New York – A number of countries have expressed concern about the trial of gross human rights violations in East Timor carried out in Indonesia and in East Timor by the Serious Crime Unit of the UN Mission for Support in East Timor (UNMISET).
"The process toward justice has gone wrong," Dirk Jan van den Berg of the Netherlands who represented the European Union at a UN Security Council session on UNMISET's performance here Tuesday.
Among the countries that had expressed the dissatisfaction about the trails were the Netherlands, Portugal, France, New Zealand, and the United States.
The decision made by the Serious Crime unit could not yet bring defendants in the case to jail, van den Berg said.
He said, many people involved in the post-ballot human rights abuses in East Timor in 1999 still enjoyed freedom outside the newly independent country. The issue had been an urgent agenda for UNMISET to settle before it end its task in East Timor in May 2005, he added.
The European Union also expressed concern on the Jakarta ad hoc court's verdicts on the abuses , van den Berg said. "The European Union expresses hope for the court to be conducted according to international standards," he said. However, he believed the Indonesian government could make maximum efforts to uphold the credibility of its legal process.
Meanwhile, the US representative, Stuart Holliday, emphasized the need of training personnel of the judicial office in East Timor thus they could fulfill the requirements for the implementation of judicative function.
Holliday expressed concern on limitation of judicial organs in East Timor and the "impair" ad hoc court process in Indonesia.
The United States opined that it would be necessary to establish an international commission on truth regarding to the issue. Other countries in the session has focused on the need of support for the new country to be fully independent.
Earlier on Monday, the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan expressed dissatisfaction on the result of Indonesia's ad hoc court for human rights abuse in East Timor, and called UN members to insist that people suspected of being involved in the post ballot riots must not go free without any trial.
Riots broke out in East Timor after a majority of its people chose to separate from Indonesia in a UN sponsored ballot in AUgust 1999. Some 1,000 to 2,000 civilians were killed in the months before and the days after the ballot, and some 500,000 others fled to seek refuge.
The ad hoc court in Jakarta have tried 12 people, 10 of whom were acquitted. Of the 10, 9 were Indonesian military and police personnel.
The court has convicted two people, both East Timorese, including former East Timor Governor Abilio Soares.
Meanwhile, the UNMISET' special court has passed 58 verdicts, 55 of which were guilty verdicts and the other three were acquittals.