Alatas defends RI's policy on East Timor

Alatas defends RI's policy on East Timor

By Imanuddin

NEW YORK (JP): Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas defended
here on Wednesday Indonesia's rejection of a referendum as a
means to settle the East Timor problem.

He told correspondents from various countries at the United
Nations (UN) headquarters here that the rejection of the proposal
did not mean that Indonesia was afraid that the referendum would
demonstrate East Timor's desire to be independent of Indonesia or
that Indonesia was antidemocratic.

"You should not misunderstand our position. We are opposing
the referendum not because we are afraid of its results or that
we are antidemocratic," Alatas said after the tripartite meeting
with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Portugal's Minister of
Foreign Affairs Jamie Gama.

"Why should Indonesia be afraid of the referendum? We have
placed independence for East Timor as the second option if the
first option, the wide-ranging autonomy package, is rejected by
the East Timorese," he said.

He said Indonesia was open to any method other than a
referendum to gauge to the feelings of the East Timorese on
autonomy or independence.

"The UN is free to query 100,000, 200,000 or 300,000 East
Timorese, but not through a referendum," he said.

The tripartite meeting began on Wednesday afternoon, but it
was not preceded by a Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) as was the
usual practice.

"The elimination of the Senior Officials Meeting from the
agenda does not mean that we are trying to avoid the talks,"
Alatas said.

"It's merely for the sake of effectiveness because the content
of the discussion which was planned for the SOM meeting was
similar to that of the ministerial level meeting," he added.

He said the Indonesian government was determined to settle the
East Timor question by the end of the April.

"We only need time before the end of April to make some
revisions to our wide-ranging autonomy proposal," he said.

Annan met Alatas and the Indonesian delegation at 3:45 p.m.
and then met the Portuguese delegation half an hour later. The
tripartite meeting, which lasted for about two hours, began at
4:45 p.m. It was scheduled to continue on Thursday morning.

According to Alatas, Wednesday's meeting included discussions
about which methods could be employed to ascertain the East
Timorese's decision on the wide-ranging autonomy proposal.

"The UN secretary-general has his own opinions. So does the
Portuguese delegation and the Indonesian delegation. We have not
arrived at an agreement on the method yet," he said.

He said that Annan suggested an indirect general election in
East Timor to elect 25 to 30 East Timorese representatives. The
representatives would then vote whether to accept the autonomy
proposal or reject it.

"Why should we ask the representatives and not the East
Timorese themselves to decide," Alatas asked, commenting on
Annan's proposal.

He said he reiterated in the meeting the reasons why the
Indonesian government was opposed to a referendum.

"A referendum will only instigate a civil war. It will take a
longer time to complete because there are a number of
administrative and physical tasks which must be completed first,
including the withdrawal of Indonesian troops and government
officials from the region, and the deployment of UN peacekeeping
troops in their place," he said.

Besides, he added, "a referendum would cost the UN more money.
Who would pay for it?"

Amien Rais

Meanwhile, one of the favorites in this year's presidential
election, Amien Rais, said here that it was time to give the East
Timorese the freedom to decide their own fate.

"East Timor has been with Indonesia for 24 years. It's not
wise to talk about autonomy there. The sooner the referendum is
held, the better," he said prior to meeting the chairman of the
UN's committee on decolonization, Alvaro de Soto, on Wednesday.

He said that the release of jailed pro-independence leader
Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao would help hasten a settlement of
the East Timor problem.

"If I were President (B.J.) Habibie, I would release Xanana
Gusmao because he is the leader of East Timor," he said, adding
that Xanana held influence over more than 90 percent of East
Timorese.

Amien said that if he were elected president, he would
immediately consult with the leaders of East Timor and the people
of the province to ask them what they wanted the status of their
province to be.

In response to whether UN peacekeeping troops were needed in
East Timor, Amien said they would be necessary during a
transitional period after Indonesian military troops were
withdrawn.

"The UN peacekeeping troops would be needed to prevent any
security vacuum in East Timor after the withdrawal of Indonesian
troops. They would also be needed because they are considered
neutral," he said.