Rights group will probe Timor killings

Rights group will probe Timor killings

JAKARTA (JP): The National Commission on Human Rights
announced yesterday it will investigate last month's deaths of
six East Timorese.

Commission chairman Ali Said told a news conference yesterday
that he will send a fact finding team to East Timor to look into
allegations by a number of foreign media that the six were
murdered by members of the Armed Forces.

The three-person team will be led by Clementino Dos Reis
Amaral, a native East Timorese.

Ali said the commission will get to the bottom of the matter.
"The people have the right to know what really happened to them."

He stressed that the foreign media reports are not necessarily
accurate and are likely to contain biases.

The foreign press reports suggested that the six were alleged
to be members of the East Timor separatist group Fretilin. They
were killed during a clash on Jan. 12 in the Liquica regency.

The U.S. embassy in Jakarta has raised the issue with the
Indonesian authorities, AFP reported yesterday.

Ali Said made a rare appearance yesterday at the commission's
headquarters, raising speculation about the importance of the
investigation. In the past, most announcements have been made by
the commission's secretary-general Baharuddin Lopa.

At the press briefing, he was accompanied by Marzuki Darusman,
the commission's deputy chairman; Lopa, and Clementino, a
commission member from the monitoring division.

Ali promised that the results of the investigation will be
made public as soon as it is completed.

Armed Forces (ABRI) chief spokesman Brig. Gen. Syarwan Hamid
told The Jakarta Post yesterday that the military is also
conducting its own investigation into the affair.

"We've sent a team over there and are now working on it,"
Syarwan said. "Let's wait for the results."

In December 1991, the government set up a fact finding team to
look into the Nov. 12 incident in Dili.

That team later concluded that some Armed Forces members had
reacted excessively in handling a riot, resulting in the deaths
of "around 50" East Timorese. At the time the National Commission
on Human Rights did not exist. It was set up in late 1993.
(imn/rms)