Security/boarder issues

Border patrol to replace international peacekeepers

Associated Press - March 28, 2003

Jakarta -- East Timor has formed a new border patrol unit to replace international peacekeepers, the UN said Friday -- a sign that the military is assuming greater responsibility for security in the world's newest nation.

The troops will guard the border with the neighboring Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara, home to dozens of pro-Indonesian militias who are hostile to East Timor's recent independence from Indonesia's brutal 24-year rule.

The militias have been blamed for a spate of recent attacks and robberies in East Timor. But political and economic relations between the neighboring countries have improved significantly during the past year.

"As more and more Border Patrol Unit officers complete their training, the peacekeeping force is stepping back from the border and redeploying forces into other areas," the UN said in a statement.

A 3,000-strong international peacekeeping force was deployed in East Timor in 1999, following the bloody aftermath of the half- island's independence vote. The peacekeepers will be withdrawn in stages within two years.

East Timor gained full independence in May last year, after a period of transitional rule by the UN, which still helps in the running of the country.

On Friday, an Australian battalion patrolling the border was redeployed to Ermera and Liquica cities in the western part of East Timor while a Portuguese battalion will move to hill town of Baucau, about 100 kilometers east of the capital, Dili.

West Timor/refugees

Policy on Timorese Refugees 'Immoral' - Critics

Interpress News Service - April 2, 2003

Kalinga Seneviratne, Sydney -- Australia's international profile, already hurt by criticism against its role in the US-led invasion of Iraq, is under fire for is its desire to boot out East Timorese asylum seekers who fled the former Indonesian territory more than a decade ago.

The Australian government has through the years approved very few of the refugee applications of the more than 1,600 asylum seekers who fled East Timor after the 1991 Dili massacre by the Indonesian military. Now, they say that peace has returned to East Timor and want the people to go back there.

But in a speech last week, East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao slammed Australia's policy as lacking in compassion.

Most of these asylum seekers have put down their roots here and their children have spent their formative years being educated in Australian schools while waiting for their refugee status to be determined by Canberra.

Take for instance Fivo Frietas, whose case epitomises the irony of Australia's legalistic approach to the refugee issue. He was awarded the "Young Australian of the Year" earlier this year for his services to the East Timorese community in Australia -- and five days later received his deportation notice.

"Well, I'm the Young Australian of the Year but I'm still an asylum seeker," laughed the 28 year-old Frietas.

"My people here have already integrated their lives, so please let them stay, they are part of Australia," he pleaded. "I'm an Aussie, but the government doesn't recognise [and says] 'you're not Aussie'."

Gusmao, who was on a private visit to Australia, said that the reception of the more than 1,600 East Timorese living in Australia "will not occur great hardships on the Australian economy".

But for new, impoverished country, they "will merely constitute another 1,600 mouths to be fed [and] dozens of more families that we are unable to shelter".

He has made a personal appeal to Australian Prime Minister John Howard to let the East Timorese remain in Australia until his country is able to get on its feet economically. It is unlikely to be soon, he added.

"They [government] say everything is safe in East Timor. Indonesians have gone, new government has been elected and it is a democratic state" explained Elizabeth Biok, a solicitor who represents the International Commission of Jurists.

"This puts the asylum seekers in a terrible position. We have no legal grounds to fight. Only hope is to appeal to the minister [of immigration] on humanitarian grounds," said Biok, who said that the East Timorese refugees have been in a legal limbo for over a decade and since 1995 she and many others have been fighting a legal battle on their behalf.

Since East Timor became an independent country in May last year, those who have been granted what is called a Temporary Protection Visa (TPV) have been told that this visa will expire soon and they need to go back home.

Two months ago, most of them received letters from the immigration department giving them 28 days to prove that they are legally entitled to remain in Australia.

The immigration department has already rejected over 475 cases, leaving the rest of the 1,130 with virtually no hope of getting permanent residency here.

But Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock refuse to concede any ethical ground. If people decide to avail themselves of judicial procedures -- and a lot of people do -- and they remain in Australia while they exercise these entitlements, that puts no ethical obligation on the government," he argued on Australia Broadcasting Corp on Sunday.

Speaking on the same programme, the representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Australia, Michel Gabaudan, said that there is no legal obligation for the Australian government to allow the East Timorese to remain in Australia.

He said Canberra has honoured its obligations under international law and "once the circumstances [under which they came here] have been exceeded, there's nothing in international law which says [that the] governments that have accepted refugees on humanitarian grounds or temporary protection have continuing obligations".

While conceding the legal arguments, refugee activists argue that Australia does have an ethical obligation to the East Timorese.

Susan Connelly, a Catholic nun of the Josephine order, says that this is the time for Australians to show gratitude to the 40,000 East Timorese who died helping 300 Australians soldiers to escape the Japanese occupation during the Pacific War.

"How do we begin to repay that?" she asked during Sunday's television programme on East Timorese refugees. "One thing we could do is not to send back 1,600 [Timorese] who are basically Australians and who would be a huge drain to the economy there," she added.

"[They] will not fit in to the society, simply because the fact is that they are Australian and all they need is a piece of paper," she explained.

Andrew McNaughton, convenor of the Australian East Timor Association, argues that "oil has been a factor all the way through" and this has been "very damaging to the interests of the East Timorese people".

He points out that these refugees were left in legal limbo in the mid-1990s because Australia had signed the Timor Gap Treaty with the Indonesian government to share the oil wealth there and Canberra did not want to ruffle the sensitivities of the Suharto government by granting these people refugee status here. Among those featured on Australian television in recent weeks are young East Timorese who have grown up here, such as Pedro Cham. Cham, who grew up in Melbourne and plans to sit for his university entrance exam this year, has been school captain, won three academic awards and holds a part-time job.

His appeal to the government's Refugee Review Tribunal for permanent residency status has been rejected and his future is in the hands of the immigration minister, who can still grant him that on special case basis.

Cham says his studies are being affected by the uncertainty he faces. "I can't cope with it any more," he complained on television.

Biok said one of those rejected is a 72-year-old woman who needs regular medication for a heart problem. "There's nothing for her there. No support, no medication," she pointed out. Said Biok: "It is a very cruel process. Its absolutely immoral."

Opinion: Infant East Timor a special case

The Australian - April 2, 2003

Paul Kelly -- Iraq is not the only humanitarian issue facing the Howard Government today. East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao made an urgent and desperate appeal to Australia last week and failed to raise a flicker of media interest.

The crisis facing East Timor is profound. "Independence is very good," Gusmao told this paper during his Australian visit. "But without capable administration then maybe we will fail." The 2002 Human Development Report documented the scale of crisis on our doorstep: 40 per cent of the people live on less than US55c a day; life expectancy is 57 years; the infant mortality rate is 80 in every 1000 births; and the adult literacy rate is only 43 per cent with 46 per cent of people having no schooling or skills.

In a speech to the Asia Society's Australasia Centre last week, Gusmao looked with a forgiving realism upon his country: "Once fortnightly I meet with dozens of people, mothers, widows, youths, orphans, men, elderly, who raise and present their difficulties to me: be it the fact that they have no means of subsistence, or no jobs, or no roof, or mostly, they cannot pay their children's school fees. Just try to imagine: one Australian dollar per month per child in prep and primary school. Even this, they cannot afford to pay." There is no functioning economy or "mechanisms for the purchase, processing and distribution of products". Most people operate in subsistence agriculture. The conditions for foreign investment are yet to be created. As he said, maybe East Timor will fail. But is anybody listening?

Gusmao tells me he wants to focus not on human rights violations in the past but human rights needs for the future -- clean government, anti-corruuption, food, housing, education.

But he made one specific request. Just one, for the moment. Could Australia, acting out of compassion, allow the 1600 East Timorese residing here to stay at least for some time? These are the Timorese who came in the first part of the 1990s and whose return home will just further impoverish a poor nation.

Gusmao knows their status as asylum-seekers is no longer relevant since East Timor is free. He appeals "to the sensibility of the Australian authorities, in particular, to the Prime Minister". It is a President to Prime Minister request.

Immigration Department figures show that, as at March 31 this year, 1229 people seeking protection visas have been rejected. None have been accepted. Another 484 people await a decision (the same result is likely). A further 182 people have either been granted another type of visa, have left Australia or died.

Our policy, implemented by Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock, is for case-by-case assessment. A final discretion rests with the minister and Ruddock says he will give residency to those Timorese who have married Australian citizens, meet the business migrant test or have other family connections.

Those whose applications fail and don't get a ministerial concession must return to East Timor. It is typically assumed this would be the majority.

But Gusmao wants a new approach. He asks Australia to take a decision on the East Timorese as a category for humanitarian reasons.

The sensitivity is obvious: it means a breach in the Howard Government's hardline stance that carried the 2001 election and has emptied the waters to our north. John Howard and Ruddock have been put on the spot -- the mmoral, humanitarian and practical case for compassion is strong.

First, many of these people arrived on tourist visas due to lax arrangements in our visa system at Dili, and then lodged refugee claims. The problem arose mainly because of Australia's own incompetence.

Second, having been here eight or nine years, most are integrated into the community in paid work, many have lost contact with their homeland.

Third, if applicants had been processed when they arrived (and Indonesia ruled Timor) they would have succeeded and most would be Australian citizens now.

The main delay was because of Australia's view that Portugal be the refuge for such asylum-seekers, a claim rejected by the Federal Court.

Fourth, domestic politics suggests this is a one-off issue. The Northern Territory parliament passed a bipartisan motion for the East Timorese in the NT to be permitted to stay. The Labor Party, through Opposition immigration spokeswoman Julia Gillard, has called on Ruddock to allow the East Timorese to remain. Gillard has had the good sense (unlike others) to argue "there is no reason to fear the setting of a precedent that could be used by others". This is the key point.

Ruddock says: "Every time you grant a special concession it just leads to pressure on another front. There are 13,000 rejected asylum-seekers in Australia now. There are 4000 Iraqis on temporary protection visas. There are 500 rejected asylum-seekers in detention. On each front, I am under direct pressure to find a solution."

He's right. Many Howard critics would just exploit any East Timor concession as a precedent to weaken policy overall, thereby confirming Ruddock's worst fears. But when interviewed by this paper yesterday, Ruddock offered a distinct concession: he said the use of his own ministerial discretion on a case-by-case basis "may see a higher proportion staying than many people expect".

Maybe. We don't know. We do know, however, that Howard presented the East Timor issue to this country as a special case and most Australians still share this view. Gusmao's appeal deserves a positive response from Howard. He can both manage the domestic politics and avoid compounding the problems of an infant East Timor.

Gusmao urges Australia to allow asylum seekers to stay

Agence France Presse - March 26, 2003

East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao has urged Canberra to allow 1,600 of his compatriots who fled to Australia about a decade ago, in the bloody years before independence, to stay.

The asylum seekers would not impose any hardship on the Australian economy whereas destitute East Timor would struggle to provide for them, Gusmao told a conference here about nation building.

"These 1,600 Timorese will merely constitute another 1,600 mouths that we are unable to feed, dozens more families that we are unable to shelter," he said.

Canberra argues that the asylum seekers, who have settled in the Australian community, were never granted full refugee status and since East Timor's independence on May 20 last year it is safe for them to return.

Gusmao pointed out that the recently ratified Timor Sea Treaty on gas field revenues between Canberra and Dili, which resulted in the fledgling nation waiving significant claims, had resulted in great economic benefit for Australia.

The East Timorese left what was then a strife-torn Indonesian province more than 10 years ago, some after the 1991 Santa Cruz cemetery massacre when Indonesian soldiers opened fire on hundreds of mourners in a Dili funeral procession.

Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock recently accused the East Timorese asylum seekers of lying to gain entry to Australia and labelled them "unlawful non-citizens".

Pro-Timorese activists have argued that the would-be refugees have become victims of the conservative government's tough stance on asylum seekers, which includes mandatory detention of some applicants and the establishment of holding camps on remote Pacific islands.

East Timor won independence from 24 years of Indonesian rule last May after a long and bloody struggle.

Timor Gap

Australia East Timor treaty on oil, gas comes into force

Kyodo News - April 2, 2003

Dili -- An East Timor-Australia treaty that serves as the basis for the development of the major oil and gas deposits in the Timor Sea between the two countries came into force Wednesday.

The treaty is the fundamental document underpinning development in the area of the seabed referred to in the treaty as the Joint Petroleum Development Area (JPDA), which will be jointly managed by East Timor and Australia.

Under the terms of the treaty, cash-starved East Timor will receive 90% of revenue that flows to the two governments from oil and gas production in the JPDA, while Australia will get 10%.

"This is a happy day for East Timor and Australia," East Timor's Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said at a ceremony held in Dili to mark the occasion. "From today, we have a clear legal framework for petroleum investment in one part of the Timor Sea."

The treaty was signed by Alkatiri and Australian Prime Minister John Howard last May 20.

Alkatiri said significant work has already been carried out by investors and by the two governments to bring into production petroleum fields in the treaty area, including the Bayu-Undan, Jahal and Kuda Tasi fields, and Greater Sunrise reservoirs lying partly within the JPDA.

Bayu-Undan, the first major development, will proceed under the terms of a gas development plan that the two governments and investors expect to finalize in coming weeks. It is estimated to bring around $3 billion in revenue to East Timor over the estimated 17-year life of the field.

Australian Ambassador Paul Foley said at the ceremony that the treaty will be crucial in promoting the long-term stability and prosperity of East Timor, "a goal to which Australia is committed."

He said East Timor's large share of revenue from the joint area "will make a significant contribution to government's revenue and therefore to the economic and social development of East Timor."

The project is also expected to bring significant economic benefits to Australia, both from upstream revenue and from the proposed location of gas processing facilities in its northern city of Darwin, from where the gas will be exported.

The treaty provides for a comprehensive regulatory framework covering matters such as development and production, the marine environment, employment, health and safety of workers, surveillance, security, search-and-rescue and air traffic services as well as the application of taxation and criminal law.

But Alkatiri emphasized that the treaty, while providing a clear legal framework for investment, does not provide a permanent or comprehensive framework.

"A permanent framework can only be provided by permanent maritime boundaries, which unfortunately East Timor does not yet have," he said. "But as a temporary revenue sharing arrangement, the treaty represents a good interim measure until maritime boundaries are agreed."

Timor treaty near end

The Australian - March 26, 2003

Nigel Wilson -- The Timor Sea Treaty will formally come into effect next Tuesday with an exchange of notes between Australia and East Timor in Dili.

The exchange will be the final step in the process of replacing Indonesia as the country that Australia partners in developing Timor Sea oil and gas reserves.

The treaty provides for the two parties to share revenue from petroleum production in an agreed area of the Timor Sea, the Joint Petroleum Development Area, jointly administered by both countries.

Officials in both countries are frantically revising documents that frame production-sharing arrangements for existing and future Timor Sea projects.

Officials said last night it was unlikely new production-sharing contracts covering ConocoPhillips' Bayu Undan fields would be completed by next Tuesday.

But the delay is understood to be caused by process rather than by any disagreement over the terms of the deal between ConocoPhillips and the East Timorese Government signed in December 2001.

Resources minister Ian Macfarlane told the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association conference in Melbourne yesterday he had been informed commercial closure for the $3 billion liquefied natural gas plant in Darwin, which is the second stage of the Bayu Undan project, was on target to be achieved by the end of next month.

Ratification of the Timor Sea Treaty by the Australian Parliament by March 10 was a condition precedent of a 25-year LNG contract signed between the Bayu partners and two Japanese energy utilities. Officials said that production-sharing contracts covering the development of the Greater Sunrise reservoirs were expected to be in place on Tuesday.

The immediate effect of the exchange of notes -- to follow the formal signature of the governor-general -- is that East Timor is set to receive a payment of up to $4 million in royalties held in trust from Elang-Kakatua oil production.

East Timor has nominally received 90 per cent of government revenues from the small oil fields since the Timor Sea Treaty was signed in Dili last May.

But under the terms of the treaty the fledgling country was not able to use the money until the exchange of notes takes place, which signifies formal replacement of the treaty Australia signed in 1989 with Indonesia covering the Timor Gap.

The Elang oil field, 500km northwest of Darwin, was discovered in 1994, together with the Kakatua satellite field.

Government & politics

Conflict divides Timor's leaders

Melbourne Age - April 3, 2003

David Rood -- East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao said yesterday he opposed Australia's involvement in the US-led war on Iraq.

Mr Gusmao's views appear to conflict with those of his Foreign Minister, Jose Ramos Horta, who has previously endorsed the use of force in Iraq.

"As a human being I will not support it," Mr Gusmao said. "We came from a war and we know the consequences. We know all the psychological and social impacts." Asked whether Australia should be supporting the war in Iraq, Mr Gusmao said: "Don't put me against my friend Peter Cosgrove. What I hope is that it can have a quick and good end." In an article published by The Age in February, Dr Horta endorsed the need for the US and its allies to use force.

He wrote that, while remembering the misery of war, "I also remember the desperation and anger I felt when the rest of the world chose to ignore the tragedy that was overwhelming my people".

Meanwhile, Mr Gusmao said he had talked with Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer this week on the status of about 1600 East Timorese refugees seeking to remain in Australia.

Mr Gusmao said Mr Downer told him the Government was considering the refugees' status. The Immigration Department said yesterday 1229 East Timorese had had their applications for permanent refugee status refused.

Corruption/collusion/nepotism

Corruption is the big threat for Timor, warns Gusmao

South China Morning Post - April 5, 2003

Reuters in Melbourne -- Corruption poses the biggest risk to the future of East Timor, says its president, Xanana Gusmao.

The world's newest country, which will celebrate its first anniversary next month, was struggling to make democracy work beyond just holding elections every five years, he said.

Mr Gusmao estimated it would take 10 years to establish a solid foundation for democracy. "The greatest risk is if our independence serves one group of people -- if corruption, nepotism, collusion are the rule," he said.

He said East Timor could do with more aid beyond the A$150 million a year it was receiving from countries led by Japan, Australia and the United States, but it was up to the Timorese to prove they could manage the money wisely.

"We have to continue to secure these donors' trust, and the responsibility is in our hands," Mr Gusmao said. "That's why even with a small amount of money, it's better to accept this situation than to receive a big amount without the capacity to manage it."

Mr Gusmao, once a poet, guerilla and political prisoner and now head of state, is in Australia on a 17-day visit, giving speeches on nation-building and democracy.

East Timor is one of the poorest countries in the world, with 40 per cent of its people unable to meet their basic needs, 60 per cent illiterate, and 8 per cent of children dying before the age of one, according to aid agencies.

It won independence from Indonesia after pro-Jakarta militia responded with a wave of violence to a 1999 referendum that called for East Timor to secede.

East Timor and Australia this week put into effect the Timor Gap Treaty, which will give East Timor 90 per cent of oil and gas royalties from fields in a jointly-owned zone in the Timor Sea. The royalties are expected to funnel up to A$8 billion to East Timor over about 20 years from next year.

The two countries also signed an agreement last month on the Greater Sunrise field, which straddles the joint zone, that would give East Timor only 18 per cent of royalties from the field.

East Timor is hoping to redraw maritime boundaries to give it more royalties from Greater Sunrise, a move opposed by Australia.

Mr Gusmao agreed with some critics of the Greater Sunrise deal that it could backfire on Australia by depriving East Timor of desperately needed cash and stoking instability there.

Mr Gusmao said the riots that hit the capital, Dili, in December, killing two people, were a sign of the fragile balance in a country recovering from conflict.

He predicted it would take 10 years for East Timor to develop the strong judicial system it needed to underpin democracy. While education and health were top priorities, Mr Gusmao said the young people of East Timor had the "wrong dreams" in looking for office jobs instead of tilling the land.

Justice & reconciliation

Reconciliation Commission underway

Radio Australia - March 26, 2003

East Timor's Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation has been up and running for over three months now and has accepted over 100 minor political criminals back into their villages. Another 100 offenders have stepped forward to come before the commission, where village elders are given the power to reject or accept back minor criminals who confess to their role in past violence. The Commission is helping to heal the trauma of East Timor's past, but it's becoming clear the system isn't pulling in the bulk of those accused of committing crimes.

Presenter/Interviewer: Tricia Fitzgerald

Speakers: Spencer Zifcak, International Commission of Jurists

Fitzgerald: East Timor looked at South African and Australian reconciliation efforts when it was trying to find a way to bring the society back together again after years of violence.

It already had a UN backed Serious Crimes Unit for major crimes against humanity, which occurred at the time of the independence referendum in 1999.

But there was political pressure for the government to have a way of encouraging people accused of more minor crimes back into their villages.

The commission, which has been set up, will eventually compile a truth report on the basis of its hearings.

On the reconciliation side East Timor's commission has set up village panels, which hear minor cases where perpetrators step forward and confess to their crimes.

It has a wider reach than the Serious Crimes Unit as it covers political crimes committed as far back as 1975, the year Indonesian troops invaded East Timor.

Spencer Zifcak of the International Commission of Jurists has just returned from working with the East Timorese Commission.

Zifcak: "If the perpetrators were already living in their villages happily then they wouldn't bother to come before the Commission.

"But they have thus far come in large numbers and there are currently reconciliation hearings happening right across the country before regional and district panels, that have as their purpose the reintegration of perpetrators into their community.

"And to do that the reconciliation panels have to consider what form of reparation the perpetrator must make before the reintegration can take place.

"For example by perpetrator purchasing or giving a goat and a sheep to the victim or agreeing to build a school or agreeing to rebuild houses that were destroyed by them during the conflict."

Fitzgerald: What sort of people are coming before the Commission? What sort of crimes have they committed?

Zifcak: "House burnings, minor assaults, other sorts of action of intimidation, thieving and looting are the sorts of crimes that are now being considered as part of the reconciliation process."

Fitzgerald: The commission sometimes only orders an apology from an offender but the important part seems to be that the power rests with the village elders to reject or accept back the culprits. Spencer Zifcak says one of the drawbacks of the system is though that there is pressure on the elders to forgive and forget.

Zifcak: "There's only been one case out of the hundred or so that have been heard as far as I'm aware in which a victim said no, I'm just not going to accept the condition and I do not forgive you.

"And we expect given the scale of the crimes that were committed during that period that there would have been a somewhat higher refusal rate. So I have a little residual worry that the victims will feel pressured by the process that's been established."

Fitzgerald: Another much bigger problem is that unlike the South African model the East Timorese Commission doesn't offer pardons for moderate or major crimes. This means hundreds of more serious criminals just do not volunteer to come before the commission.

Most are not charged with serious enough crimes to be dealt with by the Serious Crimes Unit, which only looks at crimes against humanity, but their alleged crimes are too serious for them to be dealt with by the commission.

Zifcak: "There is a significant problem with a middle group of offenders if we can call them that, people who have committed moderately serious crimes."

Fitzgerald: Such as?

Zifcak: "Such as systematic burning of houses, systematic looting and the commission of individual instances of torture or rape but that aren't systematic enough for them to be regarded as crimes against humanity.

"So these are quite serious crimes but don't fall into the broad international definition of what a crime against humanity is.

"And these people as you rightly say are not likely to come to the Commission and confess these crimes because they would calculate that the commission wouldn't hear their cases but rather would refer them for prosecution. So they're staying away."

Fitzgerald: So where are they, what are they doing?

Zifcak: "Well they're in other parts of the country or they're across the border in West Timor. They are in effect disguising their past or not admitting to it."

Fitzgerald: Those accused of moderate crimes are left for East Timor's normal police and court system to deal with, and that's a system Spencer Zifcak says is just not working.

A government decision that all court cases will be conducted in Portuguese for example, is creating havoc as there are not enough Portuguese speaking lawyers and judges to hear cases.

Spencer Zifcak says once the community realises that the majority of people accused of committing violent political crimes won't be tried, there will be widespread anger.

Zifcak: "What is already beginning to happen at the reconciliation hearings, and I was present at a couple over which statements of this kind were made, is that members of the local community are getting up and saying well, we agree with reconciling with this particular person but where are all the serious offenders?

"We know of many others but they don't seem to be coming before this particular panel. What happens to them?

"And the answer is well they won't come before the panels; they will have to be presented against in the ordinary courts of the land.

"And what isn't yet widely known is that the prospects of that happening are very distant if they occur at all, and once it's appreciated that amongst the serious offenders, 60 per cent are never going to be prosecuted because they're in Indonesia or West Timor, and this middle group is also not going to be prosecuted and that the only system that's operating really effectively is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the procedure for minor criminals, then I think there'll be a significant degree of restiveness in the wider community."

Human rights trials

Rights groups fault Indonesian tribunal

Washington Post - April 6, 2003

Ellen Nakashima, Jakarta -- On a recent day in a weathered courthouse in Jakarta sat defendant Tono Suratman, an army brigadier general accused of failing to prevent two massacres in East Timor during its bloody breakaway from Indonesia in 1999.

Beside him were eight defense attorneys. Opposite them was the prosecution: two lawyers called out of retirement.

In the audience were more than a dozen members of the military, including soldiers with the army special forces, their signature red berets tucked into their epaulets, there to provide moral support to their accused comrade.

And in the witness chair was Gen. Wiranto, once the head of Indonesia's armed forces, who human rights advocates said should also have been in the dock.

The scene captured much of what human rights advocates and international observers say is wrong with Indonesia's first-ever human rights tribunal.

Created last year, the tribunal was an opportunity, they say, for the emerging democracy to show its commitment to human rights. Instead, they argue, it is a sham, with disengaged prosecutors outgunned by well-prepared defense attorneys, witness intimidation, weak evidence and charges that fail to capture the gravity of the crimes and name those ultimately responsible.

Most of the defendants have been charged with acts of omission, the failure to prevent atrocities. But court observers and rights activists say they also should have been charged with acts of commission, to reflect allegations that they played active roles in planning and perpetrating the violence, which killed more than 1,000 civilians in East Timor.

"The violence was not a spontaneous act, but the result of careful planning by members of the armed forces together with the members of the militias, who acted as their proxy," said Helmy Fauzi, an investigator with the National Commission of Inquiry on East Timor Human Rights Violations.

Of 18 people indicted by the tribunal, 11 have been acquitted -- 10 of whom are military or police officers. Five have been convicted, including two military commanders and one civilian governor. Suratman and one other high-ranking military officer have not received verdicts.

The two convicted military commanders were sentenced to five years in prison, half the minimum required by Indonesian law. All five of the convicted men are free, pending appeal.

Indonesia had assured the United Nations that it could handle a tribunal on its own, forestalling the establishment of an international human rights court similar to those created for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

The Indonesian government asks for patience. "We would be the first to acknowledge that there are, no doubt, shortcomings in the trial, but they are owing more to technical deficiencies, not by any intentional and deliberate miscarriage of justice," said Marty Natalegawa, a spokesman for Indonesia's Foreign Ministry. "It may not be perfect, but even our most harshest critics would have to acknowledge that we are trying to do the right thing."

But East Timor's foreign minister, Jose Ramos-Horta, said in a recent interview that the trials are threatening to do a "disservice to the good image" of Indonesia.

"The entire process has been fatally flawed, lacking in integrity and credibility," said Ramos-Horta, who shared the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize with East Timor's Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo.

The United States banned military assistance to Indonesia for its use of lethal force in response to the 1999 violence and has not made any effort to restore the aid, nor will it "absent further progress in human rights," a senior US official said.

"On balance, I'd have to say the trials are disappointing," the official said. But he added that a recent conviction was "a noteworthy development and reminds us that we need to suspend definitive assessments until the process is over. Moreover, we hope that the trials will not be the last work in the country's effort to address that problem."

Indonesian human rights officials who investigated the violence said there was overwhelming evidence linking the Indonesian military to the militias that carried out the killings but that prosecutors failed to use it.

"We found dozens of cartridges similar to those used by the Indonesian armed forces in a church compound where killings had taken place," Fauzi said. "But there was no follow-up by the attorney general's office to investigate the case."

Officials in the attorney general's office said the criticism is too harsh: Prosecutors were given two months' training before they started. The 40-member investigation team probed for eight months before charges were brought based on Indonesia's 2000 human rights law, which requires that evidence be corroborated by at least two people.

Prosecutors said they followed up on the national commission's report, which recommended that Wiranto and Gen. Zacky Anwar Makarim be investigated, but did not find evidence to charge the top commanders, according to Bachtiar Pangaribuan, head of the human rights division at the attorney general's office. He said that in some cases, witnesses recanted their testimony or refused to testify. In other cases, militia members identified by witnesses had disappeared. Moreover, he said, the law specifies that a commander can be tried only if his subordinates carried out the crime. In many instances, witnesses accused the militiamen of carrying out the killings.

"Honestly, we as prosecutors were disappointed," Pangaribuan said, stressing that they would appeal the acquittals.

Of more than 40 witnesses from East Timor called to the tribunal, no more than 10 have agreed to travel to Jakarta to testify despite assurances that they would be protected, Pangaribuan said. Rights workers said the witnesses were uncomfortable being approached by government officials, staying in government housing and facing courtrooms full of soldiers and militia members who support the Indonesian government.

By the end of last year, some witnesses were allowed to testify by video link. But critics said that was too little, too late.

Part of the problem is the tribunal's structure, said David Cohen, director of the War Crimes Studies Center at the University of California at Berkeley.

Indonesian government lawyers are the prosecutors. Indonesian military and police officers are the defendants. Indonesian military and police officials, and some civilian experts, form the majority of the prosecution's witnesses.

"It's one thing when you hold a war crimes tribunal after you have a change of regimes," Cohen said. "But when you have a power structure that is essentially investigating itself, that's the problem."

The judges are often inexperienced, said one judge who has participated in five of the trials. A minority have experience in international or criminal law, he said.

Last month, in a proceeding separate from the trials in Jakarta, East Timor's serious crimes unit indicted Wiranto, Suratman, Makarim and four other military commanders -- among 58 indicted -- for their roles in perpetrating the violence. Makarim and Suratman were charged with forming, financing and directing the militias that attacked pro-independence East Timorese.

Wiranto has said he sought to keep the peace, not promote violence. "I am not a criminal against humanity," he told reporters.

When Wiranto was testifying in Jakarta, he brought a videotape he had narrated, showing how he had tried to reconcile the warring factions. He also gave each judge a copy of his book, "Farewell to East Timor: The Struggle to Uncover the Truth -- The Way it Was, According to a Man named Wiranto."

Suratman, a trained member of the elite Kopassus army special forces, was promoted to armed forces deputy spokesman in August 1999, four months after attacks at a church in Liquica and at independence leader Manuel Carrascalao's house in which at least 70 people are estimated to have died.

Ines Soares, 32, a housewife in Dili, East Timor's capital, said two of her relatives were killed in the violence. When the trials began, she had hope they would bring a measure of justice. But now, she said, "I don't believe in the court anymore."

[Special correspondent Natasha Tampubolon contributed to this report.]

Human rights/law

East Timor militia leader gets 12 years

Associated Press - April 4, 2003

Dili -- An East Timorese court on Saturday sentenced a senior militia leader to 12 years in prison for crimes against humanity committed during the country's bloody break from Indonesia in 1999.

Jose Cardosa Fereira was found guilty of murder, rape and torture against East Timorese civilians who supported the territory's independence from Indonesia .

"I accept this punishment as a consequence of the choices I made in the past," Fereira told reporters at the Dili District Court before being led away to begin his sentence. His lawyers said they were considering whether to appeal.

Fereira's conviction was based on crimes committed between April and October 1999 by him and the notorious militia group he headed in the western Lolotoe district of the country.

His militia and others like it were established by the Indonesian military in the run-up to the UN-sponsored independence ballot to intimidate East Timorese to vote for continued union with Jakarta.

Along with sections of the Indonesian military, the militias killed more than 1,000 people and destroyed much of the territory before, during and after the ballot.

The bloodshed only stopped when international peacekeepers arrived after the ballot to restore order.

Fereira is one of 17 suspects convicted in East Timor over the violence. Many more have been indicted but they are believed to have fled to Indonesia .

Eighteen senior Indonesian military and police officials are facing trial in Jakarta for their alleged involvement in the violence.

So far, 11 suspects have been acquitted, prompting human rights activists to brand the trials a whitewash.

The trials were held after Jakarta came under intense international pressure to try those responsible for bloodshed.

UN troops arrest two ex-militiamen for Timor rights abuses

Agence France Presse - April 5, 2003

Jakarta -- United Nations peacekeepers have arrested two former East Timorese militiamen for alleged involvement in crimes against humanity during East Timor's bloody breakaway from Jakarta in 1999.

The two ex-members of the Aitarak (Thorn) militia group were arrested on Friday after they illegally crossed the border town of Mota'ain in Indonesia's West Timor into the Batugade area of East Timor's Bobonaro district.

"They are now detained in East Timor. All indications suggest that they have taken part in crimes against human rights in 1999," First Sergeant Rahmat Irwanto told AFP from the border town of Atambua in West Timor.

Pro-Jakarta East Timorese militiamen waged a savage campaign of intimidation before the referendum and a scorched-earth revenge campaign afterwards. At least 1,000 people are estimated to have died and whole towns were burnt to the ground.

Thousands of militiamen and their families fled to West Timor after foreign peacekeeping troops arrived in East Timor in September 1999 to halt a wave of militia violence following its vote for independence from Jakarta.

United Nations-funded prosecutors in East Timor and numerous rights groups say the Indonesian military actively organised and directed the militia violence.

UN peacekeeping troops in East Timor recently said that well- trained groups of pro-Indonesian former militiamen are posing a "real threat" to security in parts of East Timor.