RI dismisses calls for world tribunal

RI dismisses calls for world tribunal

JAKARTA (JP): The Ministry of Foreign Affairs dismissed on
Monday the likelihood of an international tribunal for Indonesian
generals in connection with last year's violence in East Timor.

The Director of International Organizations at the ministry,
Sudjadnan Parnohadiningrat, said setting up an international
tribunal was a lengthy process that must have the support of all
five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.

The UN secretary-general had not even given a recommendation
on the matter, and if and when he did, the matter would be taken
up by the Security Council, Sudjadnan said.

Many countries would support Indonesia in opposing the
establishment of a tribunal, he said.

"I am sure Russia and China, as permanent members of the
security council, will have a different perspective on the
matter," Sudjadnan said, referring to two permanent council
members with vetoing power.

The United States had also eased pressure to set up an
international tribunal after Indonesia launched its own
investigation into the mayhem in East Timor, he said.

The most important thing was that Indonesia must show to the
world that there was no impunity for anyone who had committed
human rights abuses in this country, he added.

President Abdurrahman Wahid, who was in Switzerland on Monday,
also reiterated his determination to reject an international
tribunal. "We are strongly against it. We prefer to the give
opportunity to the national process," he told reporters.

The special UN inquiry team in its report to Annan on Monday
recommended the world body set up a tribunal to prosecute those
responsible for atrocities in East Timor.

The report proposes the United Nations conduct a full
investigation to further probe the violence that broke out
shortly after the East Timorese voted for independence from
Jakarta on Aug. 30, according to sources familiar with the
document.

After the investigation, the United Nations should set up an
international tribunal, which would include a role for East Timor
as well as Indonesia, the team said.

The five-member UN human rights inquiry team, which went to
East Timor in November for nine days, said its preliminary
investigations left no doubt of the involvement of the Indonesian
Military in the violence, according to the report.

The BBC said the commission concluded that Indonesian soldiers
were directly involved in abuses in certain cases and that
Jakarta's military was ultimately responsible for the terror and
intimidation.

But the Security Council, as well as Annan, is expected to be
reluctant to set up a tribunal while Indonesia itself is
investigating the violence.

China has been adamant about noninterference in the affairs of
a sovereign nation. Under international practices, the United
Nations will not set up a tribunal if the country involved is
willing and able to prosecute its own citizens.

The investigators recommended the tribunal be set up in East
Timor and in Indonesia rather than a third country. The Hague in
the Netherlands serves as the seat for a UN tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia, while trials on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda
are conducted in Arusha, Tanzania.

Attached to the report is a letter from Indonesian foreign
minister Alwi Shihab, who is said to have rejected the probe as
unfair and one-sided.

But the UN inquiry team questioned whether the Indonesian
government would be able to prosecute those responsible, the
sources said.

The UN team began its nine-day preliminary probe on Nov. 25.
It was authorized by the Geneva-based Commission on Human Rights
and is headed by Sonia Picada, a Costa Rican human rights
attorney. Other members rights experts are: Judith Sefi Attah of
Nigeria, A.M. Ahmadi of India, Mari Kapi of Papua New Guinea and
Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger of Germany.

U.S. assistant secretary of state Stanley Roth said Washington
would consider an international tribunal for atrocities in East
Timor if Indonesia failed to produce a "bona fide" prosecution,
the Associated Press reported.

"From the perspective of the United States, our concern is to
see that justice is done, that there is accountability," he said
in Davos, Switzerland.

The United States continued to want to first see what happened
in the Indonesian domestic process before making any
determination on whether there was any need for a followup
international process, he said.

"To the extent that the Indonesians do a bona fide job, that
the individuals are not only investigated but prosecuted, and
possibly convicted, then there would seem to be little need for
an international effort," Roth added. (04/prb)