JAKARTA, Aug 3, 01 (CWNews.com) - New Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri has widened the scope of a tribunal set up to prosecute human rights abuses in East Timor by allowing them to pursue offenses that occurred both before and after the 1999 independence vote.
"By the new decree, we'd like to stress the competency given to the ad hoc human rights tribunal to clarify its jurisdiction and reduce the confusion about the jurisdiction itself," secretary Bambang Kesowo told reporters. "In the new decree, it is decided that the competency of the ad hoc human rights tribunal is relating to the cases of human rights violations in East Timor occurring in April 1999 and in September 1999," he added.
Former President Abdurrahmin Wahid had set up the tribunal last April to only investigate human rights abuses that occurred after the August 30, 1999 vote. That decision came under criticism from human rights organizations and from Sergio Vieira de Mello, the head of the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor.
Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation in the world, invaded mainly Catholic East Timor in 1975 and annexed it the following year in a move not recognized by the United Nations. In August 1999, the region held a Jakarta-proposed referendum to allow Timorese to choose either autonomy within Indonesia or full independence. After the pro-independence results were revealed, pro-Indonesia militias, armed and backed by Indonesia's military, went on a rampage, killing hundreds and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee the former Portuguese colony.
April 1999 was when anti-independence militia groups armed and supported by the Indonesian military began escalating their acts of violence and intimidation against pro-independence East Timorese in the run-up to the referendum.
CWN
3. august 2001