Don Greenlees, Jakarta – Indonesia's attempts to convince foreign critics that it is serious about justice in East Timor suffered two significant setbacks this week: a public show of solidarity by senior generals for officers accused over a 1999 massacre and a verdict of "not guilty" in the trial of three militiamen charged with the murder of a New Zealand peacekeeper.

Frustration with Indonesia's handling of the East Timor justice issue was summed up by one senior Western diplomat yesterday – the demonstration of support from the generals was "shameful", he said, and the verdict in the murder of Private Leonard Manning a "disgrace".

Diplomats believe the opponents of justice over East Timor, paramount among them the armed forces, are sticking to a strategy of patiently waiting for the international community to become bored with the issue and eventually seek a pragmatic accommodation with Jakarta over military relations.

"I think what we are looking at is what Muhammad Ali used to call "rope a dope", said one diplomat. "If you keep a guy up against the ropes, eventually he will get tired – that strategy won't work."

Indonesia's armed forces are eager to restore military relationships with Western governments, in particular the US, that were downgraded or severed after the crisis in East Timor in 1999. The US Congress has set as a benchmark for restoring relations the attainment of justice in the East Timor human rights trials.

But since the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US, there has been an increasing willingness by governments to lower expectations of what is meant by justice. Some well-placed observers believe the US Congress will not resist the re-establishment of military ties as long as some concrete demonstration of justice emerges from the Timor trials.

For its part, Australia already has signalled plans for a gradual restoration of the defence relationship, and Defence Minister Robert Hill only calls for an "appropriate" response from the Indonesian courts to remove any impediment to how quickly or how far the relationship develops. Western governments, however, are not getting much help from Indonesia.

On Tuesday, the armed forces top brass turned up to the opening day of a trial of four junior and mid-ranking officers, in what they described as a show of "moral" support for men who they said did "their duty for the country".

The four are charged in connection with one of the most heinous crimes committed in the post-referendum violence in East Timor in 1999 bchurch in the town of Suai.

The next day, a court found three militiamen innocent of the murder of Private Manning. The essence of the reason given: one man was already convicted and that was enough.

"The victim had already died from the bullet from the first defendant, Jacobus Bere, therefore there is no reason whatsoever to accuse the defendants here of having killed or planned to kill, as accused by the prosecutor," Judge Iskandar Tjake said in the Central Jakarta District Court.

The verdict has upset the New Zealand Government, which plans to ask prosecutors to appeal. It already has requested an appeal be made over the six-year sentence given to Bere.

In a situation where courts in the past have cited "patriotism" as a mitigating factor in murder, the hopes of real progress are slim.