Timor Leste commissioners announced
Ivy Susanti, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Indonesia and Timor Leste announced on Monday the names of the 10 members of the Commission of Truth and Friendship (CTF), who will look into the violence that took place in Timor Leste in 1999 (then called East Timor).
Foreign ministry spokesman Yuri Oktavian Thamrin said that the commission would work for reconciliation and future cooperation, from the government to the grassroots level, but would not seek judicial settlements.
According to the CTF's terms of reference (TOR), on which the commissioners will base their work, they will not recommend that the government of either nation establish any other judicial body. The CTF process is not meant to lead to prosecution, but will instead emphasize institutional responsibilities.
"The commissioners are highly credible and we are sure they will use a reconciliatory approach. And this approach has been approved by the two governments. In this way, we hope that the international community will show some respect for the efforts of the two 'families'; and do not make things difficult for us," Yuri told reporters on Monday.
From Indonesia, the commission consists of Prof. Achmad Ali (law expert from Hassanudin state university in Makassar), Wisber Loeis (senior diplomat and former Indonesian ambassador to Japan), Benjamin Mangkudilaga (former Supreme Court Justice and member of the National Commission of Human Rights), Mgr. Petrus Turang (Bishop of Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara) and Agus Widjojo (former Indonesian Military chief of territorial affairs).
Timor Leste appointed Jasinto Alves, Aniceto Guterres, Felicidade Guterres, Dionisio Babo and Cirilio Varadales.
Yuri said the commissioners will discuss technicalities on Aug. 4 or Aug. 5 in Denpasar, Bali, where the secretariat will be located. The commissioners, who get access to all documents regarding the various human rights trials and interviews of witnesses, will work for one year, with the possibility of an extension to a maximum of one more year.
Benjamin Mangkudilaga said that the commission's work was more of a confidence-building effort.
"I don't see any great challenge ahead. Our mandate has been clearly stated in the TOR, and it has been approved by both sides. To me, the most important thing is to build trust through dialog," he told The Jakarta Post over the phone.
In Dili, however, Catholic Church bishops said that victims of Timor Leste's bloody break for independence from Indonesia will only find justice through an international tribunal.
"The Catholic Church requests the continued intervention of the United Nations to achieve justice for the people of East Timor," Bishops Basilio do Nascimento and Alberto Ricardo da Silva said in a statement.
"We hope that the voice of the East Timorese people, who have suffered from impunity, will be heard," they were quoted by AP as saying.
The Indonesian Military and its proxy militia groups are accused of killing nearly 1,500 people after a UN-supervised referendum in 1999 brought an end to Indonesia's 24-year annexation of the former Portuguese colony.
Jakarta and Dili have expressed opposition to a UN recommendation for an international tribunal, saying it would harm bilateral relations.
"We do not believe the establishment of an international tribunal is the only way to find truth or justice," Timor Leste Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta said on Monday, rejecting claims by the bishops that the decision was political.