Ending the cycle of impunity. Can the East Timor Investigations Pave the Way?

When three army generals were publicly grilled in November by members of Indonesia’s newly elected Parliament, the DPR, about atrocities in Aceh, the whole nation was transfixed by the three- hour spectacle on their television screens. Now, at last, after more than three decades of impunity, men with the blood of many victims on their hands were being called to account. Then on 24 December, General Wiranto, former commander-in-chief of the Indonesian armed forces, TNI, was summoned to appear before a civilian commission investigating crimes against humanity in East Timor. That he agreed to appear signalled that the once all-powerful armed forces have been forced to acknowledge that they will have to account for their crimes to civilian authorities. They can no longer hide behind the smokescreen of ‘officer honour councils’ to exonerate the top brass as they did in 1992 following the Santa Cruz Massacre in East Timor in November 1991, or military courts to hand down derisory sentences to low-ranking officers.

However, the senior officers have treated the commission with contempt; they have used their appearances before the commission to spin lies, refute irrefutable evidence and prolong the commission’s proceedings. They have shown that they will do everything in their power to protect themselves from possible prosecution.

The dedicated work of the commission could represent the early beginnings of a new era of justice in Indonesia, leading ultimately to the indictment of men who have been directly responsible or have command responsibility for killings and atrocities that have plagued Indonesia since Suharto came to power. Ultimately, it could also lead to the ending of impunity for Suharto himself, the man who master-minded the aggression against East Timor, the atrocities in West Papua and Aceh and the many other atrocities going back to the biggest crime of all, the massacre of up to one million Indonesians as he clawed his way to power in 1965.

The investigation of crimes against humanity in East Timor

In late September 1999, a resolution was adopted by a special session of the UN’s Commission for Human Rights (UNCHR) to set up an international commission of inquiry into the orgy of killings and scorched earth that struck East Timor during the run-up to and following the ballot on 30 August when over 78 per cent of the population voted in favour of independence.

In anticipation of this development and realising that it could lead to the formation by the UN of an international tribunal to try crimes perpetrated by Indonesian officers for war crimes or crimes against humanity in East Timor, the Indonesian government, still then under President B.J Habibie, hastily enacted a presidential decree in lieu of law for the formation of a human rights court. At the same time, the National Commission for Human Rights (KomnasHAM) set up a Commission to Investigate Violations of Human Rights (KPP-HAM) with a mandate to investigate abuses committed in the aftermath of the ballot in East Timor.

The scene was thus set for two parallel investigations, one domestic and one international. This had been foreseen by the UNCHR resolution which stipulated that the international commission of inquiry should work ‘in cooperation with the Indonesian National Commission on Human Rights… to gather and compile systematically information on possible violations of human rights and acts which may constitute breaches of international humanitarian law committed in East Timor since … January 1999’. The resolution also affirmed that ‘the primary responsibility for bringing perpetrators to justice rests with national judicial systems’.

The UN’s commission of inquiry came into being in late October after much foot-dragging at the UN and ECOSOC, with a mandate to investigate human rights violations in East Timor since the beginning of 1999 and to complete its work and report to the UN Secretary-General by 31 December 1999. The five-member commission headed by Sonia Picado of Costa Rica, with members from Nigeria , India, Papua New Guinea and Germany, visited East Timor for two weeks in late November and early December.

The UNCHR resolution also provided for three UN Special Rapporteurs - dealing with extra-judicial killings, torture and violence against women - and the UN Working Group on Disappearances to conduct investigations in East Timor.

Indonesian governments under Habibie and Abdurrahman Wahid have made it clear on numerous occasions that they would not agree to Indonesian army officers being tried before an international court because they see this as an infringement of national sovereignty. Generals who know full well that they can face indictment have made no secret of their fear that they could suffer the same fate and humiliation as General Pinochet of Chile or Serbian generals now being tried in The Hague.

KPP-HAM presses ahead

Although there was initial scepticism from several international NGOs, including TAPOL about the independence and sincerity of a commission associated with Indonesia’s Komnas HAM whose record of investigations in East Timor has been rather disappointing, it soon became apparent that KPP-HAM was determined to collect evidence about atrocities in East Timor, to seek out those responsible for the horrific events in East Timor and to collect evidence about the role of TNI officers in instigating, aiding and abetting the activities of the pro-integration militia groups which had come into being during the course of 1999.

During their first investigations in November which took them to East and West Timor, they gathered information and collected eye-witness testimonies of some of the worst atrocities including the killing of several hundred people at a church in Suai on 6 September. They questioned witnesses who testified that the local TNI command had been directly involved in the killings. In West Timor, they were directed to the graves of the three priests who had been gunned down outside the church and more than a dozen victims of the massacre and obtained eye-witness accounts that army trucks had been used to transport the bodies.

Back in Jakarta, the KPP-HAM investigators met the UN’s team of investigators who had just completed a two-week visit to East Timor. Comparing notes, they agreed that their findings tallied in most respects. There will be a one-month gap between the international commission’s report which was submitted to the Secretary-General on 31 December 1999, and the KPP-HAM’s report which will be made public on its submission to Komnas HAM on 31 January 2000.

In December, another KPP-HAM team visited East Timor for eight days. On their return home, they announced that:

• They found convincing evidence that the operations of the pro-integration militias had taken place with the knowledge of and on the instructions of high-ranking army and police officers, leading them to believe that senior officers in Denpasar, Bali (where the military command which oversaw East Timor was based) and Jakarta should be called to account for the criminal acts in East Timor.

• They observed a similarity in the way members of the TNI and militias had collaborated in the planning, preparation and implementation of several mass killings and the removal, disposal and burial of the bodies of victims in order to eliminate all traces of each atrocity.

• They had obtained key documents showing that the scorched earth policy that destroyed so many public facilities and private dwellings in East Timor and the operation to drive hundreds of thousands of East Timorese out of the territory were carried out on the instructions of senior army officers.

• They had also obtained evidence that the militia operations were funded from the budget of the civil administration in East Timor.

One document in their possession is a cable sent on 5 May 1999, the day agreement was reached in New York between Indonesia, Portugal and the UN for a referendum to be held in East Timor. Signed by deputy chief of staff of the army, Brigadier-General Jhoni Lumintang, the cable instructed the commander of the regional military command in Bali to be prepared to take repressive actions after the ballot if the decision was in favour of independence and prepare for the evacuation of the population. In a meeting with KPP-HAM, Lumintang confirmed that such a cable had been sent.

Another document known as the Garnadi Letter, written in June by H.R. Garnadi, a retired brigadier- general working in the office of General Feisal Tanjung, Minister-Coordinator for Political and Security Affairs, outlined contingency plans in the event that the autonomy option was defeated. This would include the mass evacuation of government employees and Indonesian migrants from East Timor, preparations in West Timor for a huge influx of evacuees from East Timor and the destruction of ‘vital facilities’ along the evacuation route.

Following their investigations, KPP-HAM summoned General Wiranto on 24 December and questioned him for more than three hours. Wiranto later told the press he had agreed to appear before KPP-HAM because it was an official body set up by the government and because ‘the matters in hand should be resolved between us as a domestic affair without letting outsiders clean up our household’. He thus confirmed that he had appeared in order to protect himself and other top-ranking TNI officers from the humiliation of facing an international tribunal.

Under questioning, General Wiranto denied that the Indonesian army had a policy ‘of carrying out genocide or crimes against humanity’. He insisted that the TNI as an institution ‘had never issued orders or encouraged the burning of cities, the killing of people or the compulsory evacuation of the population’. Much of the questioning revolved around Wiranto’s overall responsibility as commander- in-chief of the armed forces.

Three major-generals, Zacky Anwar Makaram and Syafrie Syamsuddin both intelligence officers, and Adam Damiri who was commander of the regional military command in Bali, as well as Colonel Timbun Silaen, who was chief of police in East Timor, and Colonel Tono Suratman, the military commander of East Timor, have also appeared before the commission, using the occasion in an attempt to clear their names and refute eye-witness testimony obtained by KPP-HAM investigators during their visits to East Timor.

The army officers who now face the prospect of prosecution for war crimes or crimes against humanity in East Timor have appointed a team of defence lawyers led by Adnan Buyung Nasution. Nasution who was formerly one of the country’s best known human rights lawyers but has now forfeited that reputation by agreeing to defend people suspected as perpetrators of abuses rather than their victims. Former justice minister Professor Muladi is the defence team’s senior legal adviser. Alleging that Interfet, the international peace-keeping force which took control of security in East Timor on 20 September, has been responsible for twenty killings, the team announced that their main line of defence would be that the human rights violations in the aftermath of the ballot ‘were a manifestation of society’s disappointment with the conduct of the ballot which had been unfair and dishonest’.

In an attempt to discredit the activities of KPP-HAM, top generals have accused it of pursuing an anti- Indonesia agenda, of being funded by money from abroad and of basing its evidence on information from Interfet, a body that has been much maligned in Indonesia for alleged interference in Indonesian domestic affairs. They are seeking to portray KPP-HAM as serving foreign interests. Some of its members have even been threatened with physical violence.

International Humanitarian Law

Since the end of the Second World War, a body of law has evolved to cover crimes against humanity and war crimes, which together are known as International Humanitarian Law. The Nuremberg Trial of sixteen nazi war criminals in 1946 was based on the Nuremberg Charter adopted by the four victorious Allied Powers in August 1945, defining the crimes for which these men were indicted and convicted. Then came the four Geneva Conventions adopted in 1949, the fourth of which deals with the protection of civilians in time of war; its provisions include safeguarding humane treatment for persons in occupied territories and is therefore applicable to East Timor.

The Nuremberg Trial and the Geneva Conventions gave birth to the concept of universal jurisdiction, imposing an obligation on every state to assist in the trial and punishment of such crimes wherever they may have been committed. This means that states have the power individually or collectively to conduct a trial even if they have no link with the place where the crime was committed. ‘The concept of universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity is the solution that international law offers to the spectacle of impunity for tyrants and torturers who cover themselves with domestic immunities and amnesties and pardons…. What sets a crime against humanity apart, both in wickedness and in the need for special measures or deterrence, is the simple fact that it is a crime of unforgivable brutality ordained by a government or at least by an organisation exercising political power.’ [See Geoffrey Robertson, Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice, 1999]

Crimes against humanity and war crimes have been set down most fully in the Statute of the International Criminal Court adopted in Rome in July 1998. (The ICC will come into existence following its ratification by sixty nation states.)

Crimes against humanity listed under Article 7 of the Statute include:

• Murder

• Extermination

• Deportation or forcible transfer of population

• Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law

• Torture

• Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, or any other sexual violence of comparable gravity.

• Enforced disappearance of persons

• Other inhuman acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.

Some of the war crimes listed under Article 8 of the Statute overlap with the above but also include:

• Extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.

• Unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement.

• Taking of hostages.

• Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in the hostilities.

• The transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population to the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory.

• Intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes... provided they are not military objectives.

All these are crimes that have been committed, often on a grand scale, during Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor, culminating in the orgy of killing, deportation and destruction that followed the announcement of the ballot result on 4 September 1999. To conform with the principles of international humanitarian law, any trial of persons suspected of involvement in or responsibility for the crimes committed in East Timor must be held in a court that is empowered to try and punish persons for such crimes.

Command responsibility

A particularly important part of international humanitarian law is the principle of ‘command responsibility’, making senior officers liable to prosecution for the criminal acts committed by their subordinates. Article 28 of the ICC Statute which is headed ‘The responsibility of commanders and other superiors’ is as follows:

The principle of command responsibility as set out above would clearly make it unacceptable for General Wiranto to argue in a court of law that he was unable to halt the crimes being committed in East Timor in the wake of the ballot results being announced on the grounds that they were motivated by ‘psychological factors’ making it impossible for him to intervene, or subsequently to do nothing during the period of martial law imposed on 7 September to bring those guilty to court.

Can the cycle of impunity be broken through domestic or international courts?

There is a clear preference for the trials regarding crimes against humanity to be held in Indonesia as this would signal the capacity of civil society to handle the question of impunity without having to rely on the international community.

In a report made public in New York in December, following their visit to East Timor, the three UN Special Rapporteurs said:

‘Unless in a matter of months, the steps taken by the government of Indonesia to investigate TNI involvement in the past year’s atrocities bear fruit, both in the way of credible clarification of the facts and the bringing to justice of the perpetrators - both directly and by virtue of command responsibility, however high the level of responsibility - the Security Council should consider the establishment of an international criminal court for this purpose. This should preferably be done with the consent of the Government, but such consent should not be a prerequisite. Such a tribunal should then have jurisdiction over all crimes under international law committed by any party in the Territory since the departure of the colonial Power (ie. Portugal)’

Indonesia’s Attorney General Marzuki Darusman, who until recently chaired the National Human Rights Commission, and who was instrumental in setting up KKP-HAM, has said on numerous occasions, that KPP-HAM was established ‘to make the generals be tried in Indonesia. If not, they will be dragged before an international tribunal.’ The same point has also been made on many occasions by Yusril Ihza Mahendra, Minister for Law and Legislation.

Everything therefore depends on whether domestic remedies will work but how likely is this to happen? And can it happen ‘in a matter of months’, as the three UN Special Rapporteurs insist?

In a revealing comment on the dilemma confronting KPP.HAM, its secretary, Asmara Nababan told a group of protesters unhappy with the commission’s work and calling for an international tribunal on 31 December: ‘KPP-HAM is trying to empower civil society in Indonesia to start with the creation of mechanisms to handle violations of human rights. But this is proving to be very difficult indeed because Indonesia does not yet possess the mechanisms necessary to process human rights violators.’

KPP-HAM’s investigations are only the beginning of a lengthy process, the subsequent stages of which will be in the hands of prosecutors required under the present institutional framework to take charge of formal investigations and decide whether those identified by KPP-HAM can be formally indicted.

As PBHI, the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association, has pointed out, all the painstaking investigations undertaken by the KPP-HAM are in danger of being swept under the carpet if the suspects are brought before a court that is not equipped with the necessary legal provisions.

The PBHI warned that an international tribunal is unlikely to accept the principle of ‘double jeopardy’ (nebis in idem) if suspects are tried by national courts under any of the following conditions:

Indonesia has not yet adopted the necessary legislation for the convening of human rights courts which are empowered to try crimes against humanity (not included under Indonesia’s Criminal Code). The presidential decree in lieu of law (Perpu 1/1999) enacted in September 1999 by President Habibie which provided for the creation of a human rights court is due to be submitted to Parliament (DPR) for endorsement or rejection. The government will ask the DPR to reject the decree, thus paving the way for a new law on a human rights court. (A serious problem could arise if the presidential decree is revoked before the KPP HAM completes its work. Since it was set up under the terms of this decree., its premature revocation would render the KPP HAM’s work null and void.)

This decree was hastily proclaimed just days before the UN Commission on Human Rights met in special session to discuss East Timor and was intended to pre-empt any move by the UN to set up an international tribunal.

Human rights court and a truth commission

The government’s draft law for the creation of a human rights court is drafted in such a way as to make it impossible for all the grave human rights violations committed in East Timor (as well as numerous crimes against humanity committed in Aceh since 1989) to be taken to such a court because it will not be retroactive. Article 32 of the draft stipulates that ‘cases of grave human rights violations that were committed prior to the creation of the Human Rights Court shall be handled by a Truth and Reconciliation Commission’. Nothing is yet known about the terms of reference of the TRC as intended by the government but for those seeking accountability and justice, a truth commission is not acceptable as an alternative to a properly constituted court of law.

Moreover, a question arises about what will happen with cases where the TRC is dissatisfied with the explanations it hears from a human rights violator? Although the TRC unlike the human rights court will have retroactive powers, it will be unable to pass such a case on to a human rights court because the latter will lack retroactive powers. This means that the TRC will lack teeth; whatever people say there, they will be safe in the knowledge that they cannot be referred to a court for trial.

The draft law on the human rights court even compares unfavourably with Perpu No 1/1999 in one crucial question. Whereas the Perpu stipulated that violations which occurred prior to the creation of the court could be heard before a normal court, the draft law provides for all such cases to be brought before the truth commission.

A leading member of KPP HAM, Munir has strongly condemned the draft human rights court law for abandoning the principle of retroactivity. He is himself a member of the team that drafted the law. He told the press that the earlier draft provided for a 15-year period of retroactivity. The draft was altered in circumstances about which he knows nothing. He sees this as a deliberate attempt by certain circles to make it impossible for any human rights trials to be conducted in Indonesia. ‘If this principle is abandoned,’ he said, ‘everything that the KPP HAM has been doing will be a total waste of time.’

The idea of setting up a truth and reconciliation commission was never intended to handle grave violations committed recently enough to be tried in a court of law. Such a commission could play a role in dealing with much older violations dating back to the early years of the Suharto era where insufficient evidence is available to bring them to a court of law.

Until now, on the few occasions when officers have been charged in connection with involvement in atrocities in various parts of Indonesia, they have been tried in military courts under the military criminal code and have been charged with nothing more than ‘procedural errors’, ‘exceeding orders’ or ‘depriving persons of their liberty’. The courts have avoided trying senior officers in positions of command responsibility, instead handing down derisory sentences on lower-ranking officers.

In the absence of a human rights court, the Indonesian judiciary has opted to create special mixed courts (koneksitas) at which suspects from the armed forces will be tried before a panel of civilian and military judges. Fearing the opprobrium that would erupt in the post-Suharto era if military officers are yet again tried by military courts, the present government has chosen to compromise. By ensuring the presence of military judges, the army can be safe in the knowledge that their officers will have at least one supporter on the panel. In such a situation, these courts fail the critical test of independence and impartiality that must be ensured if impunity is to be ended.

A trial before such a court is due to commence before the end of January to try a group of officers for violations in Aceh, North Sumatra where thousands of people were murdered, raped, tortured or ‘disappeared’ during the last decade of Suharto’s rule. The most senior officer in the dock will be a lieutenant-colonel, itself a sign that nothing much has changed. It remains to be seen whether the accused men will face charges under the military criminal code or the ordinary criminal code neither of which in any case provide for charges for crimes against humanity.

International tribunal, the only way forward

Since it is highly unlikely that Koneksitas courts will be acceptable to the international community, the Indonesian Government could avoid the humiliation of having its military officers tried by an international tribunal, by setting up an ad hoc extra-judicial court served by a panel of ad hoc judges appointed for their known integrity and independence, by ensuring that trials are preceded by investigations undertaken by ad hoc independent prosecutors and that international humanitarian law is used to indict the defendants.

Failing this and in the absence of appropriate judicial arrangements for the trial of Indonesian senior officers involved in the atrocities committed in East Timor during the last year of the Indonesian occupation, an international tribunal offers the only way forward for justice to be done.

The point was made unambiguously by Richard Holbrooke, US ambassador to the UN in New York who sits on the Security Council:

We are particularly concerned about the search for accountability among the military for the events that took place before President Wahid took office. The attempts on the part of some military to deny accountability and the continued obstruction of the investigations by Indonesia’s own attorney general greatly trouble us. If they continue, the international pressure for an international commission will dramatically increase. [Richard Holbrooke, speaking to Indonesian and foreign journalists on 14 January 2000.]

The government of President Abdurrahman Wahid should understand that this is the only way forward for Indonesia to regain the trust and confidence of the international community in the wake of the horrific events visited upon the people of East Timor before and after the ballot.

On 19 January, Indonesian foreign minister Alwi Shihab met UN secretary-general Kofi Annan to persuade him that the KPP-HAM ‘must be given the authority with no interference from any institutions, including the UN’ to handle the question of accountability for the crimes committed in East Timor, claiming that ‘international interference would be counter-productive and would disturb the process’. He also told the secretary-general that the Indonesian government would bring those involved in human rights abuses in East Timor to court. [Indonesian Observer, quoting an Indonesian press release issued on 19 January.] This is not borne out by the government’s own draft law on a human rights court, as explained above.

The following day, on a visit to Washington, Alwi Shihab came under strong pressure from Secretary of State Madeleine Albright who said the US ‘was watching very carefully’ as Indonesia investigates abuses in East Timor. A State Department official said the US wants to see ‘accountability’. ‘We do not endorse a particular mechanism for accountability but continue to support a mechanism that is thorough, credible and transparent.’ The Indonesian foreign minister must have felt the heat because he is then quoted as saying that (President) Wahid was ‘committed to punishing the violators, and if the national commission did not meet international standards, Indonesia will have to accept an international court’, adding that this would be ‘a last resort’. (Reuters-Washington, 20 January) Be that as it may, he was forced to concede that an international tribunal could not be ruled out.

As we have already shown, the KPP HAM investigations are only one part of the process and there is no guarantee that the subsequent stages will satisfy international criteria. Indeed the contrary appears to be the case.

The new government must show the necessary commitment and political will to end the cycle of impunity. Only by so doing will it ensure the supremacy of civil society and the civilian government over the militarism that has held Indonesia in its grip since Suharto seized power in 1965.

The government can take comfort from the fact that the TNI itself is not united on how the generals are to be tried. While the recently-sacked armed forces spokesman Major-General Sudrajat and Major- General Djaja Suparman, commander of the army’s strategic corps, KOSTRAD, have warned that members of the army ‘will not stand by and see our generals being tried before an international tribunal’ and could take ‘appropriate action’, the reform-minded military commander in South Sulawesi, Major-General Agus Wirahadikusumah has argued publicly that ‘soldiers’ loyalty is to the institution, the state and the nation, not to individual generals’. Wirahadikusumah also insists that generals must take responsibility for the actions of their subordinates.

Conclusions and recommendations

The investigations currently being undertaken by the KPP-HAM are very impressive; they have helped educate the Indonesian public about the brutalities committed by their armed forces in East Timor and the lengths to which the generals will go to protect themselves against indictment either at home or abroad. Their work is the best example of the emergence of civil society in the post-Suharto era.

However, there is no reason to believe that the necessary institutional changes will take place in the judiciary to ensure that domestic remedies can successfully secure justice with regard to the killings and devastation that engulfed East Timor in 1999. The only way forward is for the establishment of an international tribunal.

We therefore put forward the following demands:

1. A military commander or person effectively acting as a military commander shall be criminally responsible for crimes... committed by forces under his or her effective command and control, or effective authority and control as the case may be, as a result of his or her failure to exercise control properly over such forces, where
   a. That military commander or person either knew or, owing to the circumstances at the time, should have known that the forces were committing or about to commit such crimes; and
   b. That military commander or person failed to take all necessary measures within his or her power to prevent or repress their commission or to submit the matter to the competent authorities for investigation and prosecution.

2. With respect to superior and subordinate relationships not described in paragraph (1), a superior shall be criminally responsible for crimes... committed by subordinates under his or her effective authority and control, as a result of his or her failure to exercise control properly over such subordinates where
   a. The superior either knew or consciously disregarded information which clearly indicated that the subordinates were committing or about to commit such crimes.
   b. The crimes concerned activities that were within the effective responsibility and control of the superior, and
   c. The superior failed to take all necessary and reasonable measures within his or her power to prevent or repress their commission or to submit the matter to the competent authorities for investigation and prosecution.

   1. The suspects are tried for ordinary crimes, not for crimes against humanity as defined under international humanitarian law.

   2. The courts do not meet the criteria of independence and impartiality and are convened primarily to protect the suspects against being indicted before an international tribunal.

   3. The courts pass sentences deemed inappropriate to the gravity of the crime.

   1. The government of President Abdurrahman Wahid should reconsider the draft law on a human rights court and make it retroactive for at least fifteen years.

   2. In the absence of any sign that the Indonesian government is willing to create a national human rights court with the necessary powers to try recent grave violations in East Timor and elsewhere, governments throughout the world, especially the member states of the UN Security Council, should support the establishment of an international tribunal to try all those suspected of being perpetrators of crimes against humanity in East Timor.

   3. Governments should use their influence with the Indonesian Government to persuade it to accept the creation of an international tribunal.

   4. The international community should press for this international tribunal to be set up, with or without the consent of the Indonesian government.

   5. Human rights groups and East Timor solidarity groups in Indonesia and around the world should join in a campaign to persuade their governments to support the establishment of this international tribunal

   6. Everything should be done to remind the international community and the Indonesian people of the horrific practices visited on the people of East Timor throughout the illegal Indonesian occupation and in particular during the months before and after the ballot on 30 August 1999.

   7. The international community should continue to impose sanctions against the TNI in the form of an embargo on arms sales and ties with the Indonesian military until it fully collaborates with actions to properly investigate and bring to trial all those, at whatever level, responsible for crimes against humanity in East Timor.