Indonesia takes blame in E. Timor

The president of Indonesia on Tuesday formally accepted a commission report that blames his country’s security forces for supporting militias in a frenzy of murder, rape and other crimes against humanity in East Timor nine years ago.

“We convey very deep remorse at what happened in the past that has caused the loss of lives and property,” President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said as he and East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta jointly received the commission’s findings.

It was the first time Indonesia’s government has accepted charges that members of its military and police, along with civilian authorities, helped pro-Indonesian militias carry out a brutal campaign against East Timor’s bid for independence.

At least 1,000 people died and thousands more were driven from their homes in the 1999 violence that erupted after East Timor’s people voted for independence from Indonesia, which had sent in troops to occupy the former Portuguese colony in 1975.

An Australian-led peacekeeping force intervened, but East Timor is still struggling to overcome political violence and poverty. Gunmen shot and seriously wounded Ramos-Horta outside his home in February.

Indonesia and East Timor each named five members to the intergovernmental Commission of Truth and Friendship in 2006. The panel’s mandate was to establish the truth behind the events before and after the 1999 referendum on independence, “with a view to further promoting reconciliation and friendship,” not to name suspects.

“We must learn from what happened in the past to find out the facts over who has done what to whom, and who must be held responsible,” Yudhoyono said in Bali. “Only the truth will free us from those past experiences.”

Although the panel blames pro-Indonesian militias and their backers in the security forces for most of the bloodshed in 1999, its report also faults pro-independence groups for kidnapping opponents.

Human rights activists have demanded that a tribunal prosecute members of Indonesia’s security forces and other authorities who, the panel found, “systematically cooperated with and supported the militias in a number of significant ways that contributed to the perpetration of the crimes.”

In its 300-page report, the panel recommends that a human rights court put perpetrators of the violence on trial. But 18 members of the security forces and civilians have already been cleared by a special human rights tribunal.

Retired Gen. Wiranto, Indonesia’s defense minister in 1999, has been frequently accused by human rights groups of fomenting unrest in East Timor. Wiranto, who, like many Indonesians, uses only one name, is a front-runner in the presidential election set for next year. He failed in a 2004 bid for the presidency.

Wiranto “absolutely knew what was going on” in 1999, former Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told Australian radio Tuesday. “I’m not sure whether he particularly supported it, but he simply didn’t have the strength to stop it.”

However, Ramos-Horta said getting over a violent past is more important than prosecuting those behind the crimes.

“Justice is not and cannot be only prosecutorial in the sense of sending people to jail. Justice must also be restorative,” the East Timorese president was quoted as saying by news media from Bali. “We as leaders of our people must lead our nations forward.”

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paul.watson@latimes.com