Amnesty calls for Timor-Leste tribunal

DILI, Timor-Leste, Aug. 31 (UPI) -- Thousands of victims of violence in Timor-Leste are still waiting for justice a decade after the former Portuguese colony, annexed by Indonesia, gained independence.

A report by Amnesty Intentional is calling on the United Nations to set up a far-reaching criminal tribunal to bring to justice those guilty of the violence and stamp out a "culture of impunity."

An ad hoc human-rights tribunal and a truth and reconciliation commission set up by the United Nations and Indonesia have been largely ineffective, Amnesty International claims.

Trials in Indonesia have acquitted 18 people of criminal killings for lack of evidence, and only one person is serving a sentence after being convicted in a U.N.-sponsored trial. This is despite more than 1,200 militia-related disappearances, rapes and deaths, including massacres in churches, since 1999.

The human-rights organization heavily criticized the Timor-Leste government for dragging its heels over investigating violence issues.

Amnesty's report, "We Cry for Justice," is based on the organization's trip to Timor-Leste in June. Portugal set up a trading post on the island of Timor during the 1600s to exploit sandalwood. A war in 1749 split the island, the east remaining Portuguese and the Dutch taking the west.

Timor-Leste was promised independence by Portugal in 1975. After a brief civil war, the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor, or Fretilin, declared Timor-Leste independent.

But in December 1975 Indonesia, which controls West Timor as a province, invaded and annexed the east in a move to halt communism, it claimed. Around 200,000 people died from military repression and a following famine.

The annexation was never recognized by the United Nations, which took over administration of Timor-Leste in early 1999 after years of violence by Indonesian military and independence groups, most notably Fretilin.

A U.N.-organized referendum in August 1999 showed nearly 80 percent of voters favored independence. However, more violence ensued, including by Indonesian-backed anti-independence militias in Timor-Leste.

Formal independence was granted in May 2002. Ceremonies in the Timor-Leste capital of Dili were attended by international leaders including former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

But Amnesty International says most of the perpetrators of crimes committed in Timor-Leste between 1975 and 1999, including by those in command at the time, have yet to be prosecuted before a "credible, independent and impartial tribunal" either in Indonesia or Timor-Leste.

"Despite national and internationally sponsored justice initiatives, the people of Timor-Leste continue to be denied justice and reparations," said Donna Guest, Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific deputy director.

"In 1999, anti-independence militias, supported by the Indonesian military, killed more than a thousand Timorese in front of the world, but there has not been proper accountability for these atrocities."

While a number of low-level perpetrators have been convicted, most of those suspected of crimes against humanity are at large in Indonesia, said Guest.

Meanwhile, the trial continues in Dili of 28 rebel soldiers accused of trying to assassinate Timor-Leste's leaders, President Jose Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, in February 2008.

Ramos-Horta survived after being shot in the stomach outside his home, while Gusmao escaped unharmed from an attack on his motorcade, the Jakarta Globe newspaper reported.

Alfredo Reinado, the rebel leader, was killed in the assault on Ramos-Horta's home. But among the rebels on trial is Angelita Pires, 43, the Australian-Timorese former girlfriend of Reinado.

Pires arrived at the court barefoot and in traditional Timorese garb when the trial opened in July. "I will fight for Maj. Alfredo Reinado, I won't leave him," Pires told reporters. "I will fight for justice."

She said she would rather be jailed than accept a pardon.