ETimor president opposes rights abuse tribunal call
AFP DILI, Aug 28, 2009 — East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta rubbished Friday a call by rights group Amnesty International to establish a tribunal to prosecute those responsible for rights abuses in the tiny country.
A report by the group this week said East Timor and neighbouring Indonesia were promoting “impunity” by refusing to prosecute those behind abuses during Indonesia’s bloody 24-year occupation of the former Portuguese colony.
“Amnesty International issued a report out of London talking again about a sense of ‘impunity’ in Timor-Leste,” Ramos-Horta told reporters, referring to the country by its official name.
“Well, if every country in the world that experienced what we have experienced… were to establish an international tribunal to charge the crimes committed, maybe we would start with the United States for instance, over Vietnam,” he said.
“Why always should East Timor be an international experiment with international justice? I have opposed and continue to oppose an international tribunal for East Timor.”
“I was elected (in 2007) with 70 percent of the popular vote and the people of this country have known since ‘99, 2000 where I stand on this issue.”
East Timor is gearing up for celebrations Sunday for the 10th anniversary of a UN-backed referendum that saw the country vote overwhelmingly for independence from Indonesia.
Violence by the Indonesian military and its proxies around the vote killed 1,400 and displaced hundreds of thousands.
Roughly 100,000 people were estimated killed by fighting, disease and starvation between Indonesia’s 1975 invasion and the 1999 vote.
Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah also criticised the Amnesty report, saying the East Timorese government had a mandate from the people to brush aside calls for prosecution.
“Who does Amnesty represent in this case? We question whose aspirations Amnesty is talking about. The aspiration of the people of East Timor has been channeled through the government and the parliament,” he said.
Faizasyah said Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda would be among foreign dignitaries at Sunday’s celebrations.
Indonesia accepted for the first time that its military was responsible for rights abuses in a joint truth and friendship report last year, but both countries’ govermnents have said they favour reconciliation over jailing those responsible.