|
JAKARTA: Indonesia said Friday it has a “moral obligation” to
accept the findings of a truth inquiry into atrocities during East
Timor’s independence vote in 1999 which will be released next
week.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
and his East Timorese counterpart Jose Ramos-Horta will meet Tuesday
on the resort island of Bali to receive the Commission of Truth and
Friendship report, an official said.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah
refused to provide details of the commission’s findings or confirm
media reports that it laid responsibility for the violence on the
Indonesian military, police and government.
But he said Indonesia recognizes its moral duty
to act on the findings of the joint commission set up in 2005.
“Certainly there is a moral obligation to
follow through on the report itself, because it’s also based on
our perspective looking forward to close this unfavorable chapter in
our two countries’ relations,” he told Agence France-Presse.
Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald newspaper
said the inquiry had found “gross human rights violations”
against pro-independence supporters in East Timor in 1999 that
constituted an “organized campaign of violence.”
The commission is not expected to name names and
has no prosecution powers. The process has been boycotted by the
United Nations (UN), which has already blamed Indonesia and demanded
that those responsible face justice.
So far no Indonesian military commander or
government official has been successfully prosecuted over the
violence.
But if confirmed, the findings would be the
first time Indonesia has acknowledged its responsibility for the
mayhem, which UN investigators have described as a crime against
humanity.
About 1,400 people were killed when militias
backed by the Indonesian military rampaged through East Timor as the
then-province voted overwhelmingly to break away from Indonesia,
which invaded in 1975.
Victims have long struggled with a culture of
impunity over the killings. The only person jailed, militia leader
Eurico Guterres, was cleared of involvement by Indonesia’s Supreme
Court in April.
Former Indonesian military chief Wiranto,
indicted by UN prosecutors in 2003 for crimes against humanity for
his alleged role in the violence, is tilting for a second run at
Indonesia’s presidency in next year’s elections.
“The TNI [Indonesian military], Polri [police]
and civilian government all bear institutional responsibility for
these crimes,” the Sydney Morning Herald quoted the 300-page
report as saying.
The human rights violations included “murder,
rape, torture, illegal detention and forcible transfer and
deportation,” it said.
The commission found that pro-independence
groups also committed crimes, but pro-Indonesian militias were the
“primary, direct perpetrators of gross human rights violations,”
the newspaper reported.
The violence was “systematic, coordinated and
carefully planned,” it said.
Foreign ministry spokesman Faizasyah said he
could not comment on the contents of the commission’s findings as
they had not been “handed in.”
The commission heard testimony from scores of
witnesses including East Timorese Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, a
former separatist guerrilla fighter, and Indonesian military
officers, including Wiranto.
The Indonesian military commander in East Timor
in 1999, retired Major General Kiki Syahnakrie, rejected the
findings of the report in an interview with the Australian
Broadcasting Corp.
“I am very unhappy, because it was never
proven that it happened,” he said through a translator.
“I am more unhappy that the Indonesian
military is held institutionally accountable because it is very much
unfair.”
East Timor, which was a Portuguese colony before
Indonesia invaded, finally gained formal independence in May 2002.
-- AFP
|
