Timor trials a travesty, says TAPOL
By Norm Dixon
TAPOL, the Indonesian Human Rights Campaign, has condemned the pending trials of seven East Timorese arrested in the aftermath of the Indonesian military's massacre of peaceful mourners at the Santa Cruz Cemetery in Dili on November 12.
Two are charged with subversion for their participation in the procession in Dili. The maximum penalty for subversion in Indonesia is death. The trial of 29-year-old Gregorio da Cunha Saldanha began in Dili on March 14. Francisco Miranda Branco, 41, is likely to tried soon after.
Five other detainees, who face up to seven years in prison, are to appear in court on March 16. Many more East Timorese, some arrested soon after the massacre, some arrested more recently, are known to be in detention in Dili and in other parts of East Timor.
The defendants have no chance of a fair trial. Lawyer Luhut Pangaribuan of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (LBH) said that the LBH had been asked to represent seven East Timorese in Dili by their relatives but efforts to meet their clients have been frustrated by the Indonesian authorities. The Indonesian government has also imposed a blanket ban on foreign journalists visiting East Timor to cover the trials.
"There is no justification whatever for these trials. The defendants, along with five others who will be tried for 'inciting hatred against the government', were exercising their legal right to demonstrate for East Timor's self-determination. They are survivors of a massacre; to punish them shows the lengths to which the Indonesian government will go to crush the aspirations of the East Timorese people for independence", Carmel Budiardjo of TAPOL said.
TAPOL has called for the immediate, unconditional release of Gregorio da Cunha Saldanha, Francisco Miranda Branco and all the other East Timorese detainees being held in East Timor. It also called on western governments to urge the Jakarta to abandon the trials.
Meanwhile, a district court on March 11 sentenced an East Timorese civilian, Afonso Rangel, to five years in prison for passing classified military documents to the East Timor's liberation movement.