Jakarta has denied visas to three commissioners appointed by the United Nations to review the justice process in Indonesia and East Timor. The three experts from Fiji, India and Japan were to review Timor war crimes prosecutions and assess why a 1999 Security Council Resolution to try those accused of war crimes failed.
Presenter/Interviewer: Bruce Hill
Speakers: Imrana Jalal, human rights advisor at the UN-funded Pacific Regional Rights Resource Team in Suva; Dr Richard Chauvel, Victoria University
Hill: United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, announced in New York earlier this year that he was appointing a commission of experts to review Timor war crimes prosecutions and assess why a 1999 Security Council resolution to try those accused of war crimes has failed.
He named the three experts as Justice Prafullachandra Bhagwati of India, Professor Yozo Yokota of Japan, and Shaista Shameem of Fiji. Indonesia won't let them in though and Doctor Richard Chauvel an expert in Indonesian affairs at Melbourne's Victoria University says that's not surprising.
Dr. Chauvel: It underlines for us just how sensitive the issue of East Timor's separation and the events that surrounded that remains for Indonesia and for the Indonesian elite and its domestic politics.
We've seen in the last few days in Canberra and Sydney just how far President Bambang Yudhoyono has brought Indonesian policy in terms of a rapprochement with the Australian Government and with Australia more generally. But the issue of bringing those responsible for what happened in East Timor in 1999 to justice in Indonesia or within an international context is a step beyond that. I don't think the composition of the UN team has got anything to do with it.
It may have ramifications for Indonesia's relations with Fiji, but the person could have come from outer Mongolia. I don't think it would have made any difference.
Hill: Imrana Jalal, a former Fiji Human Rights Commissioner and currently human rights advisor at the UN funded Pacific Region of Rights Resource Team agrees that Doctor Shameem coming from Fiji has nothing to do with Indonesia refusing her a visa. She says in the context of international relations though, such an action will be regarded as quite serious.
Jalal: Rarely do countries deny the office of a High Commissioner the capacity to allow their representatives to move into a country. So it's quite serious in UN terms, particularly because Indonesia is a member of the United Nations and it will be seriously frowned upon. I mean you know the United Nations doesn't work by reprimanding its members, but there are ways that that refusal will be used to publicise Indonesia's human rights record.
For example, when a country refuses to allow a particular representative of the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights to come into the country, the implication is that the reason for the visit in the first place is justifiable. So in a sense Indonesia is saying to the international community at large we have something to be worried about.
Hill: Doctor Shaista Shameem has been refused entry into Indonesia in her capacity as United Nations special rapporteur and not in her capacity as the Director of the Fiji Human Rights Commission. But is this in any sense a Pacific issue?
Jalal: I'm one of those people who views Timor Leste as a Pacific country. I know that geographically that's not correct. But certainly in terms of context and terms of level of development, in terms of how the people feel about themselves, I regard it as a Pacific Island nation. And there are moves for East Timor Leste to enter the forum group, which is a Pacific Island regional grouping.
Hill: But could this impact on diplomatic relations between Fiji and Indonesia?
Jalal: Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say that it would affect relationships, but certainly it would be frowned upon by the Fiji Government that one of its citizens is being denied entry into Indonesia and for all the wrong reasons.
The reason it would not have an impact on diplomatic relations is that human rights is not necessarily high on the agenda of any Pacific Island country. Perhaps the Fiji Government might be minded to write a letter to the Indonesian Government expressing its disappointment that one of its citizens was denied entry to Indonesia. But I don't think it would have any long term impact, no.