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East Timor News Digest 13 - August 12-18, 2002
West Timor/refugees
Reuters - August 13, 2002
United Nations -- Nearly three months after East Timor's
independence, the UN mission in the fledgling southeast Asian
nation is on course to finish its work and shut down in two
years, a top UN official said on Tuesday.
UN Assistant Secretary-General Hedi Annabi told a closed
meeting of the 15-nation Security Council that the UN Mission
of Support in East Timor, known as UNMISET, was "on track ... to
be completed in mid-2004," said US Ambassador John Negroponte,
the council president for August.
"The East Timor Defense Force is taking over operational
responsibilities from UN peacekeepers as planned, and East
Timor's civilian police units are replacing United Nations
Civilian Police Units in a timely fashion," Negroponte told
reporters after the meeting.
East Timor has also joined the World Bank and International
Monetary Fund and is working to fully delineate its border with
Indonesia over the next year, although it is lagging in setting
up its justice system and naming civilian experts to government
support posts, Negroponte added.
Prior to independence on May 19, East Timor had been administered
by the United Nations since late 1999, a few months after its
people voted overwhelmingly for independence from Indonesia.
Jakarta had invaded and seized the territory in 1975 after
colonial ruler Portugal pulled out.
Since independence, UNMISET has cut its peacekeeping force to
about 5,000 troops from 8,000 last year. The mission also
includes about 1,100 civilian police officers.
"We all look forward, with great pleasure, to welcoming East
Timor as a full member of the United Nations in September,"
Negroponte said.
The Security Council has already voted to recommend East Timor
for membership as well as Switzerland, and the UN General
Assembly, which currently has 189 member-nations, is expected to
complete the application process for both countries next month.
Jakarta Post - August 13, 2002
Kupang -- East Timorese refugees sheltering in a number of camps
in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) province will celebrate in a modest
way Indonesia's 57th independence day on August 17.
Speaking to newsmen here on Tuesday, spokesman for the Presidium
of East Timorese Refugees, Hukman Reni, called on fellow refugees
to make the independence celebration an occasion to strengthen
their resolve to be part of the Indonesian nation.
He said that the East Timorese refugees who were loyal to
Indonesia's red-and-white flag should take their present status
as a lesson.
According to Hukman, the East Timorese had undertaken three tests
to prove themselves to be red-and-white fighters. They took the
first test in 1975 when a revolt broke out in East Timor and many
local people expressed their determination to integrate with
Indonesia.
The second was in 1999 when the East Timorese voted in a United
Nations-administered ballot which later led to the territory's
breakaway from the republic.
The third test was shown during the registration of East Timorese
refugees in 2000 when most of them opted to stay in Indonesia, he
said as quoted by Antara.
Human rights trials
Human rights/law
News & issues
Language & culture
International relations
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East Timor local press
Transition & reconstruction
UN on track to wrap up East Timor mission in 2004
West Timor/refugees
Refugees in NTT to celebrate Indonesian independence day
Refugees told to vacate camps by September 1
Jakarta Post - August 13, 2002
Jakarta -- East Timorese refugees are to vacate camps across East Nusa Tenggara by August 31, the deadline set for them to leave the shelter and receive government assistance to return to East Timor or resettle in the province, the provincial administration said on Monday.
Vice Governor Johanis Pake Pani, speaking from the provincial capital of Kupang, said all camps must be vacated by September 1. "By that date, refugees choosing to stay in the province and become Indonesian citizens will have to leave the camps and join our resettlement programs," he said.
Pake Pani said the local administration had built 10,000 homes in several resettlement areas in West Timor, Flores and Sumba. However, he did not say what actions the government would take against those who chose to stay on in the Indonesian province, but refused to join the government-sponsored resettlement program or return to East Timor.
"We don't have a decision yet for those cases," Pake Pani said. He said the Indonesian government would continue assisting refugees in returning to their homeland until late this month.
After August, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization of Migrants (IOM) will take full charge of the repatriation program until December.
The central government has made August 31 the deadline for all East Timorese refugees to leave camps and return home under the government-sponsored repatriation program.
Each family choosing to return to East Timor before September will receive Rp 750,000 in cash assistance from the Indonesian government. "In line with the central government's decision, the deadline to facilitate the repatriation and provide funds guaranteeing the lives of refugees will end on August 31, 2002.
"The policy that handles refugees will shift them to economic empowerment programs to be carried out in resettlement areas," Pake Pane said.
Some 250,000 East Timorese were forced to leave East Nusa Tenggara after their homeland voted for independence in August 1999. Most refugees have returned home.
| Human rights trials |
Lusa - August 16, 2002
East Timor is preparing a "joint position" on the verdicts of the Jakarta court, currently trying those deemed responsible for the violence in Timor in 1999, and Dili will examine all options to rectify shortcomings in Indonesia`s judicial system, Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta said Friday.
"From the beginning, the Timorese government has sought not to make significant comment, or add to the general chorus of skepticism, while the trials are still taking place", Ramos Horta told Lusa in Dili on returning from an official visit to Malaysia.
Ramos Horta`s comments came after the first verdicts were given this week at the special human rights court in Jakarata, set up following international pressure to try 18 senior officials and army officers accused of unleashing the violence that killed over 1000 and left East Timor in ruins after the pro-independence referendum in 1999. A group of Indonesian commanders were acquitted Thursday on various charges of allowing massacres of civilians.
The Jakarta court`s decision was widely condemned by the international community, including the UN. There have also been widespread calls for the setting up of an international court to ensure a more rigorous prosecution of those responsible for the bloodshed of 1999.
Ramos Horta, however, said he preferred not to make any comment on an international tribunal until there had been contacts between the Timorese Council of Minister, the Presidency and Parliament. "Indonesia has the chance to prove that it does not need an international court to carry out trials and that Indonesian justice can operate with credibility, transparency and integrity", said Ramos Horta.
Nevertheless, Dili`s foreign minister said that until now, the Jakarta trials had only damaged Indonesia`s credibility.
Agence France Presse - August 16, 2002
Victor Tjahjadi, Jakarta -- A conspiracy between the military and the Indonesian government was likely behind the acquittal of six military and police officers for gross human rights violations in East Timor, analysts said Friday.
Hendardi, of the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association, said Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri could not afford to alienate the powerful military.
"There is a possibility of a political conspiracy between the military and the government because the military knows that Megawati heavily needs them," he said. He said the exoneration of the six men -- all non-East Timorese -- was "seriously disappointing" for the Indonesian legal system.
Legal analyst Andi Asrun of the independent group Judicial Watch said he suspected the government and the military had agreed to "a golden handshake" that benefited both sides while leaving civilian defendants as "scapegoats."
East Timor's last governor, Abilio Soares, received a three-year sentence in the first verdict issued by the human rights courts on Wednesday. Soares was convicted of failing to control his subordinates from committing crimes against humanity but the sentence was far below the 10 years and six months recommended by prosecutors.
"They agreed to let military defendants walk away free while civilians such as Soares will be sacrificed because he is no longer needed and also because he is an East Timorese," Asrun said. "If this theory is true, the military clearly has formed a very evil political conspiracy with the government," Asrun told AFP.
On Thursday the court acquitted East Timor's former police commander, Brigadier General Timbul Silaen. Under an international agreement signed by Indonesia, his police force had responsibility for security in East Timor ahead of the August 30, 1999, ballot in which East Timorese voted for independence from Indonesia.
The court also acquitted five Indonesian military and police officers accused of failing to prevent a church massacre in Suai town in 1999. A total of 27 people died in the incident.
At least 1,000 East Timorese are estimated to have died in 1999 and whole towns were burnt to the ground.
Indonesia set up the rights court to deflect foreign pressure for an international human rights tribunal into the violence which UN and Indonesian human rights inquiries have said was linked to Indonesian security forces.
Widespread criticism of this week's verdicts has led to renewed calls from human rights agencies for an international tribunal to hear the cases.
Amnesty International and the Judicial System Monitoring Programme (JSMP) strongly criticized the verdicts, describing them as a "grave disappointment" and the outcome of a process which did not conform to international standards.
"In view of the serious problems with the trials in Jakarta, Amnesty International and JSMP believe that it is also the moment for UN to review its decision not to pursue the recommendations of its own International Commission of Inquiry on East Timor to establish an international criminal tribunal," a statement by Amnesty and the JSMP said.
The indictments, they said, failed to reflect "the widespread and systematic nature of the crimes which took place in East Timor in 1999."
The cases have also highlighted the need for Indonesia to cooperate with trials underway in East Timor, where 114 people have already been charged with serious crimes, including crimes against humanity, the statement said.
East Timorese courts have convicted a number of militiamen, some of whom received up to 30-year prison sentences. But many of the accused are living in Indonesia, which has refused to transfer any of them to East Timor for trial by the UN-established Special Panel for Serious Crimes.
Reuters - August 16, 2002
Achmad Sukarsono, Jakarta -- East Timor's president, who has asked Indonesia's human rights court not to single out scapegoats for killings during the territory's 1999 independence vote, is neither upset nor angry with the court verdicts so far.
However, Xanana Gusmao's spokesman and chief of staff Agio Pereira told Reuters on Friday that Indonesia needed to show it could deliver justice.
The court this week acquitted six Indonesians on charges of crimes against humanity over violence in East Timor, denting hopes the government was serious about accounting for the bloodshed.
"This court is seen as Indonesia's way of solving things without going to an international court so it really needs to prove it can do its job," Pereira said by telephone from East Timor's capital Dili.
In a letter read out in court last month, Gusmao said East Timorese and Indonesians must live up to the same moral standards when analysing sensitive matters such as human rights violations.
When asked whether Gusmao was upset or angry with the rulings so far, Pereira answered: "No."
But it was not immediately evident the decision would have any major impact on US moves toward rebuilding military ties largely severed after the mayhem that surrounded East Timor's vote to end 24 years of Jakarta rule.
Scapegoat
Some East Timorese said they believed ex-governor Abilio Soares, a native of East Timor, was being made a scapegoat while Indonesia was letting others go free.
Soares was sentenced to three years in jail while an ex-police chief, four mid-ranking police officers and another policemen -- all native Indonesians -- were acquitted. All seven were charged with crimes against humanity.
"It's not fair to put all human rights violations on Abilio's shoulders. Abilio has just become the scapegoat," Dili newspaper Suara Timor Lorosae quoted Father Jovito do Rego Araujo, deputy of East Timor's truth and reconciliation commission, as saying.
The verdict against Soares has also been seen as lip-service to appease nations that nudged Jakarta to act over the violence the United Nations said killed more than 1,000, and which was largely blamed on pro-Jakarta militia backed by elements of Indonesia's military.
"The bottom line is they're sacrificing the civilians in order ... so that there's no loophole and possibility of an international tribunal," Johnson Panjaitan, deputy of the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association, told Reuters.
US studying verdicts
Among the things at stake for Indonesia over the trials are improved military ties with the United States, largely severed in the wake of the violence. But comments from US officials on the latest developments have thus far been relatively restrained.
White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said: "Without commenting on specifics of that case, we generally applaud the Indonesian government for holding accountable the government officials and the military officials for activities in East Timor," she told reporters.
State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said: "We certainly urge the Indonesian government to redouble its efforts to mount credible prosecutions to bring perpetrators of atrocities in East Timor to justice."
Agence France Presse - August 17, 2002
About 60 human rights activists have demonstrated in the East Timorese capital Dili demanding an international tribunal into the 1999 violence that devastated the former Indonesian province.
Carrying signs reading "We need an international tribunal" and "Where is the justice?", the protesters planned to march on the American, English, Chinese and Indonesian embassies to press their demands Saturday.
They said they were disappointed with the verdicts issued this week by three human rights courts in Jakarta, and called the process a stage show. The former East Timorese governor, Abilio Soares, received a three-year prison term, while East Timor's former police chief and five other military and police officers were acquitted of gross human rights violations.
The verdicts drew widespread criticism from Indonesian human rights workers as well as from Amnesty International and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson.
"We're carrying out this demonstration because of our disappointment toward the court's decisions and also our big disappointment towards Washington for giving support to the court's decision," said one protester, Ivete Oliviera.
Following the verdicts, a White House spokesman praised Indonesia in general terms for trying government and military officials for human rights abuses in East Timor, but did not comment specific on the cases of Soares and the others.
Indonesia set up the rights court to deflect foreign pressure for an international human rights tribunal into the violence which UN and Indonesian human rights inquiries have said was linked to Indonesian security forces.
After this week's verdicts, calls for an international tribunal have resurfaced. At least 1,000 East Timorese are estimated to have died in 1999 and whole towns were burned to the ground during violence ahead of, and following, the August 30, 1999 ballot in which East Timorese voted to separate from Indonesia.
Sydney Morning Herald - August 17, 2002
Matthew Moore -- The man who ran the United Nations mission that oversaw East Timor's referendum has branded the trials of alleged Indonesian war criminals a complete failure and said it was time for the UN to set up its own tribunal to investigate atrocities before and after the 1999 vote.
Mr Ian Martin, the former head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in East Timor (UNAMET), called on the international community to act even though Indonesia's special human rights court has decided only three of 18 matters before it.
He said the court's decision on Thursday to acquit four Indonesian army officers and a policeman of one of the worst massacres -- the slaughter of between 27 and 200 people in a church in the hill town of Suai -- demonstrated the whole process established by the Indonesian Government was a failure.
"The acquittals ... are particularly disturbing because they are the biggest single mass killing, and if anything could have been prosecuted it would have been them ... The evidence was very clear and very available." He said that in 1999 the then US secretary of state, Madeline Albright, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, agreed "there should be an international tribunal if Indonesia proved incapable of having proper trials". That point had now been reached, he said.
"I think the issue is now right back on the agenda as to how the international community will fulfil its commitments." Mr Martin said the cases mounted by the prosecution were hopelessly inadequate.
Sydney Morning Herald - August 17, 2002
Matthew Moore, Jakarta -- As he stood in the courtroom and hugged his wife on hearing his not guilty verdict, a hand reached out to Brigadier General Timbul Silaen.
It belonged to an Indonesian press photographer who had got his picture and wanted to join the throng of police and family to personally congratulate the man who had just beaten war crimes charges. His was a personal gesture, but it might easily have been on behalf of his nation.
Three years after the bloody referendum that saw East Timor vote overwhelmingly for independence, the widespread view in Indonesia of what happened in Timor, and who is to blame, remains at odds with the rest of the world, at odds with all the credible published accounts from the time, and at odds with the opinions of the international agencies that were in East Timor monitoring the 1999 vote.
There are mounds of evidence that show Indonesian security forces committed and helped organise the widespread, systematic atrocities before and after the vote that the United Nations reckons left at least 1000 people dead.
Yet Timbul Silaen, the man who, with 8000 armed officers under him, had direct responsibility for maintaining security in East Timor, has been found not guilty. His judges in Indonesia's specially formed human rights court concluded there was no evidence before them linking him to the systematic killings and torture.
Two hours later another panel of judges in the same court reached the same conclusion about four army officers and a policeman for their role in the massacre that took place in a church at the hill-top town of Suai, in East Timor's south-west.
They were accused of acting with "pro-integration groups" to commit human rights violations and of "failing to restrain forces under their authority". At least 27 people, including three priests, were hacked and shot to death. Many estimates put the toll in the church at more than 100.
Indonesia's human rights tribunal has this week handed down decisions in the first three of 18 cases. All accused were found not guilty except for one, the only Timorese-born defendant among the seven, the former governor of East Timor, Abilio Soares. He became the first person to be convicted of war crimes for the East Timor massacres for his failure to control his subordinates, though the reasons why he was convicted are not clear as no judgements have yet been published. Soares was sentenced to just three years prison -- less than a third of the 10-year sentence sought by the prosecution as the minimum applicable under the law for war crimes.
Explaining their reasons for slashing the minimum in this first war crimes case, the judges gave an insight into their thinking, which reflects a wider view in Indonesia. They singled out the "deceitful" behaviour of the United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) which, they said, was in part to blame for the massacres, along with the "arrogance" of the pro-independence supporters.
Their observations angered the UN Human Rights Commissioner, Mary Robinson, who issued a blunt criticism of the trial process, but it is the view heard on the streets. Despite the near 80 per cent vote for independence, many Indonesians still believe the East Timorese wanted to remain part of Indonesia. And they also believe the massacres before and after the ballot were caused by fights between pro and anti-independence groups in East Timor, not by their own security forces manipulating militias.
No-one is much interested in the evidence to the contrary, certainly not the prosecution lawyers. Indeed, their cases have been so limp, with a paucity of credible witnesses or other evidence, that acquittals were widely anticipated.
"By all rights, given the weakness of the case against Silaen, he should probably be acquitted," predicted Sidney Jones, of the human rights body International Crisis Group, just before the judgement.
These trials were supposed to provide a forum that would reveal to Indonesians compelling evidence of what really happened in East Timor and begin the process of making their armed forces accountable in other areas where they have been guilty of gross human rights violations.
Instead, said Mr Jones, the court testimony has been "like a broken record stuck on all the sins of UNAMET ... how they manipulated the result, how they hired pro-independence staff, how they hid ballot boxes, how they tried to disarm pro- integration forces".
Indonesia set up its human rights court to avoid the UN establishing its own tribunals.
Prosecuting these crimes is an important step for Indonesia and its international standing as it continues to become a more transparent and accountable democracy.
The United States is watching these trials to judge whether to resume military co-operation, which was suspended after the East Timor atrocities. The way things are looking, there is little prospect of that.
Melbourne Age - August 16, 2002
Jill Jolliffe, Dili -- The sentencing of their former governor, Abilio Soares, to three years in prison for failing to stop the 1999 violence drew a mixed response from the people of East Timor yesterday.
East Timor's Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta expressed fears that only East Timorese, such as Soares, would be punished for the violence.
"To me, it is not whether the verdict is fair or not," Mr Ramos Horta said. "I only wonder whether the East Timor people are going to be paying for the sins of the Indonesians." He said there were "extenuating circumstances", citing cases when Soares saved lives and protected people. "Also, anyone who knows the situation knows that no Timorese official had power over the security forces." President Xanana Gusmao has appealed for clemency, but other East Timorese thought Soares' sentence was inadequate.
Joaquim Fonseca of Yayasan Hak, East Timor's leading human rights body, said: "Three years is nothing for a person who held high responsibility within the Indonesian framework. He should have been charged with more than failing to stop atrocities. We have evidence that he organised the money to finance the militias."
United Press International - August 14, 2002
William M. Reilly, United Nations -- The United Nations expressed dismay over the Ad Hoc Human Rights Tribunal in Indonesia following the verdict Wednesday against former East Timor Governor Abilio Soares with both Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Human Rights High Commissioner Mary Robinson questioning the tribunal's practices.
Soares, proclaiming innocence, vowed to appeal. Robinson expressed in a statement from Geneva concern that the Indonesian prosecution never presented the court "evidence that portrays the killings and other human rights violations" in East Timor following the 1999 independence ballot as part of "a widespread or systematic pattern of violence."
Annan, through spokeswoman Hua Jiang, endorsed Robinson's statement but called attention to prosecutors and defendants suggesting there were irregularities in the conduct of the UN Mission in East Timor during the August 30, 1999, Popular Consultation.
"These irregularities are alleged to have contributed to the widespread violence that engulfed the territory in September 1999," Annan said. "These allegations are false."
For the record, the spokeswoman noted, security at the time of balloting "rested at all times with the Indonesian authorities, not with UNAMET, as set out in the agreements of May 5, 1999. Furthermore UNAMET was completely unarmed."
Hua also said an electoral commission certified the results and not one ballot box was unaccounted for; that recruitment to work in UNAMET was open to all qualified East Timorese regardless of political beliefs and announcement of the ballots' result "was in accordance with planned procedures, in consultation with the Indonesian government."
Said the statement, "It cannot be concluded that the large scale, organized and coordinated violence of September and October 1999 following the announcement of the result of the popular consultation was a consequence of any irregularities in the ballot, bias or abdication of security responsibilities on the part of UNAMET.
"It should also be recalled that in the violence, UN local staff were killed because they worked for UNAMET and UN property was systematically looted and destroyed," the statement said. "The United Nations reiterates its offer to make available to the Ad Hoc Human Rights Tribunal, upon request of the Indonesian authorities, evidence in connection with these or other relevant issues."
Robinson, a human rights lawyer by profession, in addition to being the former president of Ireland, was concerned at omissions.
"The indictments present the killings and other abuses [of human rights law] as the result of spontaneous conflict between armed factions within East Timorese Society," she said in her statement. "This seriously undermines the strength of the prosecution's case and jeopardized the integrity and credibility of the process.
"This approach contradicts the conclusions of the International Commission of Inquiry on East Timor of January 31, 2000," the high commissioner said.
"That inquiry concluded that 'there were patterns of gross violations of human rights and breaches of humanitarian law which varied over time and took the form of systematic and widespread intimidations, humiliation and terror, destruction of property, violence against women and displacement of people,'" she said. "'Patterns were also found relating to the destruction of evidence and the involvement of the Indonesian Army and the militias in the violations.'"
Robinson said in her statement that the prosecution's approach "also conflicts with the judgments of the UN-sponsored Serious Crimes Court in Dili, which has handed down a number of convictions for crimes against humanity based upon the court's conclusion that members of the Indonesian Army planned, carried out and directed militia to participate in widespread and systematic attacks on the East Timorese civilian population in 1999."
The high commissioner also expressed concern the prosecution only presented "a very small percentage of available testimony and evidence of victims and eyewitnesses" despite UN offers of assistance.
"Those few East Timorese witnesses who have traveled to Jakarta to give evidence have complained of intimidation, inside and outside the courtroom," she said, adding that the witnesses also complained of a lack of adequate interpretation and absence of an effective witness protection program.
"The United Nations urges the Indonesian authorities to urgently take all possible measures to ensure that they investigate fully the violations of human rights and international and humanitarian law perpetrated in East Timor in the period leading up to and immediately following the popular consultation," said the statement which also called for the tribunal to "function in full respect of international human rights standards."
Agence France Presse - August 15, 2002
Joaquim Fonseca's anger is clear as he recalls the massacre at a police station in the East Timor town of Maliana and the cold- blooded shooting of a young man by police in the capital, Dili.
He has no hesitation recalling other police failings, too, in the months leading up to East Timor's 1999 referendum on independence from Indonesia -- failings an Indonesian court ignored when it acquitted on Thursday the former East Timor police chief, Timbul Silaen, of gross human rights violations.
"How many militia have they arrested for killing people in Dili? They did not arrest anyone. They did not do their job," Fonseca, of the leading East Timor human rights organization, Yayasan Hak, told AFP from Melbourne, Australia, where he is visiting.
Under the May 5, 1999 international agreement that laid the framework for East Timor's August 30 referendum, Indonesian police -- not the military -- had sole responsibility for ensuring security.
On the surface, the police took their job seriously, dispatching boatloads of extra officers who wore smart-looking shoulder flashes that identified them as part of a contingent to ensure calm in the months leading up to the ballot.
Those and other Indonesian officers worked with unarmed international United Nations police advisers, who expressed quiet frustration at the inability of their Indonesian colleagues to conduct proper investigations and ensure security -- the job they were assigned to do.
Armed militiamen were free to roam the streets of Dili and other East Timor towns killing at will without police intervention. At times, the police themselves even became the killers.
In front of foreign journalists shortly before the referendum, police in Dili shot dead a young man armed only with stones.
After the ballot, a police station in the border town of Maliana became the scene of one of the worst post-referendum massacres. According to a Yayasan Hak report, thousands of refugees had sought shelter at the police station when militia went through the camp with death lists. The report said 47 people died.
"Where were police standing at that point?" Fonseca asked. "What about the destruction of my own office?. How long did I have to stay on the phone to get the police to come to my office?" he said. By the time police arrived, almost three hours later, the Yayasan headquarters had been destroyed, he said.
Manuel Carrascalao, an East Timorese independence leader, disagreed with Fonseca's criticism, saying former police chief Silaen was justly acquitted.
"I feel it's appropriate because he's one of the men that helped to protect people," Carrascalao said from Dili, recalling that before the vote, police allowed about 200 East Timorese to seek shelter from violence in a large hall at police headquarters. Carrascalao did not testify during Silaen's trial but has given testimony in three other human rights cases.
A separate panel of judges Thursday found one police officer and four army officers not guilty of charges related to a massacre in a church in the East Timor town of Suai in Covalima district in 1999.
South China Morning Post - August 15, 2002
Chris McCall -- Abilio Soares' light sentence finally proves that Indonesia's human rights trials related to East Timor are just a ploy to satisfy the international community, a top Indonesian rights activist said yesterday.
Munarman described the trials as "camouflage" and said the aim was merely to put a stop to international pressure on the East Timor issue. Comparing the trials to theatre, Mr Munarman said they had clearly been designed to ensure that the accused got off lightly.
However, he said the questionable sentence handed down to the former governor posed other questions for the future of Indonesia's legal system.
Although Soares was only jailed for three years, the 2000 law on human rights trials specifies a minimum sentence of 10 years for such cases.
"By giving a sentence which is under 10 years, this is going to damage the Indonesian legal system," said Mr Munarman, head of the civil rights division at the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation. "We would have been better if from the start the court had freed him. It was weakness by the prosecution. From the start this court was not prepared seriously."
The judges justified their ruling on the grounds that they were not restricted purely to considering the actual texts of laws. They gave a long recitation of precedents from various international covenants on human rights to justify their action.
However, Mr Munarman said such arguments were only admissible when considering the validity of evidence, not in determining a verdict and sentence.
The evidence presented in court was overwhelmingly from the pro- autonomy side. Arrangements were never properly put in place, Mr Munarman said, for witnesses for the pro-independence side to be brought from East Timor.
"How to bring the witnesses was never arranged. It was designed so that they could not attend, so the evidence would be less heavy against the accused," he said.
From the start the specially appointed judges have been criticised as inexperienced, while international critics have seen a behind-the-scenes plot to save figures higher up in the chain of command and rescue Indonesia's international image.
South China Morning Post - August 15, 2002
Peter Kammerer -- Reconciliation between East Timor and Indonesia has become a tussle of diplomacy versus justice -- and it seems clear the latter will lose.
That will be a tragedy for East Timor's people, who long for retribution for 24 years of often brutal Indonesian occupation. They want a Yugoslavia- or Rwanda-style international tribunal to bring to trial the generals behind military and militia abuses that left hundreds dead in an orgy of massacres, disappearances and rapes.
It is the last thing East Timor's President, Xanana Gusmao, and Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta want. They have publicly said that reconciliation with their giant neighbour will come not from the judicial process but by building strong diplomatic and economic relations.
Despite the official denial, activists like Jovito Araugo, a Catholic priest who is vice-chairman of East Timor's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Benevides Correia Barros, a lawyer who was a key agitator for independence, are optimistic that a United Nations-sponsored tribunal will be set up.
The commission is working on a report detailing the abuses committed by Indonesia's military from its invasion in 1975 to 1999, when East Timorese voted for independence. Father Jovito said yesterday it would be completed in 2004.
"The most important thing we can do is find out the facts, write them down and give them to the appropriate people to consider -- the government, the international community and the United Nations," he said in Dili.
He said the tribunal under way in Jakarta was not trying the appropriate people -- the generals who ordered the military to commit abuses. These same men were behind human rights violations in the Indonesian provinces of Aceh and Irian Jaya and an international tribunal was the best way for them to be brought to justice.
Mr Correia Barros was adamant that the only way normalisation with Indonesia could be achieved was through a tribunal. The perpetrators of what he called "crime against humanity" had to face judges.
He said it was best to concentrate on what took place in 1999. Militias backed by the Indonesian military had run amok, killing civilians and destroying buildings to intimidate East Timorese not to vote for independence. "The military was the mastermind in this incident," Mr Correia Barros said. "It should be held accountable."
But human rights workers in Indonesia said a tribunal was out of the question. It was a matter for the UN Security Council and China, the United States and Russia were not in favour and would use their powers of veto.
"Gusmao and Ramos Horta are bending over backwards to say that the process in Indonesia is satisfactory and that an international tribunal is not a priority," one said. "If the East Timorese leadership is not interested, you're certainly not going to get any support from outside."
Press Release - August 15, 2002 (abridged)
In a joint statement issued today, Amnesty International and the Judicial System Monitoring Programme (JSMP) expressed their grave disappointment in the trials of the first East Timor cases in Indonesia.
The findings of the two organizations show that the trials were seriously flawed, have not been performed in accordance with international standards, and have delivered neither truth nor justice.
The former Governor of East Timor, Abilio Jose Osorio Soares was found guilty yesterday of committing crimes against humanity by failing to control subordinates and sentenced to three years' imprisonment.
The former Regional Police Commander, Brigadier General Timbul Silaen, who was responsible for security around the 1999 ballot on independence, was acquitted. Five Indonesian military, police and government officials who are accused of failing to prevent a massacre in Suai on 6 September 1999, were also found not guilty.
Both organizations have been monitoring the trials closely. JSMP, supported by the International Platform of Jurists for East Timor (IPJET), is the only independent organization which had international legal observers consistently present during the trials.
Amnesty International and JSMP believe that the Indonesian prosecutors failed in their duty under international law to bring effective prosecutions against the accused by presenting indictments which did not correspond to allegations about the conduct of the accused, ignoring relevant evidence and by presenting cases which deliberately failed to prove the widespread and systematic nature of the violations that occurred in East Timor.
The two organizations have documented a succession of serious procedural and other failures which meant that the trials did not achieve the objectives of delivering justice and revealing the truth about the extent of the involvement of members of the Indonesian security forces and civilian authorities in perpetrating crimes against humanity and other serious crimes in East Timor in 1999.
Among the problems identified by the two organizations were:
The trials of 11 other suspects, including several senior military officials, are still in progress. Both Amnesty International and JSMP are seriously concerned that the indictments issued and initial proceedings in these cases are similarly flawed.
In addition to procedural failures the two organizations have been concerned by the succession of decisions by the Indonesian authorities which undermined at an early stage the prospect of a credible or effective justice process. Such obstacles included a decision by President Megawati Sukarnoputri to limit the jurisdiction of the court such that it can only hear a handful out of the many hundreds of cases of serious crimes that were committed in East Timor during 1999.
If Indonesia is to fulfil its international obligation to provide a credible remedy for the gross human rights violations committed in East Timor both the weaknesses of Indonesia's judicial system and political resistance to holding perpetrators of human rights violations to account must be simultaneously addressed.
The process in Indonesia has also highlighted the need for Indonesia to cooperate with the trial process currently taking place in East Timor. So far 114 people have been charged with committing serious crimes, including crimes against humanity, by East Timor's Deputy Prosecutor General. Many are living in Indonesia. Indonesia has so far refused to transfer any of them to East Timor for trial by the UN established Special Panel for Serious Crimes, and has also taken no steps to bring most of them to justice in its own courts.
In view of the serious problems with the trials in Jakarta, Amnesty International and JSMP believe that it is also the moment for UN to review its decision not to pursue the recommendations of its own International Commission of Inquiry on East Timor to establish an international criminal tribunal.
The crimes committed in East Timor during 1999 were of such a serious nature that they cannot go unpunished, but the prospect of Indonesia being able to fulfil its responsibility to deliver a credible and effective justice process is now remote. Credible alternatives must therefore be sought.
Sydney Morning Herald - August 16, 2002
Matthew Moore, Jakarta -- Indonesia's human rights court yesterday acquitted four mid-ranking soldiers and two policemen, including the former East Timor police chief, of charges they were involved in war crimes that resulted in about 1000 East Timorese being massacred before and after the vote on independence three years ago.
The tribunal acquitted the former police chief Brigadier-General Timbul Silaen of allowing his officers to engage in a series of massacres, and cleared four mid-ranking soldiers and a policeman of responsibility for a massacre of 27 East Timorese in a church at Suai.
"The panel of judges ... hereby declare [the defendants] could not be proven guilty of gross human rights violations. All defendants must be cleared," the presiding judge, Cicut Sutiarso, told the court after hearing the prosecution argue for jail terms of about 10 years for their part in the church massacre inwhich three priests were killed.
Yesterday's verdicts were the second and third of the ad hoc tribunal. Army Colonel Herman Sedyono, Colonel Liliek Kushadianto, Major Achmad Syamsudin, Sugito and former Suai police chief Gatot Subiyaktoro faced a maximum penalty of death, although the prosecution in all cases so far has argued for leniency.
The judges said the massacres were done by militia and were not the responsibility of the Indonesian armed forces or police.
After the verdict Herman Sedyono, tears streaming down his face, said: "Thank God, the verdict is fair. I'm very glad and happy." The prosecution lawyer, Darmono, said he was disappointed with the verdict.
Hours before this verdict in one of the most notorious human rights abuse cases in Timor, Brigadier General Silaen was hugged and kissed by supporters who had packed the court to hear Judge Andi Samsan Nganro declare: "The defendant cannot be proven legally ... guilty of gross human rights violations." Yesterday's verdicts are certain to fuel criticism from human rights groups that the trials have been little more than a sham.
"The court's action is a mockery of justice. The sentence amounts to little more than a slap on the wrist," said Mike Jendrzejczyk, the Washington director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division on Wednesday after the former governor of East Timor, Abilio Soares, received a three-year jail term for his failure to prevent the massacres.
Amnesty International and the Judicial System Monitoring Program said in a joint statement that yesterday's verdicts were "seriously flawed, have not been performed in accordance with international standards, and have delivered neither truth nor justice".
The UN Human Rights Commissioner, Mary Robinson, also criticised the trials for their failure to reveal the role of the Indonesian armed forces in the killings.
But a spokesman for Indonesia's Foreign Ministry, Dr Marty Natalegawa, said the world was "too quick to criticise". "I think we should all desist from second guessing ... It's easy for us as armchair enthusiasts to make comments ... about what should or should not have been submitted."
[Matthew Moore has taken up the post of Jakarta Correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Melbourne. Moore, a senior reporter with the Herald, has been granted an unconditional working journalist's visa by the Indonesian authorities. He replaces Lindsay Murdoch, who, earlier this year, was denied an extension of his working visa in Indonesia.]
South China Morning Post - August 15, 2002
The suffering East Timorese endured under Indonesian rule will define relations between the two countries for generations. Apologies and half-hearted trials of alleged perpetrators will not erase the 24 years of massacres, rapes and destruction of property.
There is no doubt the people of the world's newest nation want reconciliation with their neighbour. East Timor's livelihood and security is dependent on such a process taking place. Yet Indonesia seems determined not to act responsibly.
A human rights court in Jakarta yesterday sentenced the last governor of East Timor, Abilio Soares, to three years' jail for failing to stop military-backed militias from causing havoc on the eve of 1999's independence vote. Another 17 former government officials, army officers and police commanders face trials in coming months.
That the prosecution and defence in Soares' trial showed little enthusiasm to present and refute evidence revealed Indonesia's true level of resolve for justice. The case and those remaining will surely not placate East Timorese.
Those before the court are, after all, the wrong people. They were small fish in the sea of atrocities that took place. Those behind the activities which scarred East Timor the generals who gave the orders -- are still free.
Indonesia's leaders had previously been seen as trying to make amends. President Megawati Sukarnoputri attended independence celebrations in Dili and she has welcomed her East Timorese counterpart, Xanana Gusmao, in Jakarta. Both sides are reportedly close to ending border and refugee disputes.
But there can be no reconciliation while the men behind Indonesia's ignoble occupation of East Timor elude justice. This is unlikely given the powerful influence still wielded by the military.
The international community must exert pressure on Ms Megawati and her government to ensure the perpetrators are arrested, charged and put on trial.
If necessary, the United Nations should step in to maintain international standards of justice. Only then can the ghosts of East Timor's past be exorcised.
Radio Australia - August 16, 2002
The United States has called on the Indonesian government to redouble efforts to prosecute human rights abuses by its security forces in East Timor.
The call follows the acquittal of a police chief and five others on such charges.
An American State Department spokesman, Philip Reeker, says Washington strongly supports the process of seeking accountability for crimes committed in East Timor.
In its first verdict, former East Timor governor Abilio Soares received a three year jail sentence for failing to control his subordinates from committing crimes against humanity.
Yesterday, the court acquitted a former East Timor police commander, along with five Indonesian military and police officers accused of failing to prevent a church massacre in Suai in 1999.
Amnesty International and the Judicial System Monitoring Program sharply criticized the court verdicts.
New York Times - August 15, 2002
Jane Perlez, Jakarta -- An Indonesian human rights court today acquitted six military and police officials of crimes against humanity in East Timor after a pro-independence vote three years ago, a verdict that did not please the Bush administration as it seeks to rebuild military ties here.
Five of the accused were on trial for failing to stop a massacre at the Ave Maria Church in Suai, in which at least 27 people, including three priests, were slain. The massacre was documented afterward as the most cold-blooded killing of the violence that consumed the territory after a vote for independence in September 1999.
Among those acquitted was the former regional police commander, Brig. Gen. Timbul Silaen, who was responsible for the security of the balloting, which was sponsored by the United Nations.
Anxious to renew its relationship with the police and military of Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, the Bush administration announced new aid for the police this month that American officials said was intended to help build a counter- terrorism unit.
Washington also said it would permit Indonesian Army officers to go to the United States for limited training, but underscored that a more robust training program would take place if the military demonstrated some accountability for what happened in East Timor. Today's verdicts were a "disappointment," an American official said. At a time when the United States is trying to "reach out" to Indonesia, the official said, the court's decision will not be helpful.
American officials had expressed some confidence that the government would live up to reassurances they said were given in private that Indonesia would do the "right thing" in the trials. But Indonesia has been intent on not appearing to allow any interference with its sovereignty, and President Megawati Sukarnoputri has been careful to steer a fairly neutral foreign policy.
Four of the six defendants today were officers of the Indonesian Army, which has regained some of its lost stature during the yearlong presidency of Mrs. Megawati.
The Bush administration has managed to overcome much of the resistance in Congress to renewing military ties with Indonesia. American military aid was severed by the Clinton administration after the East Timor bloodletting.
Today's verdicts could slow what the administration hoped would be a fairly smooth course to the resumption of healthy military relations.
The commander of United States forces in the Pacific, Adm. Thomas Fargo, who was in Jakarta today, suggested the need for the Indonesian military to face up to the past. Speaking just before the verdicts were announced, the admiral said, "It would be inappropriate for me to comment on the legal proceedings, but obviously a large part of our effort is to encourage accountability and reform."
On Wednesday, a civilian, the former governor of East Timor, Abilio Soares, was found guilty of crimes against humanity for failing to control subordinates. He was sentenced to three years in prison.
After today's verdicts, human rights experts said that the prosecutors had failed to bring effective cases. They said that important evidence gathered by Indonesia's own Commission of Inquiry on human rights violations in East Timor, and the United Nations International Commission of Inquiry, was ignored. Several witnesses from East Timor refused to appear before the court because the Indonesian government would not guarantee their security, they said.
Lusa - August 14, 2002
An American NGO campaigning for human rights in East Timor called Wednesday for the setting up of an international tribunal to punish crimes against humanity committed throughout the 24-year Indonesian occupation of the territory, as opposed to the two months currently being focused on by an Indonesian court.
As an ad hoc tribunal in Jakarta announced its first verdict Wednesday, sentencing a former governor of East Timor to three years'imprisonment for failure to prevent massacres, the US-based East Timor Action Network (ETAN) said in a press release that the Indonesian trials are "so flawed, regardless of their outcome, they cannot satisfy the need for justice for East Timor".
"The conduct of the trials confirms that their purpose was to deflect international criticism rather than get to the truth", said John Miller of ETAN in the press release. "If those who committed war crimes and crimes against humanity go unpunished, there will be serious implications for the healing and reconstruction process in East Timor and the rule of law in Indonesia, added Miller.
"Nobody was tried for the many atrocities that occurred outside of these very narrow time periods and locations [August-September 1999 and only in three of Timor`s 13 districts]. Without an international tribunal, those most responsible for orchestrating the violence and devastation in 1999 and before will inevitably remain free", said Miller.
Joint Press Statement - August 14, 2002
East Timorese demands for justice will not be satisfied by the conviction of former East Timor governor Abilio Soares for crimes against humanity committed in East Timor in 1999 say CAFOD, CIIR and TAPOL.
For these crimes he was given a sentence of three years imprisonment. The three British organisations demand the immediate establishment of an international criminal tribunal for East Timor and insist that the international community must provide long-term support for serious crimes investigations and prosecutions in East Timor.
"The proceedings in all the current Jakarta trials have been a travesty of justice aimed at protecting senior Indonesian army officers and covering up the truth of what happened in East Timor," says CAFOD's East Timor Programme Officer, Clare Danby.
The verdict is the first in a series of trials of 18 military and police officers, civilian officials and militia members accused of involvement in crimes against humanity in East Timor.
"Those charged are only expendable scapegoats. They may bear some responsibility for the appalling violence, but the military masterminds who planned and orchestrated the campaign of brutality are enjoying immunity from prosecution courtesy of the Indonesian authorities," says Danby. She adds: "Now that Indonesia has failed to bring the real perpetrators to justice, the international community must live up to its responsibility for justice by setting up an international tribunal and fully supporting East Timor's serious crimes process. Senior figures in the Indonesian military and government must face trial."
All the trials have featured weak indictments and the false portrayal of events as part of a conflict between two violent East Timorese factions in which the Indonesian security forces were essentially bystanders. In many cases, prosecution counsel acted as if they were representing the accused. Evidence to prove the essential elements of crimes against humanity, including that needed to prove a widespread and systematic attack on the civilian population of East Timor, was deliberately ignored.
The likelihood of the trials producing an accurate record of what happened in East Timor was severely reduced by the limited mandate of the court, the inadequate protection for witnesses, and the highly intimidating atmosphere of the courtroom created by the presence of senior generals and noisy demonstrators led by notorious militia leader and suspect Eurico Guterres.
CAFOD, CIIR and TAPOL are concerned about the link between the lack of justice for East Timor and ongoing rights violations in Indonesia. The organisations fear if the international community fails to live up to its promise of justice for East Timor, the practice of impunity will continue in Indonesia. What happened in East Timor is now happening in areas such as Aceh and West Papua with abuses by the very same military personnel as were responsible for the carnage in East Timor.
Furthermore, the resumption of US military ties with Indonesia is partly dependent on justice for East Timor. The organisations say it will be a tragedy if the international community not only accepts these trials, but rewards Indonesia by re-engaging with the military and selling it more arms.
A UN Commission of Inquiry found evidence of "a pattern of serious violations of fundamental human rights" in relation to the 1999 violence and expressed the view that "ultimately the Indonesian army was responsible for the intimidation, terror, killings and other acts of violence". It recommended the establishment of an international tribunal when it reported in January 2000.
Associated Press - August 14, 2002
Steven Gutkin, Jakarta -- In the first verdict in a series of trials of former Indonesian officials charged with crimes against humanity, the ex-governor of East Timor was convicted Wednesday of allowing massacres and sentenced to three years in prison.
Abilio Soares punched his fist into the air after hearing the verdict and promised to appeal. Prosecutors, too, said they would appeal what they described as a too-lenient sentence. "I've been made a scapegoat," Soares told reporters. "How can I, one person, disband a militia which is armed with spears, axes and guns?"
The verdict was delivered by a human rights court trying the cases of 18 former officials charged with crimes against humanity for their alleged involvement in violence that shook East Timor at the time of its 1999 independence referendum.
Human rights groups have called the trials a whitewash -- and Soares' three-year sentence was likely to do little to dispel that impression. "This shows that Indonesia is not serious about justice for what happened in East Timor," said Rosentino Amaduhei of Yayasan Hak, East Timor's leading human rights organization.
Speaking in the East Timorese capital of Dili, he said a three- year sentence was ridiculous, adding that individual militiamen had been sentenced to 20 years in jail in East Timor for a single murder.
"The verdict is irrelevant as the process from the beginning was deeply, deeply flawed," said Sidney Jones from the Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group. "By no stretch of the imagination can you say justice has been achieved."
Soares was Indonesia's governor of East Timor during the UN- organized plebiscite. He is one of three Timorese among the 18 defendants, who include the Indonesian military and police commanders of the province at the time.
Judge Emmy Murni Mustafa said the defendant had "failed to prevent his men from committing grave human rights violations."
She said Soares was given a lighter sentence than the 10 years requested by the prosecution because of a request for leniency from East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao. "The letter shows a spirit of reconciliation, which could have been buried by a heavy sentence," Mustafa said.
The ad hoc human rights court was established last year in response to intense international pressure for Jakarta to bring to justice those responsible for the bloodshed.
The Jakarta trials -- played out since March in cramped and sweltering courtrooms -- have been fraught with shortcomings, critics say. The indictments play down the role of the military, which the United Nations has blamed for the violence.
But Judge Mustafa echoed the government position, saying both sides were to blame. "The clashes which occurred were started by both the pro-independence and anti-independence groups so therefore both sides must share the responsibility for the violence," she said.
If the trials of three army and police generals result in convictions, it would be the first time high-ranking Indonesian military commanders have been punished for decades of abuses in East Timor and elsewhere in the country.
Hundreds were killed in the lead-up to the August 30, 1999 referendum that saw the overwhelming majority of Timorese vote for independence. After the ballot, Indonesia's army and its militia proxies killed up to 1,000 people and forced at least 250,000 others to flee to neighboring West Timor.
The violence only ended when an Australian-led peacekeeping force arrived in September 1999. In May, the nation of 800,000 declared its nationhood after 2 years of UN administration.
Radio Australia - August 14, 2002
[The former governor of East Timor, Abilio Soares, has become the first Indonesian official to be sentenced to jail for gross human rights violations in East Timor in 1999. A special human rights court presided by Judge Emi Marni Mustafa sentenced Soares to three years' in jail, well short of the 10-and-a-half years sought by prosecutors. Judge Emi found Soares guilty of failing to prevent and stop violence involving his subordinates -- resulting in more than 100 deaths.]
Presenter/Interviewer: Sen Lam
Speakers: Sidney Jones, from the International Crisis Group in Jakarta
Lam: Sidney Jones is the verdict a satisfactory one?
Jones: "In fact these trials have been so twisted that in a sense the guilty verdict is as much a travesty of justice as an acquittal would have been. It's not the verdicts that we should be looking at, it's the whole process from the first indictments, and in fact the prosecution failed to present a single witness that didn't help the defence."
Lam: So you agree with critics then who say that the trials were meant to avert an international tribunal?
Jones: "Well it's not clear whether they were meant to avert an international tribunal because it's not clear that an international tribunal was in the cards, but what is clear if that no information came out of this particular trial or of any of the others that are currently ongoing about the Indonesian government's role in the violence that took place in East Timor in 1999."
Lam: So what now for Abilio Soares, is he likely to appeal?
Jones: "He certainly is likely to appeal, we don't know that for a fact yet, but I think one of the interesting things is going to be to see how the international community reacts because it would be a real mistake to equate convictions with accountability. The whole issue of holding the military accountable for what it did in East Timor in 1999 is not going to be served by a few guilty verdicts."
Lam: Indeed there have also been calls for higher ranking military generals to be brought to trial, is there a sense then that people at the local level are being sacrificed while maintaining the impunity if you like of the higher ranking generals in Jakarta?
Jones: "Well we'll have to see what happens with two of the ongoing trials -- General Adam Dimiri, who is the most senior officer on trial and who bizzarrely appeared as a witness for the prosecution in the trial of the governor today is someone who is likely to be very strongly supported by his fellow officers when he does come to trial. I think if they can't produce any evidence against Dimiri and it's unlikely that there will be any evidence produced, the chances of going any higher are virtually nil."
Lam: All the same though do you think the sentencing today and verdict today passed on Abilio Soares that it is a good start in the right direction?
Jones: "I don't see how you can say it's a good start in the right direction if the whole process was so deeply flawed from the very beginning. If the fact that military officers were brought to an ad hoc human rights tribunal was a first step toward accountability then I would say maybe it was useful, but in fact even the mandate of the court was so flawed you couldn't get at the notion that the state was involved in widespread and systematic violence. Absent that it's hard to see how these trials did anything except trivialise the whole concept of crimes against humanity."
Lam: And yet there are still other defendants awaiting trial, another 17 more I understand?
Jones: "That's right but we're going to face the same basic design flaw in all of those trials and again the mistake will be to see the verdicts as indicative of much of anything when it's been the whole way in which the charges have been drawn up and pursued that's at the heart of why these are so unsatisfactory."
Reuters - August 13, 2002
Joanne Collins, Jakarta -- Indonesia is due to deliver on Wednesday its first verdict in landmark trials over violence linked to East Timor's bloody independence vote in 1999, but many who have followed the process doubt justice will be served.
The trials were branded a farce by some leading human rights groups and East Timorese even before they began five months ago, mainly because the authorities did not declare Indonesia's military chief at the time of the carnage a suspect.
But the absence of General Wiranto from the dock has become less of a talking point as the trials have progressed.
"In some ways the process has been so bad that it almost would be better if there hadn't been trials at all," said Jakarta-based human rights expert Sidney Jones.
"There is no question that the biggest flaw is the unwillingness of prosecutors to treat these cases as real cases of crimes against humanity," said Jones, Indonesia project direct for the International Crisis Group think-tank.
Responding to various criticisms, Chuck Suryo Sumpeno, head of the attorney-general's media unit, said: "It's alright for them to have these opinions but the prosecutors have considered many factors in making their charges. They have stuck by the legal principle of non-bias."
The first verdict due to be handed down is for East Timor's former governor Abilio Soares, who is charged with failing to halt the orgy of violence before and after the ballot in which East Timor overwhelmingly voted to split from Indonesia.
Prosecutors have demanded a 10 1/2-year jail term for Soares who has denied any wrongdoing and called his trial a sham. The charge carries a maximum penalty of death.
Soares is among 18 suspects being tried over the bloodshed, in which the United Nations estimates more than 1,000 people were killed by machete-wielding militiamen with military backing.
International outrage?
Indonesia is under intense pressure to punish those responsible for the mayhem. The US ambassador to Indonesia last week said that the United States and the rest of the world were closely watching the trials and the result would help determine whether full US-Indonesia military ties would be restored.
The United States largely cut military ties with Jakarta following the wave of violence by pro-Jakarta militiamen and has said Indonesia must account for what happened in East Timor.
But Jones said there was little the international community could do if the punishment did not reflect the crime. "There are very few responses the international community can make now except to indicate through statements that this was not a satisfactory process," she said.
An international tribunal like those for some officials of former Yugoslavia and Rwanda were out of the question for a variety of reasons, Jones said. "It's not going to happen in terms of not wanting to disturb Indonesia at a time when it's just come through with major democratic reforms."
'A good beginning'
Catholic priest Father Jovito, vice chair of East Timor's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, made a plea to members of the international community to express outrage rather than seek to protect their own interests.
"Human rights are human rights. Don't mix it with politics and economics," he told Reuters by telephone from the East Timor capital of Dili.
Speaking at a news conference in Malaysia, East Timor Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said he thought the Indonesian efforts were "a good beginning of the whole process," but hoped not only ethnic Timorese were going to be condemned but also Indonesians. "Some parties in government have to be put in the court to be charged," he added.
H S Dillon, an outgoing member of Indonesia's human rights commission, said he did not expect any of the defendants to be handed harsh sentences. He said the judges were in a predicament because the prosecution had presented them with weak cases, but added that the prosecution also faced a dilemma.
"When you are a prosecutor, why would you really want to prosecute the army generals? The only thing you might get is a bullet in your head," said Dillon, part of the first team of Indonesian investigators to visit East Timor after the bloodshed.
| Human rights/law |
Melbourne Age - August 17, 2002
Jill Jolliffe, Dili -- Almost the entire population of East Timor's main jail broke out yesterday in protest against the long delays in processing their cases.
One prisoner was shot in the shoulder and two guards were injured when about 300 prisoners escaped during visiting hours at Becora prison on the outskirts of Dili. By last night, about 200 had been recaptured.
The breakout underlined a flawed legacy of the United Nations, which brought East Timor to independence without building an adequate justice system. Most prisoners are on remand and their main grievance is that they are in prison beyond the legal limit. Some have been awaiting trial for more than two years. There is a shortage of judges and other court officials, and a long waiting list of cases.
Sixty prisoners were taken back to cells early in the breakout. About 150 who gathered in a deserted building nearby were surrounded by hundreds of East Timorese and UN police. About 100 others ran away.
Internal Affairs Minister Rogerio Lobato said the government would urgently review the prisoners' cases. "As prisoners these people have lost their liberty, but they haven't lost their right to a fair trial."
exploded among a crowd of civil servants preparing to celebrate Indonesia's independence day in the Acehnese capital, officals said.
The wounded included two children, one of whom triggered the bomb when he rode over it on his bicycle, police said. Witnesses said a total of 13 people were hurt but the state news agency, Antara, reported 10 victims.
The blast occurred about 8am Saturday at Blang Padang field in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital. It was the most serious of numerous explosions and shootings which occurred throughout the capital and in the districts of Bireuen and North Aceh since Friday night.
In another incident, two police officers were wounded when a bomb exploded near their patrol in Banda Aceh Friday.
After Saturday morning's blast, a destroyed bicycle remained on the ground among a large amount of blood. Soldiers said they recovered many pieces of metal from the blast site.
Separatist rebels of the Free Aceh Movement called for a strike across the province Saturday.
In Lhokseumawe, home of ExxonMobil oil and natural gas facilities, public transport stayed off the streets and stores remained shut Saturday morning as residents stayed indoors, except for young boys playing soccer.
Soldiers and police were stationed throughout the city and also guarded a city field where police, soldiers and civil servants gathered to celebrate 57 years of Indonesian independence.
The government considers ExxonMobil to be a strategic national asset, and it is heavily guarded by troops.
GAM has been fighting for an independent state since 1976. An estimated 10,000 people have died during more than 25 years of violence in the energy-rich province on the westernmost tip of Sumatra island. An Acehnese rights body has said 845 civilians have been killed in Aceh this year alone.
Lusa - August 12, 2002
Dmli -- The National Parliament of Timor approved and ratified today to adhesion from Timor to the International Criminal Court (TPI), with 70 votes to favor and barely an abstention, of the representative Leandro Isaac.
The projecto of resolution, number 15/2002, was approved during the session plenaria from the afternoon (local hour) of today, after a debate of around a hour in that the representatives analyzed several aspects of the Statute of Rome.
Specially in analysis were eventual contradictions between the Statute and the Constitution of East Timor, namely where it touches onquestions of extradition and to the application of penalty.
It is the case from the forecast, in the Statute, from the perpetual prison, that is not permitted in the law-base native of timor and still the case from the extradition that Timor does not foresee.
The proposal approved today included a statement interpretativa in that Timor "declares its intention of exercise the power of jurisdiction about persons found in national territory indiciadas by the crimes predicted" in the Statute, "with observance of the its constitutional rules and too internal penal legislation".
The statement refers even if "the requests of cooperation and the documents comprovativos that instruct them" prepared by the TPI "they should be written in Portuguese language or accompanied of a translation in this language".
In statements to the agency Lusa after the vote, the president of the National Parliament, Francisco Guterres (Lu-Olo) considered the ratification of the TPI important for Timor, specially in the chart from theirs own history.
"We are a small country, that aim of violations went and upon we will approve this resolution do not we leave of have in count to ours own history", affirmed.
"They will not want see repeated noutros small countries the mesmas forms of oppression and tyranny of that we own went aim. For that end, the TPI he is specially helpful", he highlighted.
| News & issues |
Melbourne Age - August 15, 2002
Jill Jolliffe, Dili -- The Dutch Government has promised to continue pressing Jakarta to prosecute the alleged killer of Dutch journalist Sander Thoenes, despite Indonesian authorities saying there is insufficient evidence.
The Dutch ambassador to Indonesia, Baron Schelto van Heemstra, said his government was involved in "a long uphill battle" for justice in the case of the journalist, who was killed in Dili in September, 1999, while reporting on the arrival of international peacekeepers.
He said the Thoenes killing was one of the best-documented cases from 1999 presented to Jakarta and he hoped it would be possible to "break through the prevalence of impunity for serious human right violations".
The ambassador was speaking in Dili where he inaugurated a memorial to the reporter, who he said was "one of many who fell victim of a true orgy of violence".
Thoenes, 30, who was working for the London Financial Times newspaper, was shot dead in the Dili suburb of Becora on September 21, 1999, when he came across a convoy of troops from Indonesia's notorious Battalion 745. He had arrived in Dili only hours before. His mutilated body was found the next day.
A Dutch police investigation has reported that it has evi-dence from witnesses that the fatal shot was fired by Camillo dos Santos, a Timorese-born lieutenant serving with Battalion 745.
Sander Thoenes' brother, Peter, said he did not expect justice from Indonesia's special court on East Timor. "We have given up hope on Indonesia's ad hoc tribunal," he said. "They say 'yes, we will handle this case', but we know it's not politically acceptable for them to keep it open."
The Indonesian Attorney-General has refused to admit the case, saying the evidence is contradictory. But Jakarta is under increasing diplomatic pressure -- mainly from the European Union and the US -- to bring the perpetrators to trial.
The unveiling of the memorial to Thoenes was attended by East Timor Deputy Foreign Minister Jose Luis Guterres, diplomats from Britain, Australia, Portugal and the US, and UN staff.
Peter Thoenes, who travelled from Utrech with his wife Margreet to attend the ceremony, told The Age his elderly parents were not ready to confront the murder site.
Agence France Presse - August 13, 2002
Dili -- East Timor President Xanana Gusmao said Tuesday any trial for the murder of Dutch journalist Sander Thoenes should be held in his country.
"I would like the legal process to be held in East Timor so that East Timorese perpetrators could see for themselves that justice does exist," Gusmao said, referring to the possible role of East Timorese members of the Indonesian army in Thoenes' death.
Gusmao was speaking to reporters after talks with Peter Thoenes, the brother of Financial Times correspondent Sander who was killed in the Becora area of Dili on September 21, 1999.
Thoenes, Gusmao said, should stand as "an example for East Timorese press so that his bravery could be imitated by East Timorese journalists."
Dutch Ambassador Baron Schelter van Heemstra, who accompanied the elder Thoenes, said his government would seek justice, "no matter how long it takes."
Dutch police Superintendent Gerrit Thiry last month presented Indonesian investigators with a videotape that appears to support witness statements implicating Indonesian soldiers in Thoenes' murder.
"There is more than enough [evidence] to arrest at least several TNI [Indonesian armed forces] members as suspects in the hope that they will be questioned as suspects, not just as witnesses," Thiry said in July.
The spokesman for the Indonesian attorney general's office, Barman Zahir, confirmed Tuesday that the case remained open. He said prosecutors were still gathering witnesses but they must first ask permission from Jakarta's ad hoc human rights court to officially continue with the probe.
Zahir said the Indonesian investigators remained uncertain about who shot Thoenes, and they were "very hesitant" with a key witness of Thiry's.
Thoenes was riding pillion on a motorcycle at the time of his death. Thiry said the motorcycle driver has told investigators that shots were fired after he and Thoenes saw approaching troops from Indonesian Battalion 745. The rear tire of the bike went flat and Thoenes fell.
Other witnesses say soldiers were standing over Thoenes' body as a shot was heard and the motorcycle lying on the road was loaded onto an Indonesian army truck, Thiry said.
On the videotape, Thiry said, a black motorcycle was seen being unloaded from a truck at a Dili military base in the presence of soldiers and police wearing bandanas. Thiry said the tape showed the rear tyre of the motorcycle was flat.
Time Asia - August 19-26, 2002
Andrew Perrin -- The former custodians of the Hotel Flamboyan in Baucau, the picturesque seaside town on East Timor's northeast coast, had a lot to learn about hotel management.
Here, during East Timor's darkest days under Indonesian rule, paying guests were treated with disdain by staff dressed in combat fatigues and carrying M-16s and hand grenades. This was an Indonesian military facility that had kept its facade as a hotel to mask its real function as a place to detain, interrogate, torture and sometimes kill Timorese sympathizers of the pro- independence movement.
My first visit to the hotel ended abruptly on New Year's Day, 1998, when I was forcibly escorted from my room at dawn, then driven 10 minutes to an isolated beach and instructed by my "guide" -- a member of Indonesia's Elite special forces -- to kneel down on the headland that overlooked a tranquil, turquoise bay. He then placed a handgun to my head and asked, "Are you a journalist?"
"No," I lied, keenly aware that foreign journalists were less than welcome in Indonesian East Timor. "I'm a school teacher -- on holidays." "We do not believe you," he said. "Leave Baucau -- today." He placed the gun back into its holster, yanked me out of the dirt, and then, in a moment of sublime surrealism, looked across to the bay, and said: "Beautiful, no?"
Though sweat -- or perhaps tears -- stung my eyes and clouded my vision, I nodded in agreement. A crumbling Portuguese fort -- a remnant from the 400 years Timor spent under Lisbon's rule -- presided over a perfect, white sand beach, complete with palms leaning lazily toward the clear waters. In another time, the scene could have been described as idyllic. But at that moment, East Timor's potential as a holidaymaker's paradise seemed to me minimal, at best.
Flash forward a few years. Two months ago, East Timor became an independent nation, though at a terrible price. In 1999, when Timorese voted to cut their ties with Indonesia, militia proxies of the Indonesian military went on a murderous rampage that left the country in ruins. Few foreigners have been able to forget the scenes of bloodshed and burning; tourists in East Timor are practically nonexistent. But it's time now to forget. The men who caused the destruction have fled, leaving behind a people basking in freedom and peace.
They have also left behind one of the most beautiful countries in Asia. "I was hoping this place would be unsullied by tourists and crass commercialism," says Luca Gansser, an artist who lives in Thailand, and the only tourist I met in East Timor without UN credentials. "And it has proved to be. This is the last unspoiled country in Asia. It's magnificent."
You can explore the highlights of this small, sparsely-populated land in a week, and, with some careful planning, you can do it in style. I did it on a motorbike, though four-wheel drives are more readily available in Dili, the nation's capital, for around $35 a day. Fuel depots are ubiquitous but outside Dili don't expect service stations with a cafe and clean restrooms.
Here fuel is sold from a roadside hut, the gas stored in jerricans, and filtered through rags that hang on goat skulls behind the attendant's counter.
Traveling east, the 60-kilometer journey from Dili to Manututo matches any of the world's great coastal drives. The road hugs the limestone cliffs, swooping down to sea level then rising skyward again, where the view of the iridescent blue waters beckons the bather within. Give in to the urge: the water is cool and clean, and the coral a few feet offshore is stunning.
Farther down the road, villages spring from the shrubbery, most of them decimated in the violence of 1999, but now alive with children seemingly in competition with the Thais for claim to the title "The Land of Smiles." Poor though they may be -- indeed, East Timor is now officially the poorest country in Asia -- most seem to have generosity in their genes. Boys scamper up palm trees to collect coconuts and offer them gratis to parched visitors traveling along the trail. Then again, it may be a clever sales ploy: once stopped it's not long before you're offered a liter bottle of fermented palm wine for a dollar, with a kick to match that of the sturdy Timorese ponies that transport old men to market.
Beyond Manututo, a hot and dusty seaside town where boys with deflated footballs at their feet dream of being Beckham, the country opens up. From here the road cuts through lush rice paddies, across salt pans and alongside mangrove swamps, traversing desolate country more characteristic of outback Australia than Asia.
Next stop: Baucau. Thanks to an enterprising Catholic bishop who paid off the local militia in 1999, the town was spared much of the death and destruction that befell the rest of the country. His song should be sung. Baucau's old city -- built in the shadow of a limestone cliff overlooking the ocean -- is home to some of the finest examples of Portuguese architecture in East Timor, including the newly restored and renamed Pousada Baucau, once the infamous Hotel Flamboyan. Now under Timorese management, this grand hotel is the place to enjoy spicy Portuguese-Timorese fusion food and a glass of fine Portuguese wine before retiring for the night.
Reassuringly, the staff now carry corkscrews instead of M-16s. Rooms cost $50 a night, including breakfast -- call (61418) 176 003 for reservations. Down the road at the Perola de Timor restaurant a more basic fare is on offer, but the bullet-riddled walls let you know that the good priest's money traveled only so far.
So, too, the strength of his religion. Though 90% of Timorese describe themselves as Catholic -- in most cases, staunchly so -- the farther east you go, the more likely you are to find locals who take a two-way bet on the afterlife. In the mountainous Lautem regency on the island's eastern edge -- an area famed for its intricately-carved traditional houses built on stilts -- the pulse of ancestor and spirit worship beats strong beneath the cloak of Catholicism. In cemeteries, graves are marked with crucifixes and decorated with buffalo and goat skulls. A couple will wed in church, but only after a relative has sought ancestral approval by tearing out the beating hearts of sacrificial chickens. "It works well," a portly priest once told me. "The chickens are sometimes served up at the feast after the [church] service."
Chickens are also on the menu at the Pousade de Maubisse, perhaps the finest hotel in East Timor. Rooms are $40 a night midweek, $70 on weekends. There are no phones, so visitors must simply turn up. Perched on a rise in East Timor's central highlands, a four-hour drive north of Dili, the hotel is surrounded on all sides by a jagged mountain range that resembles the Swiss Alps without the altitude. A gracious establishment with wide, marble verandas, luxurious rooms, cultivated rose gardens and crisp, clean air, the hotel was once the favored retreat for Portuguese colonials living in Dili, though it quickly fell into disrepair under the Indonesians, who considered its 360 views of the surrounding countryside perfect for an army observation post.
The hotel has now been restored to its former glory and once again, the "colonials" from Dili -- this time UN workers helping to rebuild the country -- crowd the dining room on weekends. The view is expansive, the menu limited. The cook has only two strings to her bow: fried beef or fried chicken. "If you are here for two days it's perfect," explained the manager with Basil Fawlty logic. "One day you can have beef. The next you can have chicken."
Either way, a decision has to be made before 5 p.m., to allow the cook time to purchase the meat from the Maubisse market, just down the hill from the hotel in the center of town. There is perhaps no more colorful market in East Timor. Out front, Timorese ponies are parked five to a row. In the back, roosters fight to the death, egged on by craggy mountain men dressed in woolen shawls and wide-brimmed hats. In the market, women sell everything from palm wine and shags of wild tobacco to the beautifully handwoven rugs and blankets known as tais. Don't expect to haggle over prices. The recent introduction of the US dollar as the country's official currency has confused many, and the stall owners prefer for now to keep prices fixed until they can master the true worth of the greenback.
But master it they will. After 450 years of colonial rule -- first by Portugal, then Indonesia -- the Timorese are adapting quickly to the independence they had craved. "I love this freedom," says a shopkeeper selling wine at the bottom of the hill from the Pousade de Maubisse. "In Indonesia time no one at the hotel drank alcohol. All Muslim soldiers, only here for bad time. Now many tourists come and buy wine from me. They all here for good time. Much better."
| Language & culture |
Sydney Morning Herald - August 16, 2002
Dennis Schulz and Fernando de Freitas report -- Opposite the clerk in the Government's Office of Foreign Affairs, Maria Gutierrez stares blankly at the official application, mouth agape. It is written in Portuguese. Like most young East Timorese, she is a speaker of Bahasa Indonesia. "What is this?" she asks in her native tongue.
The smartly dressed clerk behind the counter starts explaining in Portuguese that she must fill out the application in that language before it can be accepted by the Government. Portuguese is, after all, the official language of East Timor. All documentation as well as all language used in government offices must be written in Portuguese, he says.
Gutierrez can't understand a word he says but the clerk's body language delivers the message. Defeated and angry, she turns with the application in her hand, through the door and into the streets of Dili to look for a translator.
She is not alone. Across the fledgling nation, the new Government's decision to deem Portuguese the country's official language has prompted what is shaping up to be the country's first social conflict.
Resentment is particularly rife among the country's younger generation who grew up during the 23 years of Indonesian occupation. Most speak only Indonesian and Tetum, the undeveloped local language.
"They are forcing people to speak Portuguese," charges Indonesian-educated journalist Cristina Freitas. "Portuguese should not be compulsory. And it should not be the official language because most people don't speak it and don't want to speak it."
She cites recurrent problems in the East Timor Parliament. During a recent debate, official documents were presented to the elected members regarding the oil and gas agreement with Australia, with many unable to read them. Translators were not available due to budgetary restraints, so, amid the chaos, legislators were unable to finalise the issue. "How can they consider or debate issues when they don't understand what's being presented?" asks Freitas.
The language conflict is perhaps most apparent in the country's schools. The Government has moved to make Portuguese compulsory at the primary school level even though very few teachers have the necessary command of the language to teach it. From year 4 to university, Indonesian and Tetum are still allowed, but lower primary school teachers are frustrated. Like their students, their knowledge of Portuguese is confined to simple greetings and basic reading skills.
According to an official household survey conducted last year by the Planning Commission, Portuguese is spoken by just 5 per cent of the 750,000 East Timorese, with Tetum spoken by 82 per cent and Indonesian by 43 per cent. Though Tetum is widely spoken, it is a language devoid of technological diversity and it only recently achieved a standardised grammar and spelling. Amid the controversy it was also made an official language but is yet to feature in documentation.
Portuguese may be the language of the tiny minority but it will remain the official language, according to the President, Xanana Gusmao. "For now we will continue this initial maintenance of the Portuguese language," he told the Herald. "Overall there are various difficulties. Structural problems mainly -- not just in Parliament with a lack of translators to ensure all documents are translated, but to the public sphere where people are having problems adjusting. It's difficult, but does that imply we should have adopted Bahasa Indonesia instead?"
Gusmao was one of the National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT) group of leaders who decided to make Portuguese the official language in 1999. It was a decision handed down by the leadership, most of whom had not experienced the previous 23 years of occupation along with the general East Timorese population. Many leaders had been either in the jungle fighting a guerilla war or in exile overseas. Upon their return, they found East Timor a nation of Indonesian speakers.
"This decision is coming from a very small group of leaders who are, unfortunately, very powerful ones," says a constitutional lawyer and former Fretilin member of parliament, Aderito De Jesus Soares. "They have a romanticised view of Portuguese. It's a stupid strategy that will backfire on us in the future."
For the Fretilin leadership, Portuguese is not simply a language -- it is a symbol of the steely resolve that took them to independence from Indonesia. It was their Portuguese heritage -- 450 years of colonisation from afar -- that created this hybrid Catholic state anchored in a sea of Islam. Through the colonial period, President Soeharto and Jakarta's generals failed to understand why the East Timorese were so steadfast in their desire for independence when their neighbours in West Timor and Christian Flores never rebelled.
"Without the Portuguese connection there would have been no aspirations to nationhood in East Timor," explains linguist Dr Geoffrey Hull of the University of Western Sydney. "It was the Portuguese imprint that made the East Timorese a unique people, distinct from those around them."
The leadership sees their decision as a practical one. The elevation of Portuguese, they say, will align them strongly with a host of former colonies that continue to speak the mother tongue, the sixth-most-spoken language in the world.
East Timor's leaders, and their ally the Catholic Church, are determined not to see their country transformed into a cultural satellite of Australia. "They are all aware that English is a notorious killer," says Dr Hull. "That Anglophone culture in Australia killed off scores of Aboriginal languages in less than 200 years, whereas in the four centuries of Lusophone hegemony, not one dialect of East Timor has been lost."
It was no surprise that the Portuguese language was the first pillar of East Timorese culture that was attacked by the Indonesians following the 1975 conquest. The country was sealed off for three years while the Indonesians set about imposing their language and culture upon the vanquished. It was a rigid regime that had worked well in the colonisation process elsewhere in the archipelago. Speaking anything but Indonesian was banned and physically punished. Among the mature, whispered Portuguese remained the language of resistance while young East Timorese were schooled in Indonesian by an army of imported Indonesian teachers.
As a result, today Indonesian is the language of the street, the village and the marketplace. It is the most commonly spoken language in the country, even though it is recognised by the Government as only a "working language", as is English. It is a colonial vestige that they are determined to dump. "We plan on phasing out Bahasa altogether, but it will take time," explains East Timor's Minister for Education, Culture, Youth and Sports, Armindo Maia. He believes that, although the decision to make Portuguese the national language was made by a select few, there was adequate consultation. "We consulted with the people. We wrote a constitution and now we are implementing the constitution. We are not imposing. We went through a process," he says.
Maia was a member of the East Timorese ministerial delegation that visited Jakarta earlier this month seeking to normalise relations with its former colonial masters. With Indonesian its only positive legacy, the Indonesian hierarchy was keen to see the language retained in East Timor's classrooms. "A request was made by President Megawati to have Indonesian included in the curriculum, but we did not respond to that request," he says. "It will be discussed."
Meanwhile, in Dili, opposition to the imposition of Portuguese is gaining momentum, a gulf of confidence widening between the generations. Many younger East Timorese would prefer expanding Tetum to full development than speaking Portuguese. Although it is recognised in the constitution, the Government has done nothing to broaden Tetum's capacity to satisfy the demands placed on a contemporary language in a changing world. "The constitution clearly states that we should be developing Tetum as the official language, but it's not happening," contends Jose Lobato, a Fretilin member of the General Assembly. "Lack of resources is a definite problem but I think there is also a lack of political will. Young people are being marginalised." Lobato is the son of a legendary Fretilin leader, Nicolao Lobato, who was killed in 1978 during the guerilla war against the Indonesians. He says the reason he ran for parliament was to fight against the marginalisation of young East Timorese Indonesian speakers after Portuguese was enshrined in the constitution as the sole national language. It was through his efforts that Tetum was added to that document.
Most believe the Portuguese language will not survive in East Timor. The Government may attempt to phase out Bahasa Indonesia, but as a younger leadership takes over from old freedom fighters, the language of their former oppressors could return to prominence.
"You can't expect the majority of the population, which is educated in Indonesian, to keep Portuguese once they have power," says Soares. "The Government needs to be flexible and leave the door open on the language question. If they try to close the door, it will create big tension in the near future."
| International relations |
Agence France Presse - August 12, 2002
Kuala Lumpur -- Malaysia offered East Timor Monday assistance ranging from education to military training during a visit by the fledgling nation's Prime Minister, Mari Bim Amude Alkatiri, an official said.
The offers were made by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in hour- long talks with Alkatiri, who in turn requested help in developing his country's oil and gas sectors, Deputy Foreign Minister Leo Michael Toyad told reporters. The two men also discussed increasing trade opportunities, Leo said.
Alkatiri, who arrived late Sunday with a 27-member delegation including senior ministers, extended an invitation to Malaysia's national oil firm, Petronas, to look into investments in East Timor.
"They have asked for assistance in developing the gas and petroleum industry. In this field, they want guidance and cooperation to assist them in developing their own petroleum company like Petronas, and to increase exports," Leo said.
Alkatiri was due to meet Petronas officials later Monday, before attending an official dinner reception hosted by Mahathir. The delegation is scheduled to leave for Manila Thursday.
Malaysian Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz said Alkatiri's delegation also expressed East Timor's desire to join the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
"They requested about becoming part of the ASEAN Regional Forum [ARF] and later on they would like to become part of ASEAN as well," she said on the sidelines of the meeting. "And [Mahathir] has expressed his support for that."
The ARF, Asia-Pacific's foremost security umbrella group, includes the 10 ASEAN states, along with Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Japan, Mongolia, New Zealand, South Korea, North Korea, Papua New Guinea, Russia and the United States.
ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
East Timor became independent on May 20 after more than 400 years as a Portuguese colony, 24 years of Indonesian occupation and 32 months under UN stewardship.
The country, Asia's poorest, is struggling to recover from the destruction of 80 percent of its infrastructure in a vengeful Indonesian army-backed militia rampage that followed it1999 vote for independence.
Radio Australia - August 13, 2002
East Timor government officials attending meetings at this week's Pacific Islands Forum in Fiji say they are not supporting the campaign by Papuan separatists.
Abel Guterres from East Timor's ministry of foreign affairs says while he understands Papua's attempts to gain the support of forum countries, East Timor will not join their campaign.
A delegation from the Indonesian province of Papua formerly known as West Papua or Irian Jaya is currently in Suva to lobby forum delegates, claiming their ethnically Melanesian province should separate from Indonesia and become an independent Pacific nation.
East Timor is not a member of the forum and Mr Guterres says the matter is one for forum member countries and Papua -- not East Timor.
"We understand the West Papuans," Mr Guterres says. "Nobody can understand them better than us. But our leaders have indicated over and over ... respecting Indonesia's territorial integrity and therefore we will not make any public pronouncement," he adds.
East Timor also lobbying Pacific leaders
Meanwhile, the government of East Timor says it is confident South Pacific countries will support its bid for European aid by endorsing its membership of the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific grouping of states. Under the 2000 Cotonou agreement, ACP countries are entitled to EU aid packages and preferential access to European markets.
East Timor officials -- currently in Fiji to lobby Pacific leaders at the South Pacific Forum -- say their strong cultural ties with the Pacific have bolstered their attempts to join the ACP.
"Culturally, we have strong links and therefore there is this natural affinity to get endorsement from Pacific island countries with regard to East Timor's accession to the ACP," Mr Guterres says.
| Economy & investment |
Associated Press - August 13, 2002
Kuala Lumpur -- East Timor took control of its legal system from United Nations administrators too soon and weakness of the judiciary is hurting investor confidence, Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta said Tuesday.
"Our judiciary is very, very weak," Ramos-Horta said during a visit to Malaysia. "We should not have rushed into the handover from international staff to East Timorese. None of our judges, prosecutors have any prior experience or training."
East Timor became an independent country in May after two years of UN administration following the territory's breakaway from Indonesia after two decades of sometimes brutal rule.
The half-island territory is currently aid-dependent and the government is struggling to kick-start the economy based on agriculture and future exploitation of offshore oil and gas reserves.
Foreign investment is considered vital, but Ramos-Horta said the weak legal system "is creating a loss of trust" among potential investors. He didn't elaborate.
The UN set up a fledgling court system that has handled dozens of cases, including issuing 117 indictments and 25 convictions related to violence fueled by the Indonesian military after East Timorese backed independence at a 1999 referendum.
"Right now we are harvesting some hasty decisions in transferring full responsibility of the judiciary to the Timorese side," said Ramos-Horta, who is accompanying East Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri on a five-day visit to Malaysia to promote bilateral relations and trade.
Ramos-Horta said East Timor wouldn't apply to join Southeast Asia's main economic grouping -- the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations -- for three to five years, although it wants to become a member of the group's broader security forum as soon as possible.
Just attending ASEAN's busy schedule of meetings would cost "the whole foreign ministry budget," he said. East Timor has been ambivalent about joining ASEAN, which stood by when Indonesia invaded in 1976 as the territory was obtaining independence from Portugal. ASEAN was also slow to respond to the pro-Indonesian rampage in 1999.
ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. It meets annually for security talks with other Asia Pacific nations including the US, China and both Koreas at the ASEAN Regional Forum.
Ramos-Horta said East Timor wants to become a full member of the security forum soon, and to contribute to fighting trans-border crime such as human smuggling, drug trafficking and terrorism.
| East Timor local press |
August 14, 2002
EDTF's Force Commander, Brigadier General Taur Matan Ruak, was reported by Timor Post as saying that the ETDF is having difficulty identifying former FALINTIL members.
The family of Sanders Thones (a Dutch Journalist killed in Dili, East Timor, during the violence of September 1999) met with President Xanana Gusmco to discuss and ask for the president's assistance in the extradition of perpetrators to be tried in East Timor for the murder of their relative. TP ran a story on the laying of the first cornerstone for a plaque commemorating the death of Sander Thones. The event was attended by his family, the Head of UNMISET, Kamalesh Sharma, the Dutch Ambassador to Indonesia, Baron Schelto Van Heemstra, and government representatives yesterday in Becora-Dili. In the same article Baron Schelto Van Heemstra said that the killing of Sander Thones is a violation against Human Rights.
MP Fernando "Lasama" de Araujo (PD) reported that the authorities must screen drivers in East Timor.
It is reported that members of National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and members of Parliament are holding talks with resident of Suai district on various issues including the implementation of the education system, voters' education and Human Rights.
MP Antonio Cardoso (FRETILIN) stated that all citizens have the right to celebrate Falintil Day on 20 August.
A girl was sexually abused by her father in Liquiga district last month, reported Timor Post.
TP reported that the registration exercise carried out by the Department of Labour, Solidarity and Publics Works aims at identifying the number of unemployed in the country.
An article on Suara Timor Lorosa'e front page reported Dili priest, Jose Antonio da Costa, as saying that Colimau 2000 group is against the church in East Timor.
The Bishop of Dili, Dom Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, has refused to testify at the Jakarta Ad-Hoc Tribunal. The bishop says he will only testify through teleconference.
Fernando "Lasama"Araujo says misunderstandings among leaders set a bad example for the people. Mr. Araujo was referring to the incident between the Coordinator of Civil Security, David Ximenes, and ETPS Commissioner, Paulo Martins.
Minister of Health, Rui Maria de Araujo, is quoted as saying that evidence against a nurse accused of sexually abusing a patient is inconclusive based on examinations carried out by a team from the Department of Health and the Court.
Vendors at Taibessi market have moved away from their stalls seeking safety after an incident that left three people severely injured.
Head of Dili district Court, Aderito Tilman, has referred the Border Control Case to the Prosecutor-General, Longuinhos Monteiro. Mr. Longuinhos is preparing a report to the Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri.
President Xanana Gusmco stated that even the president does not have the right to contest a decision made by the courts.
STL reported that Members of Parliament have approved the bill on the 20% tax increase.
Secretary of State for Electricity and Water, Egidio de Jesus, informed that about 16 East Timorese are currently undergoing training as per the Timor Sea agreement.
MP Jose Andrade says that the illegal markets in the border area in Suai District must be closed to stop the infiltration of former militia members.
It is reported that the Ministry of Health is distributing vitamins to Viqueque residents to help fight diseases like malaria.
August 13, 2002
Timor Post reports that political party, PSD, put out a communiqui stating that the nomination for ambassadors should be made based on the constitution and not on kinship.
TP reported that President Xanana Gusmco requested the minister of Agriculture, Estanislau da Silva, to brief him about the disease affecting coconut trees in Baucau District.
MP Jose Manuel stated that it's irrelevant for the East Timorese Armed Forces to have two names (FDTL/FALINTIL).
"Subversion law is a powerful weapon used by an authoritative regime to suppress competent political parties in a nation" stressed MP Mariano Sabino (PD).
Secretary of State for Labor and Solidarity, Arsenio Bano, announced that East Timor and Malaysia are discussing plans to send East Timorese workers to Malaysia. In the same article the Department of Public Works and ILO are holding a workshop on Arbitration.
ETPS commissioner, Paulo Martins, has been quoted as saying that at least three people are receiving treatment at the Dili National Hospital after a violent incident at the Taibesi market on Sunday night.
STL reported that the strike being held by the judges is due to the lack of Government initiatives in not abiding by the courts' decision. STL reported that East Timorese refugees living in West Timor received rice from the Indonesia government. The Indonesian Government is also reported to say that more rice will be given if properly distributed by the coordinators.
The head of the Serious Crimes Administration, Fabio Buonomo, stated that 8 cases of serious crimes have been reported so far this year.
It was reported that three Border Control Officers have allegedly met with President Xanana Gusmco to ask for their protection.
Suara Timor Lorosa'e reported that it is unclear whether the Kolimau 2000 group has entered in the District of Liquiga.
STL reported that the Minister for Education and the Minister for Health signed an MOU of cooperation for the implementation of the National Development Plan for East Timor.
STL front page featured a photo of the meeting held between PMs Mari Alkatiri and Mahathir Mohamed and the East Timor delegation.
The Director-General of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Olimpio Branco, has been quoted as saying that East Timor has given priority for the establishment of embassies in Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Portugal, and America and that it does not have enough resources to open embassies anywhere else.
President Xanana Gusmco requested a meeting with the Director of Border Control, Cancio Oliveira de Jesus, to be briefed on Border Control issues as well as the court case, reported STL.
STL reported that Aderito Tilman and Jose da Costa Ximenes, both judges from Dili District Court, met President Xanana Gusmco last Saturday to explain the Border Control case currently being heard.
The President plans to sit and discuss the border control case with the Inspector General, Mariano Lopes da Cruz. Many East Timorese in the legal field have supported this initiative by the President.
It is reported that even though President Xanana Gusmco vetoed the law on the increase of goods taxes that the prices are still on the rise.
Farmers in Baucau District announced that this years rice harvest has been good but that farmers are finding it difficult to sell the rice.
It is reported that many children work after school to be able to pay for school fees because parents cannot afford the fees.
Viqueque District Administrator, Francisco da Silva, stated that recruiting is ongoing to find a suitable sub-district coordinator for Viqueque District.
Residents of the Lacluta sub-district are requesting the government to open a road to their sub-village.
[Drafted by the UNMISET Spokesperson's Office]