UN accuses 12 of Timor crimes

By RICHARD LLOYD PARRY Herald correspondent

JAKARTA - The quest for justice in East Timor took a step forward yesterday when the territory's United Nations administration announced its first indictments for crimes against humanity committed after last year's referendum on independence.

Twelve people, including an officer of the Indonesian special forces, have been charged with executing nine civilians near the town of Los Palos in September last year.

Nine of the accused are already in custody in the East Timorese capital, Dili.

The military officer, named as Lieutenant Sayful Anwar, is believed to be in Indonesia, according to a spokesman for the UN Transitional Authority in East Timor (Untaet).

Lieutenant Anwar, and the 10 members of a group of local pro-Indonesian militiamen, are accused of committing one of last year's most shocking crimes, which occurred at the tail end of a three-week campaign of violence.

On September 25, five days after the arrival of an international peace-keeping force, the group of nine, including priests, nuns, lay workers, a teenage girl and an Indonesian TV reporter, were killed with machetes on an isolated stretch of road.

They were among hundreds of people murdered in the military-led violence, which was unleashed after East Timorese voted overwhelmingly for independence from Indonesia.

Anwar is also separately charged with the abduction, torture, mutilation and murder of an East Timorese man, Averisto Lopes, in April last year. The trials are provisionally scheduled for January.

"These are the first indictments involving crimes against humanity," said the UN's chief prosecutor for serious crimes, Tanzanian judge Mohamed Otman.

Ever since the arrival of the international force, investigators have been working for the prosecution of those who committed the crimes, against formidable obstacles.

A quarter of a million people, including many important witnesses, were displaced by the violence. Even today thousands of East Timorese remain in the western, Indonesian half of the island.

Untaet has had to build a legal system and a Judiciary virtually from scratch in a country where many people still lack proper shelter and a reliable food supply.

But the biggest obstacle is the continuing uncertainty in Indonesia itself, where the powerful military remains largely immune to civilian authority.

In June, the Indonesian Parliament passed a law allowing retroactive prosecution of crimes against humanity, and investigators have named 23 people, including militia leaders and Indonesian generals, who are suspected of complicity in the violence.

But it remains to be seen whether Jakarta's feeble civilian institutions will bring any of them to trial.

The Untaet chief prosecutor in Dili, Mohamed Otman, said yesterday that the UN would ask for Anwar to be handed over by the Indonesian authorities, but a military spokesman in Jakarta refused to comment on the possibility.

If the Indonesian authorities fail to bring the perpetrators to justice, the UN has reserved the right to set up an international human rights tribunal.

Herald Online feature: Timor mission

UN Transitional Administration in E Timor