UN official calls for tribunal

UN official calls for tribunal

DILI (AP): A top UN official in East Timor urged on Friday the
international community to set up a war crimes tribunal if
Indonesia fails to prosecute those responsible for atrocities
committed after the territory voted for independence in 1999.

Peter Galbraith, political affairs minister in the UN
administration in East Timor, said he had "seen very little
evidence" that Indonesia was serious in its efforts to bring to
trial those responsible for the violence.

"If there is no progress toward bringing to justice the people
responsible for the crimes ... there should be an international
war crimes tribunal," Galbraith, a former U.S. ambassador to
Croatia, told journalists in East Timor's capital, Dili.

Galbraith said the world had already waited two years for
Indonesia to prosecute those responsible. However, little had
happened.

His call for international action is the highest yet from a
serving UN official. Until now, UN workers in East Timor, and at
the world body's headquarters in New York, have said Indonesia
should be allowed to prosecute the perpetrators of the violence
itself, before an international court is considered.