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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