Heat goes on Jakarta as East Timor trials near

By DEAN YATES

JAKARTA - Indonesia's patchy ties with the international community face a major test when military officers, including two generals, go on trial this month over violence that swept East Timor in 1999.

Diplomats already sceptical about the Indonesian judicial process say a whitewash could prompt key nations to review their relationship with Jakarta and trigger calls for reductions in vital aid.

Even if aid is not cut, the diplomats say, a whitewash would further damage foreign investors' faith in the judicial system and reinforce perceptions that Jakarta lacks the political will to tackle tough reform issues.

The trials will again highlight the military's poor human rights record. But most analysts expect little fallout in the military's ties with President Megawati Sukarnoputri, partly because they believe she will stay aloof from the process.

Nor are the trials likely to be disrupted by the military itself, which is eager to restore the full links with Washington, which were slashed after the carnage in East Timor when the territory voted to break from Jakarta's rule.

"These trials will matter," said a Western diplomat. "If they are a total disappointment, then for a lot of countries it will mean a reassessment of how they deal with Indonesia."

Diplomats say outrage could manifest itself via the World Bank-chaired Consultative Group on Indonesia, home to most of Jakarta's foreign donors.

When it approved more than $US3 billion ($6.98 billion) in aid for Indonesia in November, the group sought swift adjudication on the East Timor violence.

"A whitewash would be disastrous because that would feed right into this perception that of all the reform areas, the one that is really the biggest dog is legal reform," said another Western diplomat.

A special court is expected to convene this month, once Megawati has approved 30 judges nominated for the ad hoc tribunal.

Indonesian prosecutors have named 19 suspects, including two military generals and one police general. The court will try the 19 for serious human rights abuses when pro-Jakarta militias with Army support rampaged in East Timor.

The United Nations estimates that more than 1000 people were killed, but no military officers or militia leaders have been brought to trial in Indonesia.

East Timor has been under UN administration since late 1999.

Many diplomats are sceptical that justice will be done, partly because a lack of evidence would open legal loopholes.

But although diplomats say it is unlikely officers will implicate their superiors, former Attorney-General Marzuki Darusman says testimony may point to former General Wiranto, the military commander at the time of the bloodshed.

"It can be very political because once the trial starts you open up the possibility that others may have to be prosecuted," Darusman said.

"That could reach up to, perhaps, Wiranto."

Jakarta's past handling of sensitive trials gives little cause for optimism that justice will be served.

Indonesia incurred international condemnation for being too lenient when a court last year jailed six men for less than two years over the slaying of three foreign UN aid workers by a mob of pro-Jakarta militia in West Timor in September 2000.

Officials have previously said the ad hoc human rights tribunal is needed because attempts to use the conventional court system have been impeded by technicalities.

Despite suggestions that a whitewash would renew calls for the UN to convene an international tribunal along the lines of those for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, UN officials and diplomats doubt such a move would occur.

They say permanent UN Security Council members China and Russia would probably oppose it.

Diplomats say generals are nervous about the trials but have more to gain by letting them proceed, especially since recapturing some public favour in July when they disobeyed an order by Megawati's predecessor Abdurrahman Wahid to implement a state of emergency.

The United States military wants to return to full military cooperation with Indonesia, but says first there must be an accounting for what happened in East Timor.

- REUTERS

Feature: Indonesia

CIA World Factbook: Indonesia (with map)

Dept. of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia

Antara news agency

Indonesian Observer

The Jakarta Post

UN Transitional Administration in E Timor

East Timor Action Network