Timor Leste: Time for action

Timor Leste: Time for action

Eduardo Gonzalez, New York

Six years ago, a militia group descended on Liquiga, a sleepy
coastal town on the strategic road that links Dili, the capital
of Timor Leste, with the western Indonesian part of Timor island.
The militia was seeking to quash the pro-independence movement
there ahead of a popular vote scheduled for August 1999 that
would decide the future of Timor Leste. Fleeing the violence,
residents took shelter in the local Catholic church where they
were attacked by 2,000 militia members and Indonesian soldiers.
Fifty-nine unarmed civilians were killed.

Horrendous as it was, the Liquiga massacre was not an
extraordinary occurrence during the nearly 25-year Indonesian
occupation of East Timor. A truth commission established by the
UN in 2001 is still trying to determine the total number of
victims, but estimates range from 100,000 to 200,000 people dead
as a direct or indirect result of Indonesian rule. During the
popular vote alone, approximately 1,400 civilians were killed,
hundreds of women were raped and 200,000 people were forcibly
displaced.

The international community condemned these violations and two
commissions of inquiry -- one led by the UN and the other by
Indonesia -- arrived at the same conclusions: the atrocities
committed in East Timor in 1999 constituted crimes against
humanity and war crimes, and the international community was
responsible for prosecuting and punishing the perpetrators.

To date, not a single Indonesian has served a day in jail for
crimes committed in East Timor. After 1999, the UN gave Indonesia
an opportunity to try the perpetrators, but the ensuing trials
were deeply flawed. Of about 100 alleged perpetrators named by
the Indonesian commission of inquiry, only 16 were sent to trial
by incompetent and politically motivated prosecutors. The trials
-- including of those accused of the Liquiga massacre -- ended in
acquittals or lenient sentences that were overturned upon review.
The head of the Indonesian Army at the time, Gen. (ret) Wiranto,
has never been prosecuted.

The Indonesian authorities also failed to transfer suspects or
evidence to UN-supervised prosecutions in Timor Leste. Although
scores of perpetrators were convicted in these trials, they were
largely low-level militia members. Indonesian military leaders
bearing the greatest responsibility remain at large, and some of
them continue their repressive activities in Aceh and West Papua.

UN prosecutions in Timor Leste are scheduled to end in May and
there are no adequately trained Timorese judges to continue the
pursuit of justice. To the dismay of victims, the Timor Leste
government has prioritized good relations with Indonesia over
achieving accountability for atrocious crimes.

Recently, the Indonesian and Timor Leste governments announced
the formation of a bilateral Truth and Friendship Commission to
address what their leaders refer to as "residual issues" and
"allegations". But whereas other commissions have served justice
by exposing wrongdoers, recommending prosecutions and reparations
for victims, and issuing official apologies, this one cannot
offer reparations and will grant amnesty to perpetrators of
crimes against humanity. Victims' groups and human rights
advocates were never consulted about this inquiry and have
rejected it as little more than a whitewash to paper over
impunity and further diplomatic relations at their expense.

In a last-ditch effort to address this failure of justice, the
UN secretary-general has established a commission of experts that
will assess the judicial processes conducted in Jakarta and Dili
over the last six years and make recommendations on how to
overcome impunity.

The international community must do everything in its power to
support this commission in its efforts to provide a complete
account of the atrocities committed in 1999 and the subsequent
failures of justice. The cycle of impunity must finally be
broken. Justice for the East Timorese victims is not a "residual"
issue to be dealt with by the leaders of the two countries alone,
but a touchstone for the credibility of the UN and the
international community, and for the strength of democracy in the
region.

The writer is a senior associate and head of the Indonesia and
Timor-Leste programs at the International Center for Transitional
Justice. He was also on the staff of the Peruvian Truth and
Reconciliation Commission, which completed its work in 2003.