The birth and infancy of Timor-Leste have been attended by spasms of violence. As the former East Timor separated from Indonesia in 1999, murderous unionist mobs killed hundreds. In 2006 the harsh suppression of a protest by sacked soldiers triggered factional fighting that brought the country back to the brink of civil war, requiring the hasty dispatch of Australian-led peacekeepers. And in February this year President Josi Ramos-Horta was shot and almost died in an attack led by the rebel soldiers' leader, Alfredo Reinado, who was himself shot dead. An attempt was also made on the life of the prime minister, Xanana Gusmco.

Indonesia set up a special human-rights court, supposedly to bring those responsible for the 1999 killings to justice. But it was a whitewash.

It absolved all the Indonesian army leaders suspected of orchestrating the violence – including General Wiranto, a former and perhaps future presidential candidate. The only person jailed was Eurico Guterres, the leader of an anti-independence militia. On April 7th Mr Guterres was freed after the Supreme Court, which had in 2006 upheld his ten-year sentence, decided he was not after all responsible for his militia's slaughter.

Another whitewash is expected soon. A "commission for truth and friendship", created in 2005 by the governments of Indonesia and Timor-Leste, announced in late March that it was finishing its investigations into the 1999 violence and would shortly submit its final report to the two countries' presidents. As noted in a report in January by the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), a human-rights group, the commission's main aim seems to have been to smother attempts at bringing culprits to book, because the two countries' leaders find it more convenient to pursue "friendship" than seek justice. The United Nations regarded the truth commission as deeply flawed and boycotted it. The ICTJ's report says the commission's hearings gave those accused of violence a platform to make "self-serving" justifications without facing rigorous questioning. Indeed, it seemed to be more concerned with helping to rehabilitate the accused than helping the victims. Its chances of bringing justice were doomed before it started.

It was given the power to recommend amnesties for perpetrators but barred from calling for prosecutions.

A tribunal set up in 2001 in East Timor under UN auspices did seek to prosecute Indonesian generals but foundered for lack of jurisdiction.

At the same time an earlier truth and reconciliation commission, set up with the UN's backing, looked at allegations over the period from Indonesia's invasion in 1975 to the killings as it withdrew in 1999. Its report, in 2005, did call for prosecutions. But it has been ignored.

The UN still talks of seeking some way to bring prosecutions. But there is little enthusiasm for this among world powers – as illustrated by comments on April 4th from Christopher Hill, a senior American official. Visiting the region, Mr Hill dismissed the need for an international tribunal, saying that if the current, toothless commission was good enough for Timor-Leste's and Indonesia's governments, "it should be good enough for us."

The chances of bringing people to justice over the more recent violence also seem slim. A new report by the International Crisis Group, a think-tank, says around 100,000 Timorese – a tenth of the population – remain in the refugee camps to which they fled in the 2006 conflict. Four soldiers, convicted of shooting eight policemen in the clashes, were freed on appeal and allowed to vanish. As for February's attack on the president and prime minister, Mr Ramos-Horta accuses the UN police and Australian peacekeepers of not trying to catch the rebels immediately after the shootings. Timor-Leste's police and army are being accused of abuses as they hunt the remaining rebels and their new leader, Gastco Salsinha. Even so, some Timorese suspect they could have caught them already had they really tried.