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Former East Timor governor calls for arbitration in human rights cases

November 11, 2004 3:57am Asia Intelligence Wire Advertisement

web site on 10 November

Jakarta: The former governor of East Timor, Abilio Jose Osorio Soares requested that the gross human rights abuse cases in East Timor be determined through a Truth and Reconciliation Commission [KKR]. "All Indonesia has to do now is to arrange it so that what occurred before the ad-hoc human rights laws came into existence would be dealt with through KKR. In that case, I think KKR bodies need to be formed immediately," he said on Wednesday (10 November) in Jakarta.

[It was better to] resolve the gross human rights abuse cases in East Timor through KKR according to Abilio, because Law No 26 in 2000 on human rights is in conflict with the constitution. He considers Chapter 43, Article 1 of Law No 26 in 2000 on the principle of retroactivity as being problematic. "So we can resolve cases that occurred before the ad-hoc human rights laws existed," he said when submitting a draft document based on that principle to the Constitutional Court.

Previously, Abilio was sentenced to three years in prison because he was proven guilty of human rights abuse in one of the East Timor cases. He was serving his sentence in LP Cipinang prison in East Jakarta. However, he was later released after his case review was granted by the Supreme Court.

[In another 10 November article by Tempo Interaktif, Abilio said "as a person who has spent time in prison, I feel I have a responsibility as there are still many people behind me who are currently being tried in the human rights court." Abilio's lawyer, OC Kaligis explained that Abilio's attendance at the trial had indicated where his interests lay. "He wants to push for the rights of his colleagues who were still being tried in the human rights court," he said.]

Source: Tempo Interaktif web site, Jakarta, in Indonesian 10 Nov 04

BBC Monitoring