Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – Key people accused of complicity in the bloodshed in East Timor are set to escape prosecution because of the bungled wording of a decree issued this week by Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid.
United Nations officials and human rights activists are shocked that the decree restricts the jurisdiction of a special court being set up in Jakarta to hearing crimes that were committed after an August 1999 ballot to decide East Timor's future.
Indonesian prosecutors have spent more than 12 months gathering evidence against people accused of committing crimes in the months before the ballot, including the notorious militia leader, Eurico Guterres.
Unless the decree is amended, legal experts say, militia leaders responsible for crimes against humanity will go free, including those responsible for the massacre of at least 60 people at a church in the seaside town of Liquica.
Experts say the reference to post-ballot crimes will prevent prosecutors taking to the court charges relating to Mr Guterres ordering 100 men to attack the home of pro-independence leader Manuel Carrascalao, killing 12 people.
Even before issuing the decree, Indonesia had come under fire for the inability or refusal of its authorities to list for prosecution some of the key perpetrators of the violence who have been identified by UN investigator James Dunn.
The Age revealed last week that Mr Dunn's secret report of his five-month investigation recommended the prosecution of more than 20 high-ranking Indonesian officers.
The 60-page Dunn report named officers involved in a conspiracy that led to the deaths of more than 1200 people and the destruction of most buildings and infrastructure in the territory after most Timorese voted to reject Indonesia's rule.
But a revised list of people to be prosecuted, released this week by Indonesia's Attorney-General's office, excludes officers named in the report, including former armed forces chief General Wiranto, former intelligence chief Major-General Zacky Anwar Makarim and a Kopassus special forces commander, Major-General Sjafrie Sjamsuddin. The highest ranking military officer listed for prosecution is the former Bali-based commander of East Timor, Major-General Adam Damiri.
Four militia leaders named earlier as suspects have also been omitted from the final lists. They include Ejidio Manek, accused of kidnapping East Timor teenager Juliana dos Santos as a war prize from the border town of Suai at the height of the post-independence ballot violence. He is also accused of killing the girl's brother and leading an attack on the Suai church where up to 200 people, including priests and nuns, were slaughtered.
An Attorney-General's spokesman, Mr Muljohardjo, told journalists in Jakarta that Manek and three other militia leaders were omitted from those to face trial "because we haven't been able to find them".
But Indonesian soldiers last week brought Mr Manek and Juliana from a West Timor refugee camp to a government office in the border town of Atambua. They were allowed to leave after being interviewed by The Age.
UN spokesman Fred Eckhard yesterday said from UN headquarters in New York: "There is concern about the dates."
Asked about the decree's wording, Mr Muljohardjo at first denied that it restricted prosecutions to post-ballot violence. But when he read the wording, he said: "Oh, is there the post-election word in the decree, really? Well, if it has made controversy, let it be. The point is that we are trying to do our job to bring heavy crimes against human rights to court."
Asmara Nababan, the Secretary-General of the Human Rights Commission, called on Mr Wahid to amend the decree, saying crimes that took place both before and after the ballot must be investigated.
Mr Wahid signed the decree on Monday, six months after parliament approved a bill allowing the prosecution of gross human rights offences in the special, ad-hoc court that will operate under the Jakarta district court.