Aid to East Timor at critical stage: Patten

Aid to East Timor at critical stage: Patten

BRUSSELS (AFP): Aid to East Timor to establish "the basis for a stable and democratic country" is at a "critical stage," EU commissioner for external relations Chris Patten told an East Timor donors conference here Tuesday.

"The rebuilding of East Timor is a test of how to build a new nation through democratic choices," he said. "In about a year from now, an independent East Timor should become the 190th member of the United Nations.

"We are at a critical stage in helping the East Timorese people to establish the basis for a stable and democratic country," said Patten. "The Brussels donors conference represents a unique opportunity to address their aspirations and help them to prepare for the future of the youngest nation of the 21st century."

East Timor's first transitional government, which stepped into office last July, marks a major step towards better cohesion in policy-making in the territory, UN administrator Sergio de Mello said at the time.

"Above and beyond the political significance, the major factor in the formation of this government is cohesion," he said.

"Up until now we faced many problems because it was hard to say who was coordinating policy in different sectors of activity."

The new government's official brief is to replace the UN transitional authority in a bid to speed up the "Timorisation" of the territory as a precursor to independence.

Last month Vieira de Mello announced elections, as a forerunner to the territory's full independence, should take place between August 30 and December 2000.

The Indonesian parliament last month ratified East Timor's August 30 independence vote, formally surrendering its claim to the former Portuguese colony which it invaded in 1975 and formally annexed the following year.

Patten said the donor conference here would allow for "a clearer vision of the process of transition to independence and a better understanding of the unanswered questions."

"We must reassure the people of East Timor that they can still count on us."

He said "major progress" had already been made in rebuilding the war-torn country.

In December 1999 in Tokyo, a first donors conference drew pledges of some US$523 million for a humanitarian aid and reconstruction program.