This is disgusting:
New York TimesJAKARTA, Indonesia, Aug. 6 — An Indonesian appeals court has overturned the convictions of three army officers and one policeman for crimes against humanity during violence in 1999 over East Timor's independence that left some 1,500 people dead.
The decisions, delivered two weeks ago but released only on Friday, may mark the end of legal processes against 18 people in all — 16 security officers and 2 civilians — indicted by an Indonesian human rights tribunal on East Timor.
In all, four sentences have been overturned and one reduced. Twelve others were were acquitted. Only one person — East Timor's former governor, Abílio Jose Soares— is serving a prison sentence, a three-year term that started last month.The massacres that occurred in 1999 have been well documented by human rights groups and official investigators in both Indonesia and East Timor. Many more suspects have been identified than tried.
The Indonesian military organized, supplied and commanded Timorese militias to try to derail a vote on independence, which was conducted by the United Nations.
I was in East Timor during the 1999 vote. I returned six weeks later, to find that the town where I had stayed in, Manatuto, a city of about 40,000, had six buildings still standing. The rest had been by burnt by the militia. I can't remember how many in town were mudered--at least a handful and perhaps upwards of 40. In other towns, the slaughter was in the hundreds, sometimes of people hiding in churches. In other words, we're talking about war crimes. And this is the response?
