U.S. supports both national, UN inquiries on Timor bloodshed

U.S. supports both national, UN inquiries on Timor bloodshed

Agencies Washington

The United States on Wednesday welcomed creation of a joint Indonesia-East Timor commission on the 1999 bloodshed in the former Portuguese colony, but made clear the necessity of a separate UN inquiry as well.

U.S. officials said coordination of the efforts was the key topic at a meeting here of Secretary of State Colin Powell, Indonesian Foreign Minister Hasan Wirayuda and his East Timorese counterpart Jose Ramos Horta on Wednesday.

Wirayuda and Horta unveiled on Tuesday their plan for a joint commission to see if justice was meted out for the attacks by the Indonesian army and its militia allies that left 1,000 people dead in East Timor's drive for independence.

The two men, who met with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in New York, said their initiative could make redundant his plan to dispatch a UN panel of experts. But Washington reacted coolly to any pre-emptive Indonesian-East Timor investigation.

Powell and the two foreign ministers made no statement after their meeting.

"I think we've seen both these things as valuable and they just need to be coordinated," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. "I think our view is that working together with the UN and with them we could coordinate these things."

Powell is pleased with the new Indonesian government, which took over early in the year, and it is considered a democracy, Boucher said.

But Boucher also recalled the State Department in the past expressed its hopes that judicial proceedings in Indonesia "would result in concrete results and necessary accountability for the crimes that occurred."

Annan, meanwhile plans to send a commission to the two countries to evaluate the process.

Boucher said Powell's meeting with the ministers centered on coordinating Annan's commission with a joint commission established by Indonesia and East Timor.

"We'll work with the UN and we'll work with them to ensure the coordination and make sure that both of these professes can contribute to finding the truth," the spokesman said.

A senior U.S. official said while national truth commissions have been successful elsewhere, "we've looked at this situation and we don't think that can be the sole vehicle."

"We don't think we should junk one (commission) in favor of the other," said the official, who asked not to be named.

He said the U.S. was not impressed by efforts by Indonesian authorities to prosecute those charged in the 1999 killings. "They perhaps were undertaken in the right spirit but they haven't led to much in the way of results," the official said.

Indonesia invaded East Timor in December 1975, shortly after Dili declared independence from centuries of Portuguese colonial rule. The East Timorese won full autonomy in 2002, three years after voting overwhelmingly to split from Indonesia.

Th East Timorese have played down the trials in Indonesia, where convictions over the killings have been quashed, and instead stressed the importance of building good relations with Jakarta.

Wirayuda and Horta both signaled their desire to avoid a UN inquiry. Wirayuda said their joint panel was "meant as an alternative to the idea of establishing a commission of experts by the secretary general."

They said Annan did not indicate whether he would proceed with his own inquiry. "He might consider (it) redundant but if he decides to go ahead we will have to study the terms of reference," Horta said.

Al LaPorta, president of the private U.S.-Indonesia Society, said the issue of accountability for past wrongs in Timor is at best a difficult, complex and possibly flawed process.

"There are good arguments for judicial accountability on both sides," the former foreign service officer said. "But based on recent research and examination, the capacity of the Indonesian judicial system is at best uneven.

"While it has been alleged there has been pressure and influence brought to bear on the Indonesian judiciary, there also are very legitimate concerns about the lack of capacity in dealing with international legal and criminal matters," LaPorta said in an interview.