Karen Polglaze, Jakarta – New Indonesian laws could prevent the trial of military officers accused of orchestrating violence in East Timor that left hundreds dead and whole towns razed, an international rights body has warned.
The London-based Indonesian rights activist TAPOL warned that draft laws setting up a new human rights court in Indonesia might mean the generals and other high-ranking officers accused of abuses could not be properly tried.
Rights bodies fear that Indonesia will sidestep an international tribunal through this new domestic legal process that would actually be powerless to effectively punish those who violated rights in the past.
"The Government's draft law for the creation of a human rights court is drafted in such a way as to make it impossible for all the grave human rights violations committed in East Timor, as well as numerous crimes against humanity committed in Aceh since 1989, to be taken to such a court because it will not be retroactive," TAPOL said in a report.
The organisation called for the court to have retrospective powers that went back at least 15 years.
Violations committed before the yet-to-be established court was set up would be sent to a Truth and Reconciliation Commission which, as yet, had no terms of reference, TAPOL said.
Even if the commission found the most serious violations of human rights, it could not refer cases to the court because that body lacked retrospective powers.
TAPOL's director, Carmel Budiarjo, noted in a statement that the new laws would render useless a four-month long investigation into links between the Indonesian military (TNI) and the violence that engulfed East Timor before and after the August 30 independence ballot.
Indonesia has actively campaigned to prevent an international tribunal, preferring to deal with its problems at home, and yesterday won the support from the visiting Australian Foreign Minister, Mr Downer, for time to show its seriousness.
"We would look first to Indonesia's domestic processes to ensure that those responsible for violence and human rights abuses be brought to justice," he said.
The most senior officer facing Timor allegations, former TNI chief General Wiranto, who is now a senior minister in Mr Wahid's Government, has once again stressed that he simply carried out government policy in East Timor.
"All I did in East Timor didn't deviate from the principles of the policies set by the Government," General Wiranto said in an interview by Gatra magazine.
Accusations of war crimes and other rights violations in East Timor were exaggerated and Indonesia's diplomats were fighting to ensure no officers faced an international tribunal, he said. "We are not willing to be accused of dong things we did not do, such as a crimes like those that happened in Vietnam, Bosnia and so on, that [were] planned and institutionalised," he said.
"We did not violate human rights like in Somalia and Rwanda either, that took tens of thousands of victims. Conversely, all the TNI policies were aimed at creating peace and preventing various human rights violation in East Timor."