KPP HAM team to question Feisal over East Timor debacle
KPP HAM team to question Feisal over East Timor debacle
JAKARTA (JP): The government-sanctioned Commission of Inquiry
into Human Rights Violations (KPP HAM) in East Timor will
question former coordinating minister for political affairs and
security Feisal Tanjung next week about violence in the territory
after the Aug. 30 self-determination ballot.
Munir, a member of KPP HAM, said on Monday that the inquiry
would try to obtain information from Feisal as the latter was the
founder of the Indonesian Task Force for the Implementation of
the Popular Consultation in East Timor.
"We have yet to set a date, but it is sure that he will be
questioned after the Idul Fitri holiday," Munir, who is also
coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of
Violence, told The Jakarta Post.
The inquiry would also try to obtain information from Feisal
about the "Garnadi Paper", a document urging systematic
destruction in East Timor which was allegedly signed by Feisal's
former assistant, Maj. Gen. (ret.) Garnadi, Munir said.
The inquiry will also question Dili Bishop Carlos Felipe
Ximenes Belo concerning the outbreak of violence perpetrated by
prointegration militias in the territory in September, he said.
"It is still being studied whether to fly Belo to Jakarta, or
for us to go to East Timor," Munir said.
Belo, a 1996 Nobel peace laureate, was driven from his
residence and church in Dili during the violence and fled to
Australia.
Munir said the decision to summon Feisal and Belo was taken
during the commission's plenary meeting on Monday afternoon.
KPP HAM in a midterm report said that based on a preliminary
investigation and witnesses accounts, the Indonesian Military
(TNI) was directly or indirectly involved in the East Timor
violence.
Former TNI chief Gen. Wiranto and six Army and police generals
were questioned last month by KPP HAM, with all of them
contending the violence was an emotional outburst which was
neither premeditated nor controllable.
The generals also denied the alleged strong links between TNI
and the prointegration militia groups.
KPP HAM secretary Asmara Nababan said on Sunday that the
generals were shifting the blame for the East Timor mayhem to
low-ranking officers.
The inquiry was established in September by then president
B.J. Habibie after the government rejected calls for an
international inquiry that would look into the possibility of
setting up war crime tribunals for Indonesian officers.
Munir said that the inquiry planned to question former
military intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Zacky Anwar Makarim on
Tuesday, while former head of the Restoration Operation Command
in East Timor Maj. Gen. Kiki Syahnakri, former East Timor
military commander Col. M. Noer Muis and former foreign minister
Ali Alatas would be questioned on Wednesday. (byg)