UN team starts E. Timor inquiry in Jakarta

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A United Nations team began a series of meetings here on Thursday with top officials in a bid to assess Indonesia's efforts to account for gross human rights abuses that marred East Timor's breakaway from this country in 1999.

The UN Commission of Experts, comprising an Indian judge, a Japanese law professor and a Fijian lawyer, held closed door talks with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirayuda.

The three-member team is also scheduled to meet Attorney General Abdul Rahman Saleh, Chief Justice Bagir Manan, Minister of Justice and Human Rights Hamid Awaluddin, lawmakers and the National Commission on Human Rights during their three-day visit, which ends on Friday.

Hassan asserted that the government had invited the team, whose mandate will expire next month, because the outcome of its inquiry would serve to "complement the Commission of Truth and Friendship".

Indonesia had earlier refused to issue visas to the UN- sanctioned commission, arguing that the team was redundant with the setting up of the Commission of Truth and Friendship jointly by East Timor and Indonesia to bring about reconciliation between the two nations.

After meeting President Susilo, the UN experts said they were satisfied with their initial talks.

"So far we are satisfied," said Shaista Shameem of Fiji, who heads the commission.

India's Prafullachandra Bhagwati added that, "We are just trying to find out and so far the work is already interesting".

Yozo Yokota of Japan said the commission would forward the results of its assessment to both Indonesia and East Timor. He declined to comment further.

Minister Hassan acknowledged that the commission, which will report to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, could recommend that the world body haul Indonesia before an international criminal tribunal as a result of what transpired in East Timor.

However, he voiced optimism that the team would not do so.

"It's not realistic to create an international tribunal for human rights violations in East Timor," Hassan said, pointing out that similar international courts for Cambodia and Yugoslavia took a long time to make progress and were very expensive.

The visiting UN Commission of Experts is examining Indonesia's failure to jail military officers and civilians indicted for human rights abuses in East Timor.

Hassan admitted that the results produced by the Indonesian ad hoc human rights court, which acquitted all military and police officers, were "imperfect".

"East Timor played a role (in the imperfect results). Imagine a legal process where finding witnesses alone is already a difficult process," he said.

Hassan recalled that some East Timorese witnesses, including then Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, had refused to testify at the trials, although he was offered the possibility to do so by way of a video linkup.

He said that both Jakarta and Dili had now agreed "to move forward toward reconciliation".

Many people were killed when Indonesia-backed militias went on a rampage in East Timor after it voted to secede from Jakarta in August 1999. Many believe that the Indonesian Military was behind the mayhem.

In the aftermath of the violence, a UN Security Council resolution called for those responsible to be brought to justice.

Under intense international pressure, Indonesia set up an ad hoc human rights tribunal. However, many have criticized the tribunal as a "sham" after it acquitted all but one of the 18 military and police officers and government officials who were put on trial.