Customer Reviews

Indifference and Accountability: The United Nations and the Politics of International Justice in East Timor

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Perhaps you could call this unfinished justice. The book reviews attempts by the United Nations to investigate massive human rights violations during the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. With an emphasis on the events during the withdrawl of Indonesian forces. It describes the bloody unrest; triggered by indigenous Fretilin guerrillas and the Indonesian counter-insurgency. We see how Kopassas armed friendly East Timorese militias, which then went on to wreck havoc on the guerrillas and their sympathisers.

Some militia leaders were named, along with a few Indonesian officers. But none of the latter were brought before an East Timor or UN tribunal. Nor is this likely to change. As even under the new Indonesian democracy, it seems unlikely that Indonesia will give up any senior officers or officials.

The book goes on about wrangling over procedures. Interminable. Along with efforts to extradite Indonesian suspects. Back and forth between the UN, East Timor government and the Indonesian government, with little to show for it.

For some readers, the book will be a difficult read. There is now a peace, sort of. But little justice. It may take decades for the book's events to fade and a peaceful civil society to fully emerge in East Timor. The brutal truth, and hence the Indifference in the book's title, is that East Timor is a minor country.