Jakarta – East Timorese leaders told Indonesian parliamentary heads Friday that unless Jakarta moves soon to try those accused of committing crimes in East Timor, an international war crimes tribunal will be unavoidable.
"If Indonesia delivers justice it will be good for everyone," East Timorese Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta told journalists after meeting upper house speaker Amien Rais.
"However, if it fails there is no way the (UN) Security Council itself can escape its responsibility to hold an international war crimes tribunal," he said on the second of a three-day visit.
Ramos Horta was speaking after he and the territory's chief UN administrator Sergio Viera de Mello met with Rais and lower house speaker Akbar Tanjung, along with members of the parliament's foreign affairs committee.
De Mello said Thursday that the process to try 22 people accused by Indonesian prosecutors of involvement in the violence surrounding the 1999 ballot violence was "in legal limbo."
UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson has warned that if Jakarta does not try the suspects, and justice is not seen to be done, an international tribunal could be convened.
UN investigators say they have evidence that at least 600 East Timorese were killed by the militia, when they went on a rampage of arson, burning and looting to avenge the quit-Indonesia vote.
At Friday's meeting Rais "reiterated his preference for a domestic court to hold the trials," Horta said.
De Mello and Horta expressed their support for the setting up of ad hoc tribunals to hear East Timor crimes, coming up for approval by the parliament in the coming weeks.
"If that takes place it will be a major step forward for Indonesia's credibility," Horta said. "We don't want a war crimes tribunal [just] for the sake of it."
The change of status of one of the most notorious suspects named by Indonesian prosecutors, militia leader Eurico Guterres, – from prison into house arrest – while still on trial in Jakarta on charges unrelated to the Timor violence, boded poorly, Horta said.
"It doesn't help much in the credibility of the whole Indonesian legal system but the trial is continuing," he said. "Eurico Guterres is suspected of many more serious crimes," he said referring to the 1999 violence.