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Indonesia Pledges to Deal With East Timor Issue Soon
Indonesian Attorney General Marzuki Darusman Thursday said that the government will deal with the difficult issue on East Timor quickly and decisively in a bid to continue its efforts to restore international confidence.
"To restore international confidence, we have to deal with the difficult issue on East Timor quickly and decisively. The East Timor problem has been our 'Achilles heel' since the early 1970s,"he said at an international business forum here.
Darusman said the international publicity on the recent murder of U.N. workers and East Timorese living in refugee camps in West Timor, has sustained international attention and passionate calling for early resolution of the problems with the new nation.
"The government has committed publicly to deal with East Timor and the refugee problems equitably and respect international concerns," Darusman said.
Indonesia has been facing with possible international sanction due to "its disappointing response" to the bloody incident in Atambua, West Timor, in which three U.N. staff members were killed by East Timorese militias.
The U.N. passed a resolution which urges the Indonesia government to disarm and disband all militia elements.
United States Secretary of Defense William Cohen who visited Indonesia last week also indicated that the failure of the Indonesian government in dealing with the East Timorese problem as well as prosecuting those responsible in the Atambua's incident will have consequences for Jakarta's relations with the international community and could jeopardize continued financial assistance to Indonesia.
Meanwhile, Darusman also said that the Attorney General Office has to bring to trial those who were responsible for the violence in East Timor following its independence elections, adding that the Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has identified the responsible persons and parties involved.
"It is important that those responsible for the murder and destruction in East Timor should be held accountable and appropriately dealt with under the law," Darusman said.
This is an important signal to the international community that Indonesia is trying to restore the supremacy of law, he added.
In connection with the killers of international workers in Atambua, Darusman disclosed that the police have identified as many as 13 suspects who were allegedly responsible for the incident.
"We will prosecute them as soon as we can," he told reporters.
An early and successful resolution to the East Timor problem will help restore international confidence and allow all parties to move ahead and focus on assistance to help East Timor in realizing its goals, he said.
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