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)