On Monday, Amnesty International sent out a press release that began like this:

The President of Timor-Leste has told Amnesty International he would support the establishment of an international criminal tribunal for crimes committed during the 1975-1999 occupation by Indonesia, should the UN Security Council set it up.

This is a complete 180 from what Ramos-Horta has been saying in the past. I have audio of him saying there will "never" be an international tribunal. So what's happened? Why has he changed his mind? Has he been misquoted or misinterpreted, or is he playing some kind of weird game by trying to score popularity points because deep down he is still sure there won't be an international tribunal?

It's difficult to fathom because he isn't in the country at the moment. Surely at least one journalist will bring this up during his current world tour. We're all dying to know what's going on.

The Jakarta Globe yesterday ran a story with the headline Indonesian Military Doubts Talk of E. Timor Military Tribunal, so apparently not everyone is convinced by the Amnesty press release.

Military spokesman Air Vice Marshall Sagom Tamboen said that he doubted Amnesty International’s claim.

He said East Timor’s ambassador to Indonesia, Manuel de Araujo Serrano, on Monday visited Military Chief Gen. Djoko Santoso at his headquarters in Cilangkap, East Jakarta, and stressed his country’s willingness to build better ties with Indonesia, especially with the military.

"So it means that there is no problem between the two countries. The Indonesian military is even seen by East Timor as a reference for the establishment of its armed forces," Tamboen said.

Last year, Louis Gentile, representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, told me, "To ask for accountability of the individuals who did really horrible things in no way undermines that [relationship] – it only strengthens it."

Tamboen himself said, "The main spirit of the agreement is that what happened in the past would be left behind and both countries would move forward together by building mutual relationships," referring to the Truth and Friendship Committee established by Indonesia and Timor-Leste.

Tamboen then calls the Amnesty press release "propaganda". I've emailed Amnesty and am waiting to hear back from them. We'll see how this one plays out.