East Timor urged to make public report on Indonesian atrocities

12/06/2005 04:15:49 AM EST AP WorldStream English (all)

DILI, East Timor_East Timor's president should make public a U.N.-commissioned report that recommends troops who carried out atrocities during Indonesia's 24-year rule be prosecuted, one of the authors said Tuesday.

The 2,500-page Reception, Truth and Reconciliation Commission report _ which also calls on countries that supported Indonesia's 1975 invasion to compensate the victims _ was presented to President Xanana Gusmao on Oct. 31.

The former resistance leader, who has repeatedly said he favors reconciliation with his powerful neighbor to seeking justice for those who died, handed it to parliament last month but has not yet made it public.

Aniceto Guterres, head of the national commission that complied the report, said Gusmao has a "moral responsibility" to the 200,000 people who died during Indonesia's 1975-1999 rule.

"The report is now in the hands of the state and it is the responsibility of the state to disseminate it," he said at a press conference Tuesday.

The former Portuguese colony was devastated during a long war of liberation that followed Indonesia's December 1975 invasion. The attack was tacitly sanctioned by then-U.S. President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who both met with Indonesia's then-dictator, Suharto, in Jakarta a day before the assault.

Indonesia's iron-fisted rule ended in 1999, after a U.N.-organized plebiscite resulted in an overwhelming vote for independence.

In a final act of vengeance, withdrawing Indonesian troops and their militia auxiliaries destroyed much of the country's infrastructure and killed at least 1,500 people.

Gusmao, who spent six years in prison for fighting against Indonesian occupation, said last week some of the recommendations made by commissioners were unrealistic and could lead to "political anarchy and social chaos."