe?

The Liquisa incident was different from the November 1991 Dili
incident. The scale was smaller. However, the Liquisa incident
was nonetheless a case of violation of human rights: the right to
live and the right to differ in opinion. Therefore, it stands to
reason that many regret that the incident happened in the first
place. Have we failed to learn a lesson from the Dili incident?

The main point is, the Liquisa case should be resolved in an
open manner and in accordance to the law. In this context, the
results of the fact-finding team from our National Commission on
Human Rights and the Officers' Honor Council will bear a very
important meaning.

We are grateful that the commission has underlined its finding
that human rights were violated through torture followed by
shooting that led to the demise of those six people in Liquisa.
It has acknowledged that the hitherto "security and order"
approach was misinterpreted. This report is an encouraging one
and is proof that the commission has not been acting as a public
relations agent for the government.

The fact that the conclusion of that report is different from
earlier military findings should not alarm us since the two
bodies obviously have different points of view. This does not
mean that the commission's report will be useless or treated
merely as additional information. Every one of us, including the
Armed Forces, should respect the commission's report.

Failure to do so will result in the loss of credibility of the
commission and its raison d'etre.

There is no need to question the significance of the reports
of the commission and the military. Both of those bodies owe it
to history to prove their own independence and integrity. If they
fail to report the facts, or if they hide anything from the
public, no future national fact-finding team will earn the trust
of the public -- either domestic or international. What will
happen then is that we will have to yield to international
demands for the assignment of an international fact-finding team
or a UN special rapporteur to investigate cases such as this one.
Should this happen, the big stride forward of establishing the
National Investigation Commission for the Dili incident in 1991
will become totally meaningless.

It is therefore reassuring that there is reason to believe
that the human rights commission is treating the Liquisa case
with the utmost effort.

Another no less important task for the Officers' Honor
Council, or a court of law, is to follow up on all of the
findings gathered hitherto. We hope that justice can be done, and
that there will be no political engineering. We hope that freedom
of the court and the due process of law will be fully guaranteed,
so that any flaws in the 1993 court proceedings in the trial of
rebel leader Alexandre Xanana Gusmao will not repeat themselves.

It appeared unjust to give Xanana limited time to read his own
defense statement only to have the text widely distributed by
Amnesty International later on. It seemed that his right to the
best legal counsel and attorney of his own choice was restricted.
The impression was that Xanana was assisted in finding an
attorney considered to have sufficient knowledge of violations of
the due process of law. In other words, it seems the appointed
attorney could not have been expected to provide an optimal
defense on behalf of his client.

We hope that all of these allegations were wrong, although it
has not been easy to forget about the assumptions altogether,
particularly after the filing of the request for clemency for and
on behalf of Xanana.

All of this may seem trivial but in this era of globalization
a trivial issue can easily snowball and become a major problem,
particularly when it has something to do with human lives. In
addition, our image as a nation could be ruined if we fail to
follow the due process of law. Therefore, great courage and a
strong political will are required now in settling the Liquisa
case. If indeed there is no guilty party found in the incident,
the basis for determining this should be completely disclosed to
the public. If a guilty party can be pinpointed, that party
should be sentenced according to the law.

If the impact of this particular incident forces us to re-
evaluate our policy on East Timor, so be it. We should realize
that such a review would never be a sin in the eyes of history.

The writer is a noted human rights activist and a Jakarta-
based corporate lawyer.