Dili – The top two leaders of East Timor on Monday separately said that, should the need arise, they were ready to appear in international courts judging past human rights violations.
"For violence from 1987 onwards, others should not have any headaches because I am the one who is prepared to account for them," President Xanana Gusmao told journalists here.
Gusmao in 1987 began to head the military wing of the pro-independence Fretilin East Timorese movement, fighting the occupation by Indonesia.
He said that as a former guerrilla leader, he was also prepared to account for violence blamed on the Fretilin between 1975 and 1986.
Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, who is one of the founders of the Fretilin and its secretary general, said he was also prepared to appear in court over past rights violations if necessary. "I am ready anytime," he said. "Even tomorrow I would be ready."
So far there has been no call for former East Timorese rebels to face international justice over alleged past rights violations.
However, many abroad and in East Timor have called for recrimination over deadly violence by pro-Jakarta militias during East Timor's 1999 drive for independence.
Militia gangs, which the United Nations has said were recruited and directed by Indonesia's military, went on an arson and killing spree before and after the East Timorese voted for independence in a UN-sponsored August 1999 ballot.
They killed about 1,400 independence supporters and laid waste to much of the infrastructure in the half-island, which was a Portuguese colony before Indonesia annexed and invaded it in the mid-1970s.
An Indonesian tribunal set up to try military officers and officials for atrocities in East Timor has drawn international criticism for failing to jail any Indonesians, prompting calls for an international tribunal.
The leader of the two neighbouring nations, however, have rejected prosecutions in favour of looking toward the future between tiny East Timor and the population giant Indonesia.
They have set up a bilateral commission of truth and friendship to address the past right violations
East Timor gained full independence in May 2002 after more than two years of UN stewardship.