UN rights commission criticizes Indonesia

UN rights commission criticizes Indonesia

GENEVA (Agencies): The United Nations Human Rights Commission
criticized Indonesia yesterday for alleged human rights
violations in East Timor, Associated Press said.

A resolution put forward by the European Union passed by 20-14
in a vote at the commission. There were 18 abstentions, including
Russia and Japan.

It voiced "deep concern at the continuing reports of
violations of human rights in East Timor, including reports of
extra judicial killings, disappearances, torture and arbitrary
detention."

It urged Jakarta to allow UN investigators to visit the
territory this year.

Indonesia denounced the vote.

"If progress is the true objective, then it is more important
to achieve real progress than resolutions that are doomed to fail
in their purpose," said Indonesia's representative Ishar Ibrahim.

Indonesia in the last four years succeeded in averting
attempts to pass resolutions criticizing its handling of East
Timor at the commission's annual meetings.

Last year, references to East Timor only surfaced in the
chairman's statement, expressing "deep concern" at the human
rights situation in the former Portuguese colony. The statement
also called on Indonesia to fully investigate a bloody incident
in which dozens of East Timorese demonstrators were killed in
clashes with Indonesian troops in November 1991.

Last year's joint Nobel peace prize Jose Ramos Horta, the
self-exiled East Timor separatist spokesman, addressed the
commission and showed videos of torture victims -- which were
dismissed as fakes by the government.

Yesterday's resolution was tougher than one last passed in
1993.

Peter van Wulfften Palthe of the Netherlands said the European
Union was prompted to put forward a resolution because efforts to
agree a statement with Indonesia had failed.

The commission yesterday also passed a United States's
resolution condemning Cuba's human rights record.

A total of 19 countries in the 53-member body voted for, and
10 countries said no, while 24 abstained, Reuters reported.

Havana's ambassador Carlos Amat Flores said the resolution was
"part and parcel of the hostile policy of the United States waged
against Cuba for the past 37 years."

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