On July 15 in Bali the leaders of Indonesia and East Timor met and received the final report of the Commission of Truth and Friendship (CTF) and issued a joint statement accepting the findings and recommendations. It was a display of harmony and friendship that reveals the main shortcoming of the CTF — it was always about promoting friendship more than truth and accountability.
Leaders in both countries may be eager to draw a line under their shared grisly history, but this approach is not widely supported by the Timorese and has been criticized by the United Nations, nongovernmental organization alliances in both countries and the Catholic Church, a powerful moral force in East Timor. As such, the CTF lacks credibility at home and abroad and can not be the closing chapter in this saga.
Established in 2005, this is the world's first bilateral truth commission, one that was given a short leash with a limited remit. The commission investigated the deaths of some 1,400 East Timorese in 1999, killed in the aftermath of a U.N.-administered referendum on independence. The people overwhelmingly voted to separate from Indonesia, having endured a brutal occupation that began with Indonesia's invasion in 1975. A credible separate inquiry into the 24 years of occupation establishes that as many as 200,000 people, out of a population of 600,000, were killed or starved to death by the Indonesian occupiers.