Indonesia defeated over East Timor at UN
The Indonesian government suffered a major defeat at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva on March 11, as 22 member states voted in favour of a resolution on East Timor.
The resolution, which had been postponed in order to try to reach a consensus, created the biggest stir yet in the commission. For the first time the US and Australia joined the European countries, Russia and Portuguese-speaking African countries, among others, to vote against Indonesia. China supported Indonesia, and Japan abstained.
The US, Canadian and Russian delegates all spoke in support of the resolution. In the voting, the victory for East Timor was resounding: 22 votes to 12, with 15 abstentions.
The resolution explicitly referred to continuing human rights violations in East Timor; noted that Jakarta had failed to clearly identify all those responsible for the DIli massacre and the precise numbers killed; expressed concern over the disparity between the light sentences given to military involved in the massacre and the heavy sentences given to protesters; and raised criticisms and concerns regarding imprisonment and torture in East Timor.
The resolution also welcomed the resumption of talks about East Timor and encouraged the UN secretary-general to continue his good offices for achieving a just, comprehensive and internationally acceptable settlement. It also decided to consider the situation in East Timor again on the basis of both government and non-government reports and analyses.
Last minute attempts to negotiate failed as Indonesia, a vice chair of the commission and head of the Non-Aligned Movement, remained intractable. The resolution was put to the vote after a motion by Malaysia, to take no action, met with defeat. This was the first time a motion of non-action had been defeated at the commission for four years.
"In the end only dictatorships like Iran, Sudan and China stood with Indonesia. All the democracies of the world supported us. Equally important, and indeed it sets a precedent for other issues, East Timor destroyed the myth of the Asian bloc. There were Latin Americans and Africans voting with us and important Asian and Muslim states that abstained", said East Timorese representative Jose Ramos Horta after the voting.
[Information partly from Tapol via Pegasus.]