Dili – UN human rights chief Mary Robinson arrived in East Timor on Friday condemning Indonesia's trials over atrocities in the territory in 1999 and said she would take her concerns to the UN Security Council.
It is the second trip to the territory by the UN high commissioner for human rights since the UN-sponsored independence ballot in August 1999 when East Timor voted overwhelmingly to split from Indonesia, unleashing a wave of killings and destruction by pro-Jakarta militias.
Jakarta's special human rights court last week delivered its first verdicts in a string of cases linked to the carnage, acquitting a former East Timor police chief and five other security officers of crimes against humanity, and giving an ex-governor a jail sentence far shorter than prosecutors had requested.
"The results were not satisfying ... in terms of international human rights standards," Robinson told reporters at Dili airport. "This will attract world attention and we will take this to an international forum and the United Nations Security Council," she said without elaborating.
Robinson is on a two-day visit to Dili as part of a final trip to Asia before leaving office next month. She will later address the newly independent territory's parliament and meet several rights groups.
She also plans to travel to the coastal town of Liquica on Saturday to hear the first public confessions from perpetrators of the violence and visit the border town of Suai where 27 people were killed in a church massacre just days after the independence vote.
Catholic priest Father Jovito do Rego Araujo, vice chairman of East Timor's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, said he hoped Robinson's visit would remind the world of the people's struggle for justice.
"Her visit is very important because she has deep concern for the people of East Timor who are still trying to convince the international community who the real perpetrators of the violence are," he said.
Robinson's August 18-25 trip precedes her handover of her position to Sergio Vieira de Mello, a Brazilian veteran of the UN refugee agency and former head of the UN administration in East Timor. Before coming to East Timor Robinson visited China and Cambodia.
The UN estimates more than 1,000 people were killed in the 1999 violence carried out by gangs of militiamen with backing from elements of the Indonesian military.
The former Portuguese territory was declared formally independent in May this year when UN Secretary General Kofi Annan handed over power to former guerrilla leader Xanana Gusmao.