Jakarta – The Indonesian government announced on Monday it has issued a regulation on the establishment of a human rights tribunal which would also cover alleged atrocities committed in East Timor.
The regulation, dated October 8 and signed by President B.J. Habibie and State Secretary Muladi but only made public Monday, said the formation of the tribunal was intended "to uphold human dignity and to give individuals protection, legal certainty and security."
Indonesian human rights commission (Komnas HAM) chairman Marzuki Darusman said Friday Indonesian troops guilty of human rights abuses in East Timor would be tried in the tribunal and not by a military court.
It catagorized human rights violations as partial or full genocide, arbitrary and extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances and displacement, slavery, systematic discrimination and torture, including by the authorities.
"The human rights tribunals are special courts on violations of human rights that are formed within the environment of general courts of justice," the decree said.
They will be based in main cities or at district capitals. But initially, a single special court will be formed at the Central Jakarta district court. This court's jurisdiction will cover the entire territory of Indonesia, the decree said.
The penalties the human rights court is entitled to mete out would range from two years in jail to the death penalty. It also allowed victims of the violations, or their heirs, to claim compensation through court.
Investigation and the formulation of the charges would be the responsibility of a team formed by and coordinated by the attorney general. But the investigation should be initiated after preliminary evidence is gathered by Komnas HAM.
The attorney general's office team will be given three months, extendable for another three months, to seek evidence of human rights violations. If there is still no sufficient evidence, the case will be dropped and can only be reopened if new evidence is found.
In his statement Friday Darusman said an independent commission on human rights violations in East Timor would be set up to collect evidence of military abuses in the territory which voted for independence from Jakarta in August.
The decision came after the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva on September 27 voted in favor of establishing an international inquiry into alleged human rights atrocities in East Timor.
Indonesia, which invaded East Timor in 1975 and annexed it the following year, had rejected the resolution and said the government would not cooperate with the international inquiry, arguing it would conduct its own investigation.