The New York Times

Wednesday, February 9, 2000

General Rejects Liability for Timor Abuses

By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

JAKARTA, Indonesia, Feb. 8 -- The former Indonesian military chief, General Wiranto, said in an interview today that he would not accept personal or legal responsibility for any crimes committed by his troops in East Timor, despite having been implicated in the atrocities by a national human rights panel.

He broke a weeklong silence in an interview with The Straits Times of Singapore, hitting back at the panel that was set up to investigate the violence that flared in the former Indonesian terrority in September 1999. General Wiranto has been resisting pressure from President Abdurrahman Wahid -- who is on an overseas tour -- to resign as senior security minister.

In his defense, General Wiranto cited as an example the My Lai massacre of villagers in Vietnam by American troops. "When one of the U.S. officers in Vietnam during the Vietnam War killed a number of innocent villagers, the My Lai incident, I don't think the commander in chief of U.S. troops in Vietnam, or the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked to be legally responsible," he said.