The Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs has supported the call by the UN Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson, for a war crimes tribunal on the activities of the Indonesian army and militias in East Timor.
The support was contained in a wide-ranging motion passed by the committee yesterday, after hearing representatives of the East Timor Ireland Solidarity Campaign (ETISC), Trocaire and GOAL at a meeting in the Dail chamber.
The Portuguese ambassador, Mr Joao da Vallera, watched the proceedings from the visitors' gallery.
Echoing demands made by the relief agencies, the committee also called on the Government to invoke the UN convention on the prevention and suppression of genocide.
Mr John Rowan, of the Department of Foreign Affairs, said that in doing so, the Government would be going through an organ of the UN, most probably the Security Council, but it could not compel it to take any action. "It just gives us the power merely to raise it."
The Department's view was that rather than try to bring to life a mechanism which did not appear to be in working order, the Timorese would be better served by the UN moving as rapidly and as effectively as possible to utilise the mechanisms which were known to work and were in place.
The director of Trocaire, Mr Justin Kilcullen, said that while he accepted what the Department was saying, he believed that there was a case for the convention to be invoked. "It has never been invoked. If it is not going to be invoked, it should be scrapped."
The co-ordinator of the East Timor Ireland Solidarity Campaign, Mr Tom Hyland, said that the Indonesian military had the same attitude towards the people of East Timor as the SS had to the Jews. "Invoke the genocide convention. We have no option but to do so." In a policy paper submitted to the committee, Trocaire and the ETISC said it was estimated that since the announcement of the referendum result, at least 165,000 people had been forcibly relocated to West Timor and other parts of eastern Indonesia.
