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I tried to build 'house of peace' in E Timor: Wiranto

JAKARTA: Former Indonesian armed forces commander General Wiranto has said he was "not responsible" for troop deployment in East Timor when Indonesian army-backed militias devastated the territory last year.

In a press release received here on Monday, US magazine Time quoted the general as saying in an interview that he had tried to build "a house of peace" in East Timor which last year voted for independence after 24 hours of Indonesian rule.

"In my position as commander of the armed forces I was responsible for policy formation. I was not responsible for the deployment of troops, or for directing them in the field, which are operational or tactical responsibilities," he said.

Wiranto was commenting on what his line of defence would be after a domestic rights inquiry held him "morally responsible" for the change in the former Portuguese colony because of his position at the time.

"I did my best to build a policy that was directed at ending armed conflicts, the terrorising of innocents and the violating of human rights.

"I think that more than anyone else, besides of course the victims, I was distraught over what happened.

"I had tried to build a house of peace and saw it go up in flames and myself being blamed for it. But think about it, why would I sweat and labour with my own hands to build such a house, only to burn it down. You tell me".

Time did not say in the press release whether Wiranto, who was suspended as security minister from the cabinet last week pending a further legal probe into the East Timor violence, had named who in the military he thought was responsible.

The domestic probe, by a team put together by the National Human Rights Commission, has named five other Indonesian generals in its report Ñ including a former Indonesian intelligence chief, the army and police commanders on the ground at the time and the area regional commander.

The UN Human Rights Commission, in a parallel probe, also named Wiranto and the other generals and called for an international war crimes tribunal to be set up to try them.

In other comments in the interview, Wiranto, who rose to prominence in the Indonesian military after serving as an adjutant to former president Suharto, said he would not object if Suharto were taken to court for alleged corruption, but he did not want to see the former strongman become a victim of rough justice.

The 52-year-old general side-stepped the question as to whether he still had political ambitions Ñ he put up his name to run for president in October when Indonesia's President Abdurrahman Wahid won the vote Ñ saying he would wait and see how the legal process on Timor proceeded.

But he dismissed the suggestion that the charges he was facing had plunged him into the worst situation he had been in his life, and said it was too early to decide whether to quit the army.

"No. In 30 years I have faced problems. My reaction was balanced. One has to think clearly, objectively and see everything with a wider perspective and not become emotional". AFP