| Subject: UN
Probe Suggests War Crimes Tribunal for E.Timor
UN probe suggests war crimes tribunal for
E.Timor
By Anthony Goodman
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 21 (Reuters) - The
Security Council should consider setting up an international tribunal to
try those suspected of war crimes in East Timor if Indonesia fails to
investigate its army's involvement in atrocities there, U.N. human rights
investigators said in a report on Tuesday.
``This should preferably be done with the
consent of the government, but such consent should not be a
prerequisite,'' they wrote.
``Such a tribunal should then have
jurisdiction over all crimes under international law committed by any
party in the territory since the departure of the colonial power,'' the
report said, referring to the end of Portuguese rule in 1975.
Similar U.N. tribunals have been
established to try those accused of atrocities during the 1992-95 conflict
in Bosnia and the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975,
after the departure of its Portuguese colonial administrators, and later
annexed the territory. Up to one-third of the population, or about 200,000
people, were reported to have died during the invasion and subsequent
fighting and famine.
Widespread killings and violence by
pro-Jakarta militias, backed by the Indonesian army (TNI), erupted in
September this year after nearly 80 percent of voters in an Aug. 30 U.N.-organised
poll favoured independence from Indonesia.
A U.N. administration and an
Australian-led international force, to be replaced soon by U.N.
peacekeepers, is preparing East Timor for independence in two or three
years.
``Unless, in a matter of months, the
steps taken by the government of Indonesia to investigate TNI involvement
in the past year's atrocities bear fruit, both in the way of credible
clarification of the facts and the bringing to justice of the perpetrators
-- both directly and by virtue of command responsibility, however high the
level of responsibility -- the Security Council should consider the
establishment of an international criminal tribunal for this purpose,''
the U.N. report said.
It was drafted by a joint mission
comprising three special rapporteurs, or investigators, of the U.N. Human
Rights Commission in the fields of extrajudicial executions, torture and
violence against women. They visited East Timor Nov. 4-10.
Among their other recommendations were
that Indonesia should immediately secure unimpeded access by the U.N.
refugee agency to camps in West Timor -- part of Indonesia -- where it
said ``a quarter of the East Timorese population is held,'' so that those
wishing to do so might return to East Timor.
Indonesia was also urged to comply with a
call by the Indonesian National Commission of Human Rights to disband the
militias, to ensure that the territorial integrity of East Timor is
safeguarded from any further disruption.
Another recommendation was that the U.N.
Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) should be provided with
the means to conduct autopsies, medical examinations, particularly of
possible victims of rape and sexual abuse, as well as criminal and human
rights investigations.
The special rapporteurs are separate from
a five-member Commission of Inquiry established in September by the U.N.
Human Rights Commission to probe atrocities in East Timor. That panel was
unable to begin work for many weeks, mainly due to bureaucratic delays.
The rapporteurs said it might well be
that the Commission of Inquiry ``is unable to provide a full documentation
of state, institutional and individual responsibility for the crimes
committed in the past year.''
In that case, they said, ``further
investigative measures will be needed, including those that would be
appropriate for preparing cases for an international criminal tribunal.''
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