Geoff Thompson
Mark Colvin: Indonesia has accepted that its own officials, military and police, funded, armed and collaborated with the violent anti-independence militias that ran riot in East Timor eight years ago.
Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has expressed his "deepest remorse" to those who lost their lives and property.
His East Timorese counterpart Jose Ramos-Horta also joined him in Bali to accept the final report of their nations' Commission for Truth and Friendship.
Both leaders signed a joint statement in Bali expressing "remorse to all those who suffered immeasurable pain and physical and psychological wounds" due to human rights violations in 1999.
Indonesia correspondent, Geoff Thompson, reports from Nusa Dua in Bali.
Geoff Thompson: Until very, very recently, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was among the majority of Indonesian officials who denied the institutional involvement of the Indonesian state, the military and the police in the coordinated militia campaign to terrorise East Timor's people enough to ensure a vote against independence in 1999. Today in Bali, that official position changed forever.
(Sound of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono speaking)
Standing before East Timor's President Jose Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, President Yudhoyono turned a new page in Indonesia's official history.
"Often truth can only be established," he said, "after systematic investigation. Without the substantial truth of such a process, we cannot produce closure. Such closure is crucial," he said. "We cannot move on if we remain focused on the past, but we can't just bury the past unceremoniously. The lies about what happened must be taken out of the process before rehabilitation can operate effectively," he said.
The final report of the two nations' Commission for Truth and Friendship found that both countries bore the burden of institutional responsibility for the gross human rights violations which left up to 1500 people dead and hundreds of thousands displaced in 1999.
But President Yudhoyono stopped short of an apology. Instead he expressed his deepest remorse for what happened that led to the victims and the loss of property.
"Let us remember those who fell in those dark days of our past," he said. "By remembering them," he went on, "let us resolve that what befell them shall not happen again in our lives to any human in the future."
Clearly guided by a spirit of reconciliation, East Timor's President Jose Ramos-Horta said that the tragic events of 1999 were known to all and did not need to be elaborated.
President Horta said that the report made it clear that with the history of the Indonesian military in East Timor it was unrealistic to expect the military to maintain security without emotion. Then he went even further and praised the TNI.
Jose Ramos-Horta: The Indonesian army was not defeated in Timor-Leste. Let no-one harbour such illusions. They obeyed their orders from their leaders and complied with the verdict of the people of Timor-Leste to leave the country.
This was an act of statesmanship, a very painful one for a very proud army and a very proud country.
Geoff Thompson: An international coalition of human rights groups focused on East Timor from Europe, the US, East Timor and Indonesia, have criticised the commission and the report, effectively saying that the work was meaningless without pursuing the prosecutions of those behind 1999's systematic campaign of violence and without reforming a largely unreformed Indonesian military.
After the handover of the report and the speeches, I asked Indonesia's Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono whether the truth was too much for many in Indonesia's military to accept.
Juwono Sudarsono: No, I've talked to most of the senior military officers, retired as well as active. They all accept the wording of the institutional responsibility.
Geoff Thompson: But it is a breakthrough; we've never had an admission, an official admission or acceptance by Indonesia of anything like this before.
Juwono Sudarsono: I think it's a credit to the President because he was a military officer, he served in East Timor and he was chief of the territorial staff. So I think it's a great credit for him.
Geoff Thompson: And in terms of prosecutions, is that door closed or is it still possible?
Juwono Sudarsono: One of the recommendations is that both sides must try and find ways to help resolve the wounds affecting families of the victims. That's not in a prosecutor sense but in a monetary sense, I think that's the key word.
Geoff Thompson: In 1999, Indonesia's current presidential spokesman Dino Patti Djalal had the unenviable job of selling the official fiction of what was happening in East Timor to the international media.
On the sidelines today, I asked whether he was relieved that he no longer had to be involved in selling a lie. He laughed and said, "I'm very glad."
In Nusa Dua, Bali, this is Geoff Thompson for PM.