On September 6th 1999 a terrible revenge was inflicted on the people of Suai, East Timor. Many hundreds of people were packed like sardines into the Catholic church for protection. Indonesian military, police and militias – all of them angry that the people had voted against Jakarta's rule – surrounded the church compound.

The results of the referendum had just been announced – 78 % had voted for East Timor's independence.

According to eyewitness testimony, Indonesia's Lt Sugito gave the order to attack. The three catholic priests were targeted and Fr Hilario was shot dead. Three grenades were lobbed into the church. More than 200 were killed. Afterwards, the corpses were loaded into army trucks in an attempt to dispose of the evidence.

In September 1999, UN Human Rights Chief in Geneva Mrs Mary Robinson promised the people of East Timor that the perpetrators would be held accountable and an international tribunal would be held. Two years later, there are few indications that the investigation and pursuit of justice is going anywhere.

In January 2000 a UN Human Rights team of investigation recommended to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that the UN establish an international war crimes tribunal. That recommendation was quickly deflected by appeals from the Indonesian Government to allow Jakarta to punish their own citizens by putting the Indonesian generals on trial.
Since November 1999 the UN Transitional Authority in East Timor (UNTAET) has been running the territory and grooming the new nation for independence. The Department of Human Rights and Serious Crimes Unit has been responsible for ongoing investigations into crimes against humanity.

However, Sukanya Mohan, the former UN representative for human rights in Suai, is disgusted with the way the witnesses have been treated by UN investigators and the fact that case files have been lost. "With the high turnover of UN investigators, they are going around in circles, Suai people are losing any confidence in the legal system. Now the UN is promoting reconciliation but without justice, the people will not accept it." Mohan resigned from the UN in protest earlier this year.
James Dunn, the former Australian consul in Dili in the 1960s, hired by the UN to compile a judicial report on the evidence of what happened in the destruction of East Timor in 1999, told Gemini: "my report argues that there is a strong documentary case involving senior Indonesian generals. Only small fish will be tried if at all in Jakarta. I want to see an international tribunal with a regional complexion and I want to see Indonesian jurists participate on the panel of judges."
Dunn's position is strongly backed by the East Timor-ese and by the East Timorese NGO forum and the
former National Council of Timor-ese set up by the UN. Dr Mari Alkatiri, who heads the Timorese cabinet, commented: "we cannot think about reconciliation without justice, justice is a bridge to go through to reconciliation."

The UNHCR – the UN Refugee Agency – last week protested the lenient sentences meted out by an Indonesian court to the leaders of a militia mob that stormed the UN office in Atambua, West Timor, and murdered three international UN staff. The six defendants were sentenced to laughable prison terms ranging from 10-20 months. The new Attorney General has declined to intervene. President Megawarti is far more beholden to the Indonesian generals for her position than Muslim philosopher and reformer Abdurrahman Wahid, the recently deposed president.

Meanwhile two of the generals that played key roles in the scorched earth campaign against East Timor – General Adam Damiri and his deputy General Simbolan – have received promotion. General Damiri has been assigned to another arena of military suppression operations: war-torn Aceh, and General Simbolan has been assigned to the independence-seeking province of West Papua (Irian Jaya).
No serious observer thinks that any senior Indonesian military figure will ever be indicted in Jakarta for crimes against humanity. So why is the UN ducking the responsibility of organising an international tribunal?

According to James Dunn, it is certainly not through lack of evidence. But there is a lack of political will, especially from the western nations that have been so energetic in their support of prosecuting war criminals from the former Yugoslavia.

Why not the same energy to prosecute Indonesian generals? Unlike the Serbian military, Indonesia has been a good customer and client of both the US and the UK arms industries. Both countries are on the verge of resuming normal trading relations. Western diplomats in Jakarta, concerned with major commercial interests and investments in Indonesia always tended to sing a different tune over justice for East Timor.
The UN is leaving it to Indonesia to dispense justice for East Timor because Kofi Annan knows that there is little support in the UN Security Council for an East Timor tribunal.

The irony according to James Dunn is that the UN has never had a stronger direct interest in seeing that justice is done and that immunity does not win the day. The Indonesian generals not only inflicted vast damage on East Timor, but their actions were a specific affront to the resolutions of UN Security Council, a serious threat to UN staff serving in East Timor, and in total violation of Indonesia's international treaty obligations to maintain peace and order in East Timor under the May 6th agreement signed in New York.

Tom Fawthrop was one of the last reporters in East Timor before the massacres in September 1999.