Military officer denounces int'l community over rights trial
Military officer denounces int'l community over rights trial
Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Rights tribunal defendant Maj. Gen. Adam Damiri slammed the
international community on Tuesday for pressuring Indonesia to
bring to justice government officials and military personnel
responsible for bloody riots in East Timor before and after the
1999 referendum there.
Adam, the last and highest-ranking military officer to appear
before the ad hoc human rights tribunal, told the court on
Tuesday he was concerned that "the international audience is not
neutral".
"Some of them act as judges or referees who have their own
rules and perceptions, while some others are willing to develop a
giant gang to play a political game in East Timor according to
their own perceptions," Adam said.
Adam is the last of 12 military and police personnel brought
to court for the mayhem in East Timor. Prosecutors demanded on
June 5 that Adam be acquitted because the court had failed to
prove the charges against him.
Adam's lawyers, who took turns reading out a 505-page defense
statement, also blasted calls from the international community to
bring the East Timor atrocities to an international tribunal.
They singled out the U.S. and Australia, "which act as the
human rights defenders of the world".
The enactment of Law No. 26/2000 on human rights, they said,
was a sign of the international pressure on Indonesia.
The rights tribunal was established to deflect pressure for an
international tribunal to look into the bloodshed in East Timor.
The tribunal has acquitted 11 defendants, mostly police and
military members.
Five people, including two Army officers, have been found
guilty but remain free pending appeals.
Adam, who headed the regional military command that oversaw
East Timor at the time of the referendum in August 1999, called
the press a "pro-Portuguese chicken media that cackled all
around", blaming the media for blowing up reports that made it
seem the military was responsible for the violence.
In his defense statement, titled a loyalty to duty and the
voice of a child of the nation, Adam also lambasted human rights
defenders for criticizing troops in East Timor, calling these
activists "a group with a loud voice, crazy thinking and black
motives".
Adam's lawyers also questioned human rights defenders who
remained silent during the U.S.-led attack on Iraq.
"Apparently they support foreign countries, which claim to be
defenders of human rights," the lawyers said,
Hundreds of people are believed to have died in East Timor
when pro-Jakarta militias, allegedly backed by the military, went
on a rampage in 1999, destroying almost 90 percent of the
infrastructure in the former Indonesian province.
Prosecutors have charged Adam with gross human rights
violations for his failure to prevent the bloodshed.
The court is expected to issue a verdict on Aug. 5.