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."