EAST TIMOR TO HOST FIRST JOINT BORDER COMMITTEE MEETING

For the first time, a Joint Border Committee meeting between East Timor and Indonesia will be held in East Timor. The three-day high-level round of negotiations will take place in the capital Dili from 14-17 November.

The Joint Border Committee was established in September 2000 to deal with practical issues or problems of a cross border nature, and first met in late January of this year.

This will be the third Joint Border Committee meeting, the first two having taken place in Indonesia. It will also be first one to take place after the 30 August elections, which were followed by the appointment of the East Timorese Second Transitional Government.

At the last meeting, held in Jakarta in July, UNTAET offered to host the third Joint Border Committee negotiation in Dili.

“The Joint Border Committee meeting to be held in East Timor for the first time is a step forward in the strengthening relations,” said the Senior Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation José Ramos-Horta today. “The two sides have been working hard for the past two years in addressing the issues of common interest and have made real progress,” he added.

The meeting aims at building and fostering good neighbourly relations, furthering the normalization of activities along the border area, including trade and movement of people with relatives on either side.

Ramos-Horta will host a welcoming reception for the Indonesians on 14 November.

The agenda includes discussion on Border Demarcation and Regulation; Arrangements for Cross Border Movement of People, Goods and Crossing; Arrangements for a Regulated Market on the Border; Coastal Shipping Maritime Limitation, and Border Security.

It is expected that the recommendations from the meeting will be passed on to the Council of Ministers of East Timor and the Indonesian Government for discussion and approval. Agreements reached will eventually be passed on to the Border Liaison Committee for implementation.

Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Fernando do Araújo, who holds the portfolio of Regional Issues, will head the host delegation. The East Timor delegation includes the Commander of the East Timor Defence Force Brigadier-General Taur Matan Ruak, Commissioner of East Timor Police Services Paulo Martins, Deputy Force Commander of United Nations Peacekeeping Major General Ian Gordon, among others.

JUDGEMENT ON EAST TIMOR FIRST CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

The East Timor Special Panel for Serious Crime today scheduled the judgement of the ten defendants of the Lospalos trial – the first Crimes Against Humanity trial in East Timor – for 11 December.

Today’s announcement followed the completion of three days of final statements by the Prosecutors and the Public Defenders.

The ten accused on trial in Dili are allegedly members of the pro-autonomy Team Alpha militia. An eleventh suspect, Indonesian Syaful Anwar – the second-in-command of the Indonesian Kopassus special forces in Lautem district when the crimes took place – was indicted by the Prosecution but is currently at large.

The prosecution has sought to prove that the defendants took part in a systemic and orchestrated campaign of murder, deportation, and torture in Lautem district between April and September 1999. The charges relate to 13 murders carried out in four different incidents, and the attack and burning of a number of villages and subsequent deportation of their inhabitants.

The Special Panel for Serious Crimes, which consists of one East Timorese and two international judges, can try cases of Genocide, War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity, Murder, Sexual Offences and Torture, carried out between 1 January and 25 October 1999. The Special Panel was set up in June of last year.

The Lospalos trial began this July.

COMPETENCIES OF FUTURE PARLIAMENT CREATE HEATED DEBATE

The East Timor Constituent Assembly’ thematic group on “Organization of the State/Organization of Political Power” today had a heated debate over the exclusive legislative competencies of the future National Parliament.

The issues of demarcation of border, approval of referendums and concession of amnesties provided the most lengthy debate, as members differed on whether these should be exclusive competencies of the future Parliament.

The thematic group on “Organization of the State/Organization of Political Power” was given an extra week to finalize its report and set of draft articles, and is expected to submit them to the “Systematization and Harmonization” Commission on 12 November.

The “Systematization and Harmonization” Commission started the process of molding the draft Constitution of East Timor this week based on the three reports already completed.

For the past month, the Constituent Assembly's four thematic groups have been preparing the first set of draft articles. The "Systematization and Harmonization"

Commission is now shaping the draft articles into one single text. The Commission will give cohesion and coherence to the text, making sure that there are no omissions, repetitions, or contradictions. The draft articles have been written in Portuguese.

Today, the Constituent Assembly President Francisco “Lú-Olo” Guterres officially handed over the final report of the thematic group on “Rights, Duties, and Liberties/Defense and National Security” to his “Systematization and Harmonization” colleagues.

The Constituent Assembly convened on 15 September, following the 30 August elections, and is expected to approve a Constitution by mid-December.