PRESS BRIEFING BY UN HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Press Briefing

PRESS BRIEFING BY UN HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, told correspondent at a Headquarters press briefing today that she hoped to establish an international commission of inquiry for East Timor “as a matter of urgency”, adding that she believed there were a lot of first-hand eyewitnesses to what had happened there after the referendum on independence. Much of the physical evidence, she said, should also be recoverable.

Earlier this week, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva met in special session for only the fourth time, and in a resolution asked the Secretary-General to establish on international commission of inquiry for East Timor.

Ms. Robinson said the Secretary-General had today appointed her to set up the inquiry and have its findings ready by 31 December.

Ms. Robinson said she believed the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission was taking very seriously the worst allegations of human rights abuses in East Timor and military complicity in them. And she welcomed a request for help from the Indonesians in setting up the fact-finding mission for East Timor.

Asked by a correspondent if the Indonesians were to be trusted to investigate human rights any more than on the question of security, she said she was going to seek to have the Indonesian fact-finding mission work, and added that it was important for Indonesia to take ownership of the issue of human rights violations.

She also expressed the hope that the Indonesian mission would have ready access to West Timor, where she said the significant majority of East Timorese now housed in camps had been forcibly taken by anti- independence militias.

Asked whether United Nations investigators would have access to both parts of Timor, Ms. Robinson said the inquiry “would look at issues from both parts of the island”.

Ms. Robinson told a correspondent that while in Darwin, Australia, she had heard allegations that some people who had fled post-referendum violence had been taken off the island of Timor altogether. But because 98 per cent of people eligible in the referendum had voted, and because there were fairly complete voter lists, tracing people would be easier.

Robinson Briefing - 2 - 30 September 1999

She said she was extremely concerned about allegations that some women had been raped “constantly, frequently, even on boats taking them out of East Timor”, and that in three camps in West Timor there was a pattern of sexual assault.

Asked what number of people would eventually be involved in the inquiry for East Timor, Ms. Robinson said she did not have a figure yet, but was sure that “we will look at it, decide we need ‘x’ and get ‘x’ minus something, because of the funding situation”.

“This will put pressure on our office and we will need to raise funds”, Ms. Robinson said. But she said that the commitment of her office to other places such as Kosovo, Serbia, Sierra Leone and now Burundi had not lessened. Ms. Robinson added that she placed “a very high priority on the commission’s programme in Indonesia as a whole”, which she hoped would help progress towards democracy there.

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