President Abdurrahman Wahid of Indonesia said last night he would sack the country's most powerful military leader, Gen Wiranto, from his cabinet after an official inquiry implicated him in human rights abuses in East Timor.
Earlier the National Human Rights Commission recommended that six generals, including Gen Wiranto, should face prosecution over the violence before and after East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia last August.
The panel found evidence of mass killings and torture as well as attempts to tamper with evidence by removing bodies from graves in East Timor before Indonesian forces withdrew in September, ending a 24-year occupation.
"We have to uphold human rights in Indonesia, whatever the course", President Wahid said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Asked if this meant he would dismiss Gen Wiranto, who is Co-ordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs, he said: "Oh yes, of course. I will ask him, to use a polite word, ask him to resign."
He said he would do this "when I return".
The Indonesian leader left Indonesia on Friday for a two-week visit to 13 countries.
The secretary of the inquiry, Mr Asmara Nababan, said: "Judging from the commitment of the President and the Attorney General I am confident there will be a follow-up, prosecution."
The inquiry found evidence that mass killings and torture were perpetrated by the militias, military and police.
"The mass killings claimed the lives mostly of civilians," said an official.
"They were conducted in a systematic and cruel way. Many were committed at churches and police headquarters."
The other generals named are Gen Adam Damiri, the former head of the Bali-based military command which included East Timor, Gen Zacky Anwar Makarim, the former head of military intelligence in East Timor, Gen Tono Suratman and Gen Noer Muis, former military commanders of East Timor, and Gen Timbul Silaen, the former East Timor police chief.
The leaders of pro-integration militias, Mr Joao da Silva Tavares and Mr Eurico Guterres, and East Timor's last governor under Indonesian rule, Mr Abilio Soares, were also named.
Gen Wiranto has denied sanctioning the violence in East Timor, which occurred while he was military chief.
He and Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri flew back to Jakarta late last night from a weekend trip to West Sumatra as rumours circulated in Jakarta of a possible coup attempt by officers hostile to Indonesia's first democratic government.
Before he left Jakarta the President dismissed fears of a coup and signed a decree retiring Gen Wiranto and three other military officers in his cabinet from the armed forces, with effect from March 31st.
A special UN inquiry team also recommended at the weekend that an international tribunal be set up to prosecute those responsible for atrocities in East Timor around the time of the independence vote.
Indonesia hopes that its action against the generals, and 40 other officials, will persuade the Security Council to hold off on a decision to create such a tribunal.
The East Timor independence leader, Mr Jose Ramos-Horta, said in Singapore that if Gen Wiranto and those around him were brought to trial, indicted and sentenced to imprisonment, "the rest of the world will not demand a war crimes tribunal".
"If the Indonesian authorities wish to spare Indonesia international embarrassment then they must live up to their own responsibilities in bringing these people to justice in Indonesia," he said.
The Indonesian military has already conceded that some of its soldiers played a part in the destruction in East Timor.
"Several over-emotional members of the security forces set fire to hostels, offices, houses and vehicles before leaving East Timor," it said in its own report on Friday.
But it denied the military co-ordinated the destruction, and said only 79 people had been killed in the violence, despite the fact that UN investigators have discovered more than 230 bodies, and hundreds are unaccounted for.
The five-member UN human rights inquiry team, which went to East Timor in November for nine days, said its preliminary investigations left no doubt of involvement of the Indonesian military in the violence.
Mr Ramos-Horta also criticised the UN administration in East Timor for not re-establishing government institutions quickly.
"The UN has been very slow in establishing law and order in East Timor," he told Reuters.
"There is no court yet, no prison system, the UN civilian police is very incapable of dealing with the situation in East Timor, and this is very frustrating to the majority of the population."
He said pledged international funds were also slow in coming. "In many situations the governments make pledges and they don't deliver," he said.
"We would like to see East Timor as an exceptional case, where the donor countries fulfil their pledges in a timely fashion and the money that they pledge is not wasted on consultants."
Conor O'Clery can be contacted at: conor@public3.bta.net.cn