M. Taufiqurrahman, Jakarta – The Commission for Truth and Friendship (KKP) has identified 14 incidents of gross human rights violations it says occurred in 1999 around the time the former province of East Timor voted to split from Indonesia.

Co-chairman of the commission, Timor Leste's Dionisio Babo Soares said the 14 cases included a clash between members of pro-Indonesian militia and pro-independence groups in Liquica, a murder at the house of Manuel Carascalao and a shooting incident near Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo's residence.

"All can be considered gross violations of human rights," Soares said after a meeting with the House of Representatives Commission I on foreign affairs and human rights.

Soares said the Commission for Truth and Friendship, jointly set up by Indonesia and Timor Leste, identified the cases after studying thousands of pages of reports and the proceedings of an ad hoc human rights tribunal set up in Indonesia.

"We have studied all the documents, including ones prepared by the National Commission for Human Rights and the 2500-page report produced by United Nations-sanctioned Serious Crimes Unit," Soares said.

Benjamin Mangkoedilaga, the commission co-chairman from Indonesia, said that to corroborate the reports, members of the commission had also collected evidence and interviewed victims in Liquica, Suai and several locations in Dili.

"We also plan to meet with a number of people who were implicated in the cases," Benjamin said.

Benjamin, however, declined to release the names of individuals believed to be behind the rights violations.

He only smiled when asked whether the commission also planned to question Gen. (ret) Wiranto, the chief of the Indonesian Military at the time of the violence.

The United Nations has estimated that at least 1,500 people were killed by militia groups backed by the Indonesian Military in the aftermath of the 1999 referendum, in which more than 90 percent of the East Timorese vote to split from Indonesia.

The commission, modeled on similar restorative justice bodies set up in South Africa, Chile and Argentina, has no powers to prosecute alleged human rights violators. However, it can give recommendations to the Indonesian and Timor Leste governments to grant amnesties to alleged perpetrators, and to compensate and rehabilitate victims.

Its 10-member panel is made up of a mixture of legal experts and human rights figures. Half are from this country and half from Timor Leste.

Human rights groups and the Catholic Church in East Timor have criticized the commission as a attempt to bury the past rather than pursue justice. The body was set up last year after the United Nation's expressed its dissatisfaction with Indonesia's earlier attempts to bring the perpetrators of rights violations to justice. At the time, it threatened to take the cases to an international tribunal.

Responding to the commission's findings, chairman of Commission I Theo L. Sambuaga called on the Indonesian Military and the Ministry of Defense to cooperate with the KKP.

"We will urge our partners, in this case, the TNI and the Ministry of Defense to support the work of this commission," Theo said.