SEARCH FOR RECONCILIATION COMMISSION MEMBERS BEGINS

The Selection Panel for the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation announced today it was formally beginning the search for some 40 national and regional commissioners to help foster the reconciliation process in East Timor.

A spokesperson for the Selection Panel said today that the panel will be spending the next month consulting with communities throughout East Timor on who should be nominated to sit on the Commission.

"We want to promote the democratic process and give the people of East Timor the right to choose who is suitable to be a Commission member," Cecílio Caminha Freitas said at a press conference held in the capital, Dili.

The Selection Panel is soliciting nominations for 5-7 national commission posts and 25-30 district commission posts, and is scheduled to visit each of East Timor's 13 districts before the October 31 nomination deadline.

UNTAET's Human Rights Unit Project Coordinator for the Commission Pat Walsh today reiterated that the Selection Panel, which is chaired by Deputy SRSG Dennis McNamara, is holding one position vacant for a pro-autonomy representative.

"Our invitation remains open and we very much hope [a pro-autonomy supporter] will join the panel and assist in the process of reconciliation," Walsh said.

Members of the panel have met with pro-autonomy groups in Kupang and Bali in Indonesia twice over the past six weeks in a bid to fill a panel position with a pro-autonomy representative. The pro-autonomy groups have so far declined to fill a position, deferring a decision until they have had more time to confer with their supporters.

The Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation will ultimately undertake two primary functions: it will establish a truth-seeking function inquiring into the pattern of human rights violations committed within the context of the political conflicts in East Timor between 1974-1999. The Commission will also create a community reconciliation body to facilitate agreements between local communities and the perpetrators of non-serious crimes and non-criminal acts committed over the same period.

NEW ACADEMIC YEAR GETS UNDERWAY

An estimated 240,000 primary and secondary students yesterday headed back to school for the new academic year.

The students will be taught by nearly 6,000 teachers using the more than one million textbooks that have already been distributed to schools throughout the country.

Four hundred and fifty seven schools comprising 2,370 classrooms have been rehabilitated to Basic Operational Level under the Transitional Administration's Emergency School Readiness Project. This figure represents roughly 86 percent of the total number of school classrooms in need of rehabilitation after the violence of September 1999.

The 266-day school year will end in June.

COUNCIL OF MINISTERS APPROVES PROCEDURES, FUNCTIONS

In its second formal meeting since its swearing in on 20 September, the East Timor Council of Ministers of the Second Transitional Government today discussed and approved its new Manual, which outlines Council procedures as well as the functions of the Secretariat of the Council of Ministers.

Minister of Finance Fernanda Borges also presented a budget proposal for the running of the Constituent Assembly and the Second Transitional Government during the fiscal year 2001-2002. The budget proposal is in accordance with the projected US$65 million budget earmarked in the Consolidated Fund for East Timor.

All 24 ministers attended today's session with the exception of Senior Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation José Ramos-Horta, who is currently visiting Europe.

The Second Transitional Government and its Council of Ministers will govern East Timor during the remaining transitional period before its independence as a democratic and sovereign state, which is expected early next year.

This Transitional Government has reinforced powers allowing it to formulate policies and supervise a newly formed Public Administration. According to the Regulation establishing the Government, the Transitional Administrator Sergio Vieira de Mello, who has legislative and ultimate executive authority over the body, shall be regularly consulted by the Council of Ministers.

MILITIA MEMBER SENTENCED FOR MALIANA MURDER

The Special Panel for Serious Crimes in Dili has convicted former militia member Augusto Asameta Tavares to 16 years imprisonment for the murder of a pro-independence supporter in Mailiana district following the Popular Consultation of 1999.

The victim was seized by the Halilintar (Thunder) militia group in Memo village, Maliana subdistrict, on 27 August 1999 and subsequently stabbed to death by Tavares. Tavares, who was sentenced on Friday, is the eleventh person convicted by the Special Panel for Serious Crimes.