U.S. Mulling War Crimes Tribunal to Investigate Atrocities in East Timor
UNITED NATIONS — Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Sunday that the United States was reviewing proposals for a war crimes tribunal for East Timor, where rampaging militias have killed civilians and destroyed property.
“It’s very important to have accountability,” she said after meeting U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in New York.
“We have been looking at proposals that Mary Robinson has been making,” she said, referring to the U.N. human rights commissioner.
Robinson and others have raised the possibility of establishing a tribunal--much like those probing atrocities in the Balkans and Rwanda--to investigate war crimes committed when Indonesian government-backed militias and police pillaged the territory after East Timorese overwhelmingly voted for independence from Indonesia.
A U.N.-authorized international peacekeeping force began arriving in East Timor this morning.
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