The council voted overwhelmingly in support of the tribunal and also endorsed legislation to establish a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The moves were initiated by council member, Mr Aniceto Guterres, East Timor’s best known lawyer, who also heads the country’s Yayasan-HAK human rights foundation.
While it is expected a truth and reconciliation commission could be successful in East Timor, diplomats and human rights lawyers said they anticipate efforts to establish an international court would run into serious international opposition.
A truth commission could see militiamen involved in less serious crimes facing a community-based system of justice, rather than a court of law.
“This is in no way a move away from providing justice to those most heavily implicated in the crimes of 1999, but a means of providing a workable mechanism to bring communities together to deal with tens of thousands of minor offences that took place,” said Mr Patrick Burgess, the United Nations head of human rights in East Timor.
Those who appeared before the commission would be required to undertake community service, pay restitution and make a public apology. “This commission will have the power to look into and hear testimony about human rights abuses dating back to 1974,” Mr Burgess said.
It could deal with crimes which included involvement in the destruction of private property or low-level intimidation but not serious crimes of murder, rape, torture and organised violence. Those are being investigated by a Serious Crimes Unit, he said.
Human rights groups claim up to 1,500 East Timorese independence supporters were murdered in a reign of terror that followed the UN-brokered referendum held on August 30, 1999. Indonesia has promised an ad hoc tribunal of its own to try those responsible but its terms of reference are restricted to violence which occurred after the ballot and does not include a series of bloody massacres committed in the lead-up to the vote.
The UN warned it reserves the right to establish an international tribunal if Jakarta fails to bring those responsible for the violence to justice but increasingly that looks like a hollow threat.
This message was sent to BD by the Judicial System Monitoring Programme
Regular updates: subscribe to JSMP’s news service by sending an empty e-mail to list-subscribe@jsmp.minihub.org
Judicial
System Monitoring Programme (JSMP)
Added June 9
JMPS is a new human rights project set
up by the East Timorese Jurists’ Association and the Timorese/international
organisation La'o Hamutuk. JSMP aims to assist the United Nations Transitional
Administration in East Timor, the East Timorese public and the international
community by making recommendations for ongoing reform of the fledgling
judicial system of East Timor.
The main objective of the programme
is to improve the quality of justice provided by the newly established
judicial system, and to promote human rights and the rule of law in a meaningful
and transparent manner for the people of East Timor through:
See also:
BD: Calls for International War Crimes Tribunal - A collection of recent reports, articles and news