Kuta – The truth commission looking into Jakarta's bloody handling of East Timor's push for independence has a tough job ahead of it, the chairman of the newly established body said Friday after its first meeting.
Benyamin Mangkudilaga, Indonesian chairman of the Commission of Truth and Friendship, said it planned to hold talks with former East Timorese rebel leaders, Indonesian top military brass and their former militia supporters.
Modelled along lines similar to South Africa's post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the body aims at reconciliation rather than recrimination over deadly violence by pro-Jakarta militias during East Timor's 1999 drive for independence.
Mangkudilaga gave no further details but likened his task of dealing with the former foes to that of a peacemaker.
"Our job, you can say, is similar to handling two quarrelling people so they can be side-by-side and friendly to each other," he said after closing the commission's inaugural two-day meeting on the resort island of Bali, halfway between Jakarta and East Timor.
"The situation is difficult but we are sticking to the agreement made by (East Timorese President) Xanana Gusmao and (Indonesian President) Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono," he said.
He admitted there had been some "resistance" to the commission but downplayed it. "We have reached a consensus as to how we are going to work."
Militia gangs, which the United Nations has said were recruited and directed by Indonesia's military, went on a rampage of killing and arson before and after East Timorese voted for independence from Jakarta in a UN-sponsored ballot in August 1999. They killed about 1,400 independence supporters and laid waste to much of the infrastructure.
An Indonesian tribunal set up to try military officers and officials for atrocities in East Timor has drawn international criticism for failing to jail any Indonesians. The neighbours, however, have rejected prosecutions, in favour of looking towards the future.
The commission's task was to unveil the truth behind human rights violations before and during East Timor's independence ballot but would not prosecute anyone, Indonesia's Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said Thursday at the opening of the meeting.
A former Indonesian supreme court judge, Mangkudilaga said "cooperation and trust-building" would be the foundation of his commission's work.
East Timor gained full independence in May 2002 after more than two years of UN stewardship.