Yusril reassures international community on rights violators

JAKARTA (JP): The government dismissed on Thursday international concerns that perpetrators of human rights in the past, particularly in East Timor, would walk free from prosecution saying that past human rights violators would be tried in an ad hoc tribunal.

Minister of Justice and Human Rights Yusril Ihza Mahendra said the bill on the human rights tribunal, which is currently being deliberated by the House of Representatives and is expected to be passed before the end of September, stipulated that past human rights violations be tried in an ad hoc tribunal.

"The bill deviates from the non-retroactive principle as it stipulates that gross human rights violations which took place before the bill is passed into law will be prosecuted in an ad hoc tribunal," Yusril told a news conference after the Cabinet meeting.

"So we have to differentiated between 'court', which is permanent, and 'tribunal', which is only set up to try a specific case," Yusril added.

Yusril said he made the statement because "there are so many questions from the international community" with regard to the government's seriousness in dealing with past rights abuses following a constitutional amendment introducing a non- retroactive principle.

The People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) amended earlier this month the 1945 Constitution to prevent an individual from being prosecuted under laws that did not exist when a crime was committed.

The amendment created an uproar among local and international rights groups, fearing it would be used to prevent the prosecution of military officers for human rights violations in East Timor last year.

Yusril warned, however, against international pressure over the East Timor trials.

"I have to remind the international community that we could also demand the Dutch and the Japanese governments (compensate) for (past) war crimes committed during the independence war and their periods of occupation here," said Yusril.

He said that he had aired the warning during a meeting with visiting members of the European parliament early Thursday.

He said they had asked him whether or not a recently amended article in the Constitution would bar the government from trying those held responsible for the violence in East Timor.

"I delivered this warning to members of the European parliament earlier this morning: 'that the international community, specifically the western community, should not continue pushing us to implement the retroactive principle because it can backfire,'" Yusril said.

He also said that an article in the same constitutional amendment mentions that all citizens have to respect the limits imposed by the laws, and as such the retroactive principle could be applied to specific cases.

"Therefore, I would like to convey to the international community, that there should not be any fear of the amended Article 28 of the Constitution," he said adding that the principle of lex specialis derogate lex generalis, in which specific regulations can overrule general regulations, would be applied.

Earlier in the day, Attorney General Marzuki Darusman said that suspects in the East Timor violence would be named on Friday afternoon.

"We are trying to name some of the suspects either this afternoon or tomorrow," Marzuki told reporters after attending a Cabinet meeting.

Marzuki said earlier that the amendment had caused his office to postpone naming the suspects in order to prepare a stronger legal argument.

But the Attorney General's Office is clearly behind schedule after claiming in February that a trial could be held in three months. (byg/prb)