Jakarta – Indonesia on Thursday lifted martial law in East Timor and said it expected to hand over control of security in the territory to the UN-approved force there on Friday or Saturday.
"The president today issued one presidential decree ... which revokes presidential decree number 107 of 1999 on the emergency commission in East Timor, considering the improving conditions in East Timor," said Justice Minister Muladi.
Martial law was imposed on East Timor on September 7 as pro-Jakarta militias, with the backing of sections of the Indonesian army, terrorised the population.
The decree said the decision was in line with the agreement between the Indonesian government and the United Nations under which responsibility for security is to be handed over to the multinational forces there.
"In relation to this, the defence minister will immediately order Major General Kiki Syahnakri ... to hold a handover," Muladi said. Syahnakri is the head of the Martial Law Command in East Timor. Muladi said he expected the handover to take place "on Friday or Saturday."
Another decree from President B.J. Habibie appeared designed to head off moves to set up an international tribunal under the auspices of the UN Human Rights Commissin to probe the violence in East Timor.
Habibie formalised the government's support for a fact-finding team of the National Commission on Human Rights to investigate the carnage unleashed by the August 30 vote for independence.
"A leader of the the National Commission on Human Rights will go to Geneva soon to explain that the handling of the investigation of the violence in East Timor can be by the commission," Muladi said. He said he hoped the mission would be allowed to investigate the violence and that an international tribunal would not have to be set up.
The UN Human Rights Commission was to open a rare session Thursday to discuss the violence in East Timor, marking only the fourth time in a decade that a special meeting of the commission has been convened.
After all previous three special sessions, in 1992 and 1993 on Yugoslavia, and in 1994 on the genocide in Rwanda, the Commission named a special envoy to investigate massacres.
UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson said earlier that an extraordinary meeting was justified by the continued violation of the right of the East Timorese to self-determination, the mass exodus from the territory and the arbitrary murders of civilians.
Muladi also said Habibie had issued an official instruction to take measures to "restore the life of the people in East Timor," for which several ministers would be responsible.