Please support ETAN in the New Year!

Read our appeal here: http://www.etan.org/appeal_2021-22.htm 

SUPPORT ETAN Now! 

Support ETAN and our work for justice, human rights and democracy. Please donate today!

In our 30th year, with your help, we can intensify our pursuit of justice for the many victims of Indonesia's security forces crimes, from the coup in 1965 that brought the dictator Suharto to power, through the illegal invasion and occupation of Timor-Leste to the ongoing human rights violations against West Papuans. We need your help in keeping up the pressure on the U.S. government to acknowledge its role in arming and training the perpetrators of these crimes.

ETAN Urges Justice for Victims of the Santa Cruz Massacre on 25thAnniversary

http://etan.org/news/2016/11scruz.htm

Contact: John M. Miller, National Coordinator, ETAN
john@etan.org; +1-917-690-4391

ETAN Urges Justice for Victims of the Santa Cruz Massacre on 25^thAnniversary

Photo by Steve Cox, Generations of Resistance: East Timor

November 2016 - On the 25^th anniversary of the Santa Cruz massacre, the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) urges the international community to commit to ending impunity for the human rights crimes committed during the occupation of Timor-Leste.  

"The victims of the Santa Cruz massacre have waited too long for justice," said John M. Miller, National Coordinator of ETAN. “Those responsible for crimes against humanity and war crimes during Indonesia’s illegal occupation need to be held accountable for their crimes.” 

"We believed that an international tribunal is needed to credibly try those responsible for the Santa Cruz massacre and other crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by Indonesia during its illegal occupation of Timor-Leste," Miller added. 

The victims of the Santa Cruz massacre have waited too long for justice. Those responsible for crimes against humanity and war crimes during Indonesia’s illegal occupation need to be held accountable for their crimes.

On November 12, 1991, U.S-armed Indonesian troops opened fire on a peaceful pro-independence demonstration calling for self-determination and protesting atrocities committed by the Indonesian military. More than 271 East Timorese were killed or died soon after and an equal number disappeared and are believed to be dead. 

The 1991 massacre -- witnessed and filmed by foreign journalists -- was a major turning point in Timor-Leste's struggle for liberation. 

During more than two decades of U.S.-backed occupation, Indonesian soldiers committed serious crimes with impunity, taking as many as 184,000 Timorese lives and torturing, raping, and displacing countless others. Timor-Leste became independent in 2002.

"The East Timorese people will need to know the where  the bodies of their relatives and friends are," said Miller. "Impunity for decades of systematic Indonesian military and police atrocities prevents both Timor-Leste and Indonesia from consolidating the rule of law as they transition from military dictatorship to democracy." 

While some deeply flawed processes have prosecuted some involved in crimes committed in 1999, those responsible for giving the orders to torture, rape, and kill have yet to be brought to justice. Those from countries such as the United States, Britain, and Australia that actively aided in these crimes by providing weapons, training, and political support have yet to be held accountable.

ETAN continues to call on President Joko Widodo to fulfill his campaign promise to address human rights violations committed during and after the Suharto dictatorship, including by establishing credible judicial processes to investigate killings like the Santa Cruz massacre. 

For more on the Santa Cruz massacre see ETAN’s backgrounder here:http://etan.org/factsheets/santa_cruz.htm

The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) was founded in 199 following the Santa Cruz massacre. ETAN supports democracy, human rights and justice in Timor-Leste, West Papua and Indonesia. Website: www.etan.org Twitter: @etan009.

A Timorese View on Justice for Suharto's Crimes

A Timorese View: Time to End Impunity for Suharto's Crimes in Indonesia and Timor-Leste

Tetum: Agora mak tempu atu hapara impunidade ba krime sira Suharto nian iha Indonesia no Timor-Leste

Bahasa Indonesia: Sekarang Saatnya Memutus Impunitas untuk Kejahatan Soeharto di Indonesia dan Timor-Leste

some excerpts:

The tragedy of 1965-1966 is part of a long history of massacres by the Indonesian military. As East Timorese, we know very well the brutality of the Indonesian dictator's regime. I was born after the initial Indonesian invasion in 1975, but grew up under the occupation. As a young student, I saw the Indonesian military intimidate and abuse youth suspected of supporting East Timorese independence. We were not safe anywhere: Suharto's troops would seize us at home, school or on the streets; many were never seen again. I watched helplessly as soldiers murdered my cousin, Luis Gusmão Pereira, in a public market in Triloedae-Laga. 

....

The chains of impunity remain strong in Indonesia; U.S. leaders who supported crimes against humanity in Indonesia and elsewhere continue to avoid accountability and punishment. The U.S. and Indonesia claim they are democratic and law-abiding nations, but they openly resist holding their own officials accountable.

East Timorese demonstrate for justice.
Photo by Karen Orenstein/ETAN.

Happy Holidays!

We are talking a break and will be checking our e-mail less often. We wish everyone happy holidays and a fulfilling and peace-filled New Year! May the peoples of Timor-Leste, West Papua, and Indonesia find the peace, prosperity and justice they so deserve.

Thank you for your interest and support our work for justice and human rights. We look forward to working with you in the coming year.

We hope you will support the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) by including us in your end of year giving. You can safely donate by credit card and read a message from Noam Chomsky about why you should join him in supporting us here: http://bit.ly/noam_etan

If you haven't done so, we hope you will sign ETAN's petition calling for an end to 50 years of official silence concerning  U.S. complicity in Indonesian mass violence and  murder. Please sign and share http://chn.ge/1v50Edj

Thank you
John M. Miller, National Coordinator, ETAN

P.S. Use this link, if you want to sign up for ETAN's listservs on Timor-Leste, West Papua or Indonesia:  https://fs20.formsite.com/jmm555/form2/index.html

Demonstrate during Jokowi's U.S. Visit

If we didn't know any better, we would say President Widodo was avoiding us! He cancelled the two events on his preliminary schedule that we had planned to bring our messages of support for human rights and justice in Indonesia and West Papua. Stay tuned for future activities.-- John M. Miller for ETAN.

Join ETAN, Sign up today!

Protest Freeport and Indonesia's Theft of West Papuan Resources



Please note; The Washington, DC demonstration is cancelled. President Jokowi's planned meeting with Freeport will not take place. The California demonstration is still on!

Sign up for ETAN's email lists

.

Demand President Jokowi Support Justice for All

Wednesday, October 28, 2015, 09:00 - noon
Where: Computer History Museum 
1401 N. Shoreline Blvd, Mountain View, CA 94043


Contact : Peter Phwan, ETAN/ICANet, San Francisco (415) 812-2414
Muhamad Amin, www.jokowitodo.org, San Francisco (415) 412-6372
John M. Miller, East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN), 917-690-4391 john@etan.org
Facebook page

Indonesia's President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo will shortly visit the United States to meet with President Obama. On October 28, President Jokowi is set to give a speech at Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley. This forum will be all about business. Jokowi was elected with the promise that his administration would different. He has yet to fulfill this promise. Positive initiatives by President Jokowi have been undermined by his own officials and many important issues, such as justice and accountability for past human rights crimes, have not been seriously addressed.

More information here

Join ETAN, Sign up today!

Monday, October 26, 2015, 8:45 - 9:45 am
Willard Hotel

Contact John M. Miller, East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN), 917-690-4391, john@etan.org

On Monday, Oct. 26, Indonesia's President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo will meet with officials of the Freeport McMoRan mining company. Freeport, which runs what at among the world's largest copper and gold mine in West Papua. The mine is Indonesia's largest revenue generator. Monday's meeting is part of negotiations about the renewal of Freeport's license, including a new split of the mine's revenue. Revenue that rightfully belongs to the West Papuan people.

More information here

Freeport's Grasberg mine in West Papua. Credit: Panos Pictures/Rob Huibers

ETAN Interview with Allan Nairn on Justice, Indonesia, Timor, West Papua and more.

ETAN Interview with Allan Nairn on Justice, Indonesia, Timor, West Papua and more.: "Stopping the Killers From Killing An Interview With Allan Nairn on Justice, Indonesia, West Papua, Timor-Leste, and Guatemala"

ETAN ALERT: Watch the Act of Killing, Take Action on U.S. Support for Mass Violence in Indonesia

Release the Records, Acknowledge the Crimes of 1965/66 Mass Violence in Indonesia Sign ETAN's Petition to U.S. Government

ETAN ALERT

Take Action on U.S. Support for Mass Violence in Indonesia

The Oscar-nominated documentary, The Act of Killing will be broadcast on PBS, Monday October 6, 2014, on POV. We hope you will watch this important and disturbing film, where

Although the massacre of between 500,000 and 1,000,000 communists, leftists, ethnic Chinese, and others in Indonesia in 1965-1967 is a foundational event in modern Indonesian political history, it remains mostly a footnote for most in the United States and elsewhere. In 2012, the documentary The Act of Killing shocked audiences throughout the world as perpetrators of the mass murder reenacted their violence. The film shows sociopathic gangsters from Medan, Sumatra, who committed these acts as they are celebrated by many in modern Indonesia. The film has fueled a debate within Indonesia and drawn attention internationally to events unknown to many. Events that the U.S. facilitated and cheered at the time.

The public television program POV will be airing the Oscar-nominated The Act of Killing on October 6 (and you can watch it on POV's website from October 7-21) and the film is available for online streaming and purchase elsewhere. The Look of Silence, a companion film currently showing at film festivals, focuses on the victims. It follows the investigation by Adi Rukun into the murder of his older brother who was killed during the violence.

These powerful films tell us much about Indonesia today as they do about the past. However, any evaluation of the events of 1965-1967 must include a discussion of the role of Western powers in the violence, including that of the United States. The East Timor and Indonesia ActionNetwork (ETAN) continues to call for accountability for those in the West who encouraged and assisted in the mass violence in Indonesia. The full truth must come out and the U.S. should declassify all files related to Suharto's U.S.-backed seizure of power and the murderous events which followed.

ETAN has prepared a backgrounder on the events and aftermath of Suharto's brutal seizure of power, where we focus on the U.S. role and responsibility. Read Breaking the Silence: The U.S. and Indonesia's Mass Violence. 
What You Can Do

The World Bank gave $30 billion to a dictator who killed 1 million. ETAN projected the film on World Bank headquarters in Washington to highlight international complicity in Indonesia's mass violence. Photo by Dakota Bell.

1) Sign the petition urging the U.S. government to take two immediate steps:

a) declassify and release all documents related to the U.S. role in the 1965/66 mass violence, including the CIA's so-called "job files." These detail its covert operations,

b) and formally acknowledge the U.S. role in facilitating the 1965-66 violence and its subsequent support for the brutalities of the Suharto regime.

2) Watch The Act of Killing and write a letter to the editor about the need for the U.S. take responsibility for its role in the mass violence in Indonesia. We will have some sample letters available by the weekend, but it is better to write your own. Feel free to use ETAN's Backgrounder: Breaking the Silence: The U.S. and Indonesia's Mass Violence, if you do so.

3) If you are high school teacher or college professor teaching an appropriate subject, consider assigning The Act of Killing to your students. Use it as a springboard for discussions on the impact of U.S. foreign policy, the need to address human rights violations, and how the past affects the present. (Contact: Chris Lundry for further info or assistance.)

4) Support ETAN. We need your support to continue our work for justice and accountability. Please donate today.

For more information see http://www.etan.org

For the NEW YEAR!

ETAN wishes all a fulfilling and peace-filled New Year! May the peoples of Timor-Leste, West Papua, and Indonesia find the peace, prosperity and justice they so deserve.

Thank you for your interest and support our work for justice and human rights. We look forward to working with you in the coming year.

Feliz Anu Novu!

Selamat Tahun Baru!

Tinan Foun Haksolok!

Happy New Year!

John for ETAN

Please support ETAN in the coming year. We hope you will help by donating today!  Thank you to all who have contributed so far.

How to Donate to ETAN

You can donate safely by credit card through ETAN's website: http://etan.org/etan/2014appeal.htm#online . Or you can mail your donation. To support ETAN's work, write a check made out to ETAN. A U.S. tax-deductible donation to support ETAN's educational work of over $50 can be made out to A.J. Muste Memorial Institute/ETAN. Please mail your donations to: East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN), PO Box 21873, Brooklyn, NY 11202-1873.

ETAN on anniversary of Santa Cruz massacre

November 12 is the 22nd anniversary of the Santa Cruz massacre. On November 12, 1991, Indonesian troops opened fire on a memorial procession - turned into a peaceful pro-independence demonstration - at the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili, the capital of Timor-Leste. More than 270 mostly-young Timorese were murdered.

As we have often noted, the media coverage of the massacre was a key turning point in Timor's long struggle for independence. It led to the founding of ETAN and similar groups, energize UN and Portuguese diplomacy, and led to some sanctions on Indonesia. In the U.S., ETAN built on the initial cut-off of military training for the Indonesian military. Eventually, all military assistance was cut off in 1999 as Indonesian troops and militia ransacked the Timor in the aftermath of the historic vote that led to independence.

On the 20th anniversary of the massacre ETAN observed that:

"While Timor-Leste is now independent, its people will not be able to overcome their tragic past without knowing what was done with their relatives’ and friends’ bodies. Ongoing impunity for decades of systematic Indonesian military and police atrocities keeps the East Timorese and Indonesian people from consolidating their democracies and moving on with their lives."

Much remains to be done. A year ago, we noted that:

"Impunity for decades of systematic Indonesian military and police atrocities prevents both countries from consolidating the rule of law as they transition from  military dictatorship do democracy."

We continued to to urge the U.S. Congress and the Obama administration to respond to the recommendations of Timor-Leste's Commission for Truth, Reception and Reconciliation, especially "its calls for an international tribunal to try perpetrators of crimes against humanity during the Indonesian occupation, reparations from Indonesia and other countries that supported the occupation, and restrictions on foreign assistance to the Indonesian military."

And we urged the U.S. and others to press Indonesia "to immediately release all information that can help identify and locate those who were killed or disappeared during the occupation,."

For more information on the massacre see http://etan.org/timor/SntaCRUZ.htm. ETAN on the web: http://www.etan.org. Twitter: etan009

ETAN and WPAT on Obama's Upcoming Trip to Indonesia

UPDATE: Obama is not going to Indonesia because of U.S. government shutdown. Our criticisms of U.S. policy to Indonesia remain; the policy needs to change.

Read: ETAN Urges President Obama to Put Human Rights at Center of U.S.-Indonesia Relations During Upcoming Visit to Indonesia

excerpts:

“The U.S. must not ignore injustice and human rights violations to advance narrow strategic and economic interests that have little to do with the well-being of the U.S. or Indonesian people,” said ETAN National Coordinator John M. Miller. “While much has changed in Indonesia since the Suharto dictatorship, U.S. security assistance does not promote further change. Instead it encourages impunity and further violations of human rights.” 

“We are calling for a new relationship between the two countries built on an honest assessment of the bloody past,” said Miller. “Instead of offering more weapons and more training to Indonesia’s military, President Obama should suspend this assistance until there is an end to abuses and real accountability for past human rights crimes.”

We are calling for a new relationship between the two countries built on an honest assessment of the bloody past.

Since Obama's last visit to Indonesia, the human rights situation has deteriorated in West Papua and religious intolerance has grown.

“President Obama can send a strong message against impunity by making clear he and and other senior U.S. officials will not to meet with any Indonesian politicians -- including likely presidential candidates, such as retired generals Prabowo and Wiranto -- who have been credibly accused of human rights and other crimes,” said Miller.

The two presidents.

Read: West Papua Advocacy Team Open Letter to President Obama

excerpts: 

This year marks 50 years of Indonesian rule over West Papua, which had previously been a Dutch colony slated for independence. Half a century of Indonesian rule has seen West Papua subjected to crimes against humanity, according to numerous credible human rights reports. Half a century of colonization of one people by the armed forces of another has taken place. Half a century of ongoing conflict has been the result. To resolve the conflict peacefully, international mediation is needed. West Papua was delivered to Indonesian rule as a result of American mediation, which confers upon the United States a special responsibility to act to resolve the current conflict peacefully.

and

The increasing militarization of West Papua indicates that there is no let-up in sight to the half-century of widespread violations of basic human rights in West Papua. If Indonesia is democratizing, the reverse is the case in West Papua.

We therefore recommend that on your trip to Indonesia, you:

1. Press for a dialogue between the Indonesian government and West Papuan civil society, with international third-party mediation, along the lines of the successful international medication of the Aceh conflict in 2005. Current policy is not advancing dialogue. Internationally-mediated dialogue is a growing call from civil society voices in both West Papua and Indonesia.
2. Halt military assistance to the Indonesian security forces. United States cooperation with the most brutal elements of the security forces encourages the climate of impunity, and United States sale of Apache helicopters increases the repressive capacity of the security forces in West Papua. Cooperation with the Kopassus Special Forces and Detachment 88of the Indonesian National Police should be suspended pending an improvement of the human rights situation in West Papua and the initiation of dialogue, and the agreement to provide Apache helicopters should be cancelled. Non-military ties should continue to expand but military cooperation be made conditional on respect for human rights in West Papua, as it was with respect to the Timor-Leste situation prior to Timor-Leste's independence.
3. Press for open access to West Papua by international observers, NGOs and others, so that the conflict will no longer be hidden.
4. Support efforts from within Melanesia to address the root causes of the conflict in West Papua, the denial of self-determination and the persistence of repressive policies by the Indonesian security forces.
5. Press President Yudhoyono to order a halt to security forces' violations of the human rights of West Papuan civilians, and hold security personnel accountable for their crimes by laying charges, where evidence merits, in civilian courts.

West Papua Advocacy Team

Guatemalan path for Indonesian justice

Guatemalan path for Indonesian justice
By Andrew de Sousa*
Over two months ago, a packed courtroom in Guatemala City appeared to be in chaos. Many were in tears as the room filled with cries of "justicia!". The former military dictator General Efrain Rios Montt, meanwhile, was surrounded to ensure he would not escape.

What many assumed to be impossible had happened: someone was being held responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses of the past century, the genocide of the indigenous Maya of Guatemala. Despite its notoriously corrupt judicial system, Guatemala had become the first country in the world to convict a former president for genocide in its own territory. It was a legal victory for human rights everywhere and ideally will serve as precedent for holding other leaders accountable, including in Indonesia.

While separated by some 16,000 kilometers of Pacific Ocean, Guatemala and Indonesia have similar modern histories. At the beginning of the Cold War, the United States government felt threatened by progressive, leftist movements in both countries. A decade before the Central Intelligence Agency supported General Suharto's rise to power, the democratically-elected Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz was ousted in a CIA-backed coup d'etat, just two years after legalizing the communist party and 18 months into a modest land reform program perceived as a threat to US business interests.

Throughout the Cold War, the US provided support to both the Indonesian and Guatemalan militaries under the pretext of stopping the spread of Communism. Just as perceived links to the Communist Party of Indonesia, or Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI), or Chinese ethnicity were used to justify the massacre of as many as one million Indonesians, the Guatemalan military killed an estimated 200,000 mostly unarmed indigenous Mayans who were assumed to be guerrilla sympathizers based solely on their ethnicity. Before the purge, the PKI was the world's largest non-ruling communist party.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, while the Indonesian military's atrocities extended to the annexed island of East Timor, now known as Timor-Leste, across the Pacific a succession of military regimes increased their repression of the Guatemalan people. While thousands of activists were disappeared in the cities, the military conducted a scorched earth campaign against the entire Maya population.

While then US president Ronald Reagan applauded the "wise and steadfast leadership" of General Suharto, his praise for Guatemalan General Rios Montt was even more effusive. According to Reagan, the military dictator who oversaw the 16 bloodiest months of the 36-year conflict in Guatemala was "a man of great personal integrity and commitment".

The conflict in Guatemala officially ended with the signing of the 1996 Peace Accords. The government agreed to uphold international human rights standards, end extra-judicial or clandestine security forces, stop extra-judicial executions and enforced disappearances, and create a United Nations-supported Historical Clarification Commission. The commission found that acts of genocide had occurred, with successive military governments responsible for 626 separate massacres and 93% of the deaths during the conflict, with 83% of the victims being indigenous Maya.

Still, for almost 15 years after the Peace Accords, Guatemalan courts refused to hold high-ranking officials responsible for the atrocities of the 1980s. A group of brave Maya survivors, organized as the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR), helped to change that.

In 2000 and 2001, AJR filed legal charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes against two former presidents, Romeo Lucas Garcia and Rios Montt, and their top military commands. The move appeared quixotic: Rios Montt enjoyed immunity as a sitting member of parliament, and his political ally, Alfonso Portillo, was president. With a lack of political will among judges and public prosecutors, the case stalled under the regularly filed appeals of defense lawyers.

In 2006, however, the system began to change. The UN created an International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala, placing an international prosecutor in Guatemala to target organized crime. Then, in 2011, four low-level former soldiers were convicted and sentenced to 6,060 years in prison each for their role in the 1982 Dos Erres Massacre, the first time members of the military were found guilty for atrocities committed during the 1980s. A year later a fifth soldier was convicted and sentenced. When Rios Montt left parliament in 2012, he was placed under house arrest pending trial.

Within a year, Rios Montt was before a three-judge panel. Over six weeks, the court heard evidence of the military's systematic rape, torture and murder of rural subsistence farmers targeted merely for being from the Ixil Maya communities. Experts provided evidence that Rios Montt was fully aware and in command of these scorched earth operations, making him culpable of genocide. Rios Montt was sentenced to 80 years and immediately taken to prison.

On May 20, in an unprecedented ruling 10 days after the conviction, the Constitutional Court annulled the second half of the trial. Rios Montt was back under house arrest and many lamented a major defeat for the pursuit of justice. While the reversal was unwanted, for those most involved it was far from unexpected. From the beginning, the trial was not only about Rios Montt but also about to create a process of justice for Guatemala as a whole - and the elite in particular - to acknowledge that what had happened to the poor and indigenous Ixil Maya population was illegal and wrong.

The trial gave the people of Ixil a national stage to tell their story. Their testimony was broadcast and the public heard how children were forced to watch their parents being killed and fetuses ripped from their mothers' wombs. A former solider testified how the current president, Otto Perez Molina, ordered his troops at the time to burn villages and kill anyone who tried to escape. The most powerful message of all was "si hubo genocido!", or that genocide did occur. This motto was a rallying cry for an emboldened fight for justice - what was once only said in private or abroad was now in the open.

While impunity still reigns in Guatemala, it is only a momentary victory. The testimony of dozens of survivors, built upon decades of struggle and resistance, engendered hope more powerful than any court ruling. By refusing to let those in power silence them, some of the poorest and most oppressed people in the Western Hemisphere were able to accomplish the impossible. By holding Rios Montt accountable, if only temporarily, they have shown that it is possible for justice to prevail in even the most unlikely of circumstances.

Who is to say that the same cannot happen in the courts of Jakarta or the fledgling legal system in recently independent Timor-Leste? Certain prominent Indonesian politicians, including former military generals and at least one presidential hopeful, could easily be found culpable for human rights abuses if justice was legitimately pursued. While Guatemala's fight for justice has only now gained traction, 15 years after the initial calls ofreformasi and Indonesia still has not come to terms with its genocidal past.

In the words of Guatemalan genocide survivor Edwin Canil, "This has got a long way to go yet. It's just a question of who gets tired first: them or us. But we're still here and staying firm."

* Andrew de Sousa is with the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South and a member of the board of the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN),

also published in Speaking Freely at Asia Times Online 

(Copyright 2013 Andrew de Sousa) 

ANTI: We are very sad because you are starting to forget and ignore the history of suffering and the past that is still painful!

A-N-T-I
THE TIMOR-LESTE NATIONAL ALLIANCE FOR AN INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL
Aliansa Nasionál Timor-Leste ba Tribunál Internasionál

We are very sad because you are starting to forget and ignore the history of suffering and the past that is still painful!

ANTI is aware that every act of murder committed against Timorese citizens was done by those who were following instructions of their commander, namely Prabowo.

Today is the third day of the Development Partners Meeting in Timor-Leste. ANTI notes that the agenda for the Development Partners Meeting did not touch on the issue of justice, especially past human rights violations. We consider that the donors have only demonstrated a "half-hearted approach" or have not shown that they are serious about dealing with development issues in a comprehensive manner. 

Therefore gaps/inequalities continue to be created in society.

In accordance with news announced by the Antara News Agency on 10 June 2013 a meeting took place between Prabowo Subianto, Wiranto and Mari Alkatiri in Jakarta, Indonesia. Timorese leaders and the principal perpetrators of human rights violations have already met on numerous occasions since 2004. According to the aforementioned news report Mr. Mari Alkatiri visited the GERINDRA Party to meet with Prabowo and the GERINDRA Party leadership. Prabowo said that this visit was a special visit for Prabowo and his leadership. This news shocked the Timorese community because it reminds us of the atrocities committed by the Indonesian military, especially KOPASSUS, against innocent civilians in Timor-Leste during the occupation by the military regime.

Alkatiri (left) meets with Prabowo (right)

We are reminded of the human rights violations committed by Indonesia, especially those committed by KOPASSUS. The CAVR report indicated that there was a sharp increase in sexual violence during the mass arrests that took place between 1978-1983. After 1983 Kopassandha/Kopassus (Indonesian Special Forces) committed more than 100 arrests and incidents of torture in Mauchiga (Hatu Builico, Ainaro) and Kraras, Bibileo, (Viqueque). Prabowo was directly involved in the Craras Massacre in Bibileo. In addition, Prabowo?s men were also involved in the Santa Cruz Massacre (1991).

A number of cases involving sexual violations occurred in military posts or on military bases. In 1976, Prabowo was the platoon commander of the Group 1 Sandhi Yudha Troop Command (Kopassandha) that started to lead operations carried out by the
Nanggala Team in Timor-Leste.

We know for sure that he was involved in human rights violations committed in 1983, and at that time he was a captain.

It is very strange that Prabowo was a commander at that time and that he has not been held accountable for human rights violations that he committed together with his men. ANTI is aware that every act of murder committed against Timorese citizens was done by those who were following instructions of their commander, namely Prabowo.
Based on the CAVR report, approximately 102,800 people died as the result of murder, hunger and disappearances that occurred during the conflict. However, there are several estimates that are much higher than the one mentioned in the CAVR report. In addition, approximately 250,000 people were forced to flee to Indonesia and more than four thousand children were taken by Indonesia and until now their families don't know about their circumstances. More than 800 people were victims of forced disappearances and until now their whereabouts are unknown.

At the end of "Black September" in 1999, the UN Commission for Human Rights held a plenary session to discuss human rights violations in Timor-Leste. This special plenary session was the fourth special session conducted in the history of the Commission. The Commission strongly condemned the planned and systematic "crimes against humanity and violations of international humanitarian law" and called for the perpetrators of these crimes to be prosecuted. The Commission also requested to the UN General Secretary to set up a Commission of Inquiry. Not long after, Kofi Annan set up an International Commission of Inquiry on East Timor (ICIET). ICIET was able to fulfill its mandate by visiting Timor-Leste and Indonesia between November ? December 1999. ICEIT concluded that "a wide range of human rights violations and crimes against humanity and crimes against international humanitarian law had occurred over a long period of time that included intimidation, terror, destruction of property, violence against women and forced removal" At the same time the UN sent three special rapporteurs to Timor-Leste in December 1999. These special human rights envoys recommended for the UN to establish an International Court if the Indonesian government fails to effectively bring the main perpetrators of crimes to justice.

When the ICIET released its report, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson stated that "the report of the Commission of Inquiry has sent a message to the people of Timor-Leste that the international community has not forgotten their suffering. I hope that those that are responsible for the atrocities committed in Timor-Leste are held accountable so that there is no impunity"

However, until now the perpetrators have not yet been held accountable for the human rights violations that they committed. More disappointingly, cases involving serious crimes are starting to be forgotten and ignored. How can the chain of impunity be broken if there is no formal process to try the main perpetrators of human rights violations that occurred in Timor-Leste during the occupation? 

Therefore, ANTI calls for and demands the commitment of the international community to provide accountability for violations that occurred in Timor-Leste during the Indonesian occupation via a fair and credible process.

1. We request for the international community, including the people of America, England, France, Holland, Norway, Germany, Australia and Latin America, Africa and Asia to be morally responsible in accordance with international humanitarian law. ETAN and Amnesty International in particular need to keep focusing attention and following up on serious crimes cases that occurred in Timor-Leste.
    
2. We urge the donors to pay attention to crimes against humanity that occurred in Timor-Leste during the occupation by the Indonesian military to ensure that there is a legitimate process to break the chain of impunity because problems from the past will reflect on the development of democracy now and in the future.

ANTI considers that it is unfair for the international community to once again abandon us, and make that people of Timor-Leste the ones who have to be responsible for demanding accountability for human rights violations that occurred in Timor-Leste.

Dili, 20 June 2013

Members:

1. Asosiasaun HAK
2. JSMP (Judicial System Monitoring Program)
3. La'o Hamutuk
4. Fokupers
5. Asosiasaun Chega ba Ita (Acbit)
6. MDI
7. CDI
8. Luta Hamutuk
9. Kadalak Sulimutu Institutu (KSI)
10. Asososiaun Vitima 74-99
11. Timor-Leste Student Front
12. Forum Tau Matan (FTM)
13. Sek. Fongtil
14. Haberan Institute
15. Asean Justice and Rights (AJAR) - Timor-Leste

see also Human Rights & Justice page

• ANTI: Joint Statement on International Day for the Right to the Truth and Justice for Victims: ANTI demands for the State of Timor-Leste to not ignore the rights of victims
• As UN Meets on Anniversary of Massacre ETAN Urges UN and U.S. to Act for Justice for Timor-Leste (November 12, 2012)
• ANTI/Amnesty International: Tackling Impunity in Timor-Leste and Indonesia: Justice Is the Only Way, Statement to Commemorate November 12, 2012
• La'o Hamutuk: Ultimate letter to the UN Security Council about justice, sustainable development and not forgetting Timor-Leste (November
• ANTI: Letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on UN responsibility for justice (August 14)
• ANTI: Timor-Leste demands justice - “Because we love peace, and we want the truth to strengthen reconciliation” (May 18)
• 10 Years After Timor's Independence, Where Is the Justice? (May16)

View from Jakarta: World Statements Against Religious Violence

SBY Is No Statesman! Peaceful Picket Thursday, May 30, 2013, 5:30-7:30pmThe Pierre Hotel, 2 E 61st St., New York City Oppose the World Statesman Award to President Yudhoyono  from the Appeal of Conscience Foundation Bring your own signs and banners highlighting the ongoing human rights issues in Indonesia, including attacks on religious freedom, lack of justice for past human rights violations, and ongoing rights abuses in West Papua and elsewhere. Event on Facebook (Should the Appeal of Conscience Foundation withdraw the award, we will hold a celebration outside the hotel.) Map Download, print and distribute flyer promoting demonstration (PDF) contact ETAN for more information or to help

by Rev. Elice Higginbotham, 

Member, Executive Committee, East Timor and Indonesia Action Network

JAKARTA, May 26 – The President was absent from the presentation ceremony for his award.

So the crowd of Christians, Shia and Amhadiyya Muslims, followers of indigenous religions, women’s rights advocates,and other victims of violence against religious and other minorities carried the “World Statements Against Religious Violence” Award through the streets of Jakarta’s National Palace District and presented it at the palace gate.

SBY was not really expected at a Christian worship service, particularly not the semi-weekly presence of the congregations and friends of the GKI Yasmin and the HKPB Fildelfia congregations who conduct an open-air, right-under-his-nose service to remind him, and the surrounding city, that they are not permitted to worship on their own property because the state refuses to enforce their constitutionally guaranteed rights.

Today’s service, however, was an expanded, multi-faith event, intended to highlight widespread opposition to/offense at the “World Statesman Award” from the New York-based Appeal of Conscience Foundation, slated for presentation on May 30.  We arrived a little early to find a gathering crowd carrying both handmade signs and organizational banners, including demonstrators and speakers from beyond Jakarta, some from as far away as Aceh and Kupang.  As the service began, two women, one wearing a sash saying “No Award to SBY,” lay down at the front of the crowd to represent victims killed in religious violence.

(For the first time in my experience in Indonesia, I was questioned by police.  A rather quick and clever woman danced over to me, waving her cellphone camera, and asked what Indonesians occasionally do when encountering a foreigner in an interesting public spot – “Photo?  Take my photo with you?”  She handed her  camera to someone else in the crowd and put her arm around me, beaming into the sunshine. Then… she began asking me who I was, why I was there, how I found out about the event.  Simply on the basis of her appearance, I unconsciously assumed she was part of the demo.  However, few minutes later, I saw her chatting with uniformed police on the sidelines of the demonstration area; she caught my eye, called me over, and asked me to reiterate my information, which I realized she was writing down.  I stopped and asked, “Excuse me, may I ask who wants to know?”  Smiling  her friendly smile, she said, “I’m a policewoman.”  A journalist friend commented later that I’d probably been noted as the first obvious foreigner on the scene.)


Aside from the presence of more cameras and a more diverse congregation (and the two “dead” women), the service was its usual, thoughtfully-prepared fairly ordinary Christian Sunday worship, distinguished only by the multiplicity of posters and signs calling for implementation of religious rights and the concluding enthusiastic unison rendition of the National Anthem.  As the worship concluded,  however, it was clear that things weren’t over.

A six-foot-high, black-draped object, looking like a tall black ghost, was rolled out.  Representatives of the various groups recently victimized by religious violence took their places at the front.  And, instead of the “World Statesman” Award – the “World Statements Against Religious Violence” Award was unveiled: a gold foil-covered tower, topped by the Indonesian symbols of Garuda and Pancasila, and decorated with photo after photo of incidents of religious violence in Indonesia… burning churches… bruised bodies… disrupted worship services… demonstrations… funerals….

Representatives of victimized groups each made their statements, witnessing to personal and community suffering.  Concluding prayer was offered.

Then the monument was lifted up onto shoulders and carried toward the street.  Police officers (colleagues of the woman who questioned me) obligingly stopped traffic as the crowd crossed, SBY’s award moving ahead of us, leading us toward the entrance to the National Palace.  The crowd sang patriotic songs.

We were greeted by an unsurprisingly closed and well-guarded gate.  A pastor made a statement about the award and about our presence, and then turned to the security guards on the other side of the gate.  A period of negotiation ensued, resulting in what appeared to be an agreement  to open the gate just enough to allow the award to the slipped through, with a note of explanation to the President.  Someone bent a back to offer a flat surface, someone else wrote the note, which was handed to a guard, and the golden tower was passed through the gate and onto the Palace grounds.

Cameras clicked, more patriotic choruses were sung as the “World Statements Against Religious Violence” Award was hoisted onto the shoulders of Palace security personnel, carried along the path until it disappeared around a corner, looking for all the world as if borne by a guard of honor.

see also 

• View from Jakarta: The room was papered - literally - with signatures
• View from Jakarta: No World Statesman Award for Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
• ETAN: Urge the Appeal of Conscience Foundation to Withdraw World Statesman Award to Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono

 

View from Jakarta: The room was papered - literally - with signatures

SBY Is No Statesman! Peaceful Picket Thursday, May 30, 2013, 5:30-7:30pm The Pierre Hotel, 2 E 61st St., New York City Oppose the World Statesman Award to President Yudhoyono  from the Appeal of Conscience Foundation Bring your own signs and banners highlighting the ongoing human rights issues in Indonesia, including attacks on religious freedom, lack of justice for past human rights violations, and ongoing rights abuses in West Papua and elsewhere. Event on Facebook (Should the Appeal of Conscience Foundation withdraw the award, we will hold a celebration outside the hotel.) Map Download, print and distribute flyer promoting demonstration (PDF) contact ETAN for more information or to help

by Rev. Elice Higginbotham, 

Member, Executive Committee, East Timor and Indonesia Action Network

JAKARTA  -- The room was papered - literally - with signatures.

The Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace convened a media conference of the Civil Society Coalition for Freedom of Religion/Conviction Thursday, May 23, at a Jakarta hotel. A wide range of NGOs, human rights organizations, and representatives of minority religious organizations - non-Sunni Muslims, Christians, "non-recognized" religious groups - gathered to express their opposition to the "World Statesman Award" that the New York-based Appeal of Conscience Foundation proposes to present on May 30 to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. 

"No Award For SBY," an on-line petition by ETAN and another Indonesia-based one, were the visual symbols of broad, unified Indonesian and international opposition to the Foundation's choice: The walls of the room were covered with page after page of the names of signers, surrounding the 17 speakers, the TV cameras, print reporters, bloggers and interested others. 

Petition signatures paper the wall.

I met and spoke briefly with Imam Shofwan, a young journalist who grew up in a traditional Islamic political organization. He expresses deep offense at the idea of honoring SBY while religious violence is on the increase in Indonesia and the government refuses to enforce the rights of religious minorities.  Imam generated his own on-line petition, initially in support of an open letter by an Indonesian Jesuit professor of philosophy who wrote the Appeal of Conscience Foundation a painstakingly-worded critique of SBY's failures of leadership with regard to the protection of minority rights. Imam's petition, posted only a couple weeks ago, hit an instant chord in Indonesia. Signatures, now merged with those of ETAN's petition, total close to 6,000, says Imam. 

"Some government spokespeople told me that Muslims are very angry at [the Jesuit Professor] Romo Suseno's letter, that this is a Muslin country and I shouldn't be supporting someone who speaks badly of us.  I told them to look at the 6,000 signatures!" Imam told me.

Among the speakers was an early ETAN activist, the Rev. Max Surjadinata, who attempted to meet with the Appeal to Conscience's president  during a recent visit to New York and deliver letters expressing opposition to the award from the GKI Yasmin and HKBP Filadelfia churches, which represent two of the more public recent examples of religious discrimination and violence in Indonesia.  Although he had been given an appointment upon phoning the Foundation, Max was rebuffed by security staff when he arrived at the door.  The guard took the letters, saying he would make sure they were delivered.

The Yasmin and Filadelfia congregations are still waiting for an answer.