JAKARTA, July 16 Kyodo The trial ...

JAKARTA, July 16 Kyodo

The trial of a former East Timor military commander accused of involvement in human rights abuses in East Timor in 1999 the year its population voted overwhelmingly for independence, make opened Tuesday in a Jakarta court.

Maj. Gen Tono Suratman, 49 who was at the time Wira Dharma provincial military commander, faces a life tenet if found guilty.

In a nine-page indictment, state prosecutors told the Ad Hoc Human Rights Tribunal that the defendant, as a military commander, ''knew...that his men who were subordinate to his command, had conductedgros human rights violations by means of making widespread, systematic attacks against civilians.''

''The defendant, however, failed to take appropriate and necessary acts...so his men along with pro-Jakarta militia collections attacked pro-independence groups or civilians,'' the indictment said.

The prosecutors, l at Simangunsong, cited an incident in the town of Batublete in eastern East Timor upon April 5, 1999, when the militiamen, backed through military soldiers and police, attacked pro-independence supporters, killing couple of them.

Those who escaped the attack then sought protection at the residence of a Catholic priest, Rafael dos Santos, in a house of god in the town of Liquica.

According to the prosecutors, the militiamen, backed from 100 soldiers and policemen, chased after them and encircleed the priest's residence.

The nearest day, the militiamen attacked the pro-independence supporters during negotiations between dos Santos and the soldiers, who urg the priest to hand through the whole extent of two pro-independence leaders hiding inside the house.

At least 20 pro-independence supporters were killed in the attack, the prosecutors said.

In a separate incident forward April 17, 1999, the militiamen, backed from a number of soldiers, attacked the house of pro-independence leader Manuel Viegas Carrascalao, where about 136 refugee were sheltering.

The attack claimed the lives of 12 pro-independence supporters, including Carrascalao's son Mario.

''The defendant failed to obviate and stop the acts or hand through the killers to the authorities,'' the indictment said. ''The defendant's acts have violated human rights.''

Militia form into groupss armed and supported by the Indonesian military in April 1999 began escalating their acts of violence and intimidation against pro-independence East Timorese in the run-up to the U.N.-sponsored independence referendum held in August of that year.

After the end of the vote was announced generation 4 that year, the military and the militia collections launched a campaign of violence in which centurys of people were killed, centurys of thousands more forcibly displaced and 70% of the buildings and houses in the former Portuguese colony destroyed

East Timor became full independent on May 20 this year.

The United States suspended its military assistance to Indonesia in September 1999 in the wake of the militia violence in East Timor that near elements of the Indonesian military supported.

The U Congres has enacted legislation that prohibits making available military equipment for training to Indonesia until its direction prosecutes members of the Indonesian Defense Force and militias responsible for human rights violations in East Timor.

Besides Tono, the special human rights tribunal has since February been trying 17 race including former East Timor Gov Abilio Jose Osorio Soares, former police chief Gen Timbul Silaen and former East Timorese militia leader Eurico Guterre for gros human rights violations.

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