Global Policy Forum

An East Timor court has jailed a former Indonesian army sergeant for crimes against humanity during the territory's bloody breakaway from Jakarta. It is the first time a soldier has been convicted of such an offence since trials began two years ago. Marcelino Soares was sentenced to 11 years "for crimes against humanity of murder, torture and persecution" committed in April 1999, prosecutors from the United Nations-funded Serious Crimes Unit said in a statement. He was convicted of murder over the fatal beating of Luis Dias Soares and of torturing him and two other independence supporters at an army post. The Special Panels for Serious Crimes have previously convicted an East Timorese sergeant in the Indonesian army of murder and another East Timorese soldier of rape. But prosecutor Per Halsbog was quoted as saying the conviction of Soares for crimes against humanity was "an important milestone in pursuit of justice". A sizeable number of East Timorese served with the Indonesian army. The troops and their local militia proxies waged a savage but futile intimidation campaign before East Timorese voted overwhelmingly in August 1999 to split from Indonesia. At a separate trial, judges jailed a former militiaman, Damiao da Costa Nunes, for 10-and-a-half years for crimes against humanity for stabbing two independence supporters to death in Covalima district in August and September 1999. The courts have now convicted 43 people and acquitted one. Prosecutors have indicted 369 people, but 281 of them are in Indonesia, which refuses to hand anyone over for trial. An estimated 1,000 people were killed in 1999 before and after the ballot, and whole towns were burnt to the ground. The tribunal in East Timor is the only one seen to be delivering justice to offenders. Indonesia set up its own special court over the 1999 bloodshed, but rights groups described it as largely a sham. Six out of 18 defendants were convicted and ordered to be jailed for between three and 10 years, but were allowed to remain free pending an appeal.

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