Alatas to meet separatist leader of East Timor
JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas will meet with Fretilin leader Ramos Horta in New York on Thursday while his Portuguese counterpart will meet with an East Timorese pro- integration delegation in Luxembourg today.
The planned meetings were confirmed by the Director General of Foreign Information, Irawan Abidin, at the Foreign Ministry yesterday.
Irawan told The Jakarta Post that the East Timorese groups would meet with the foreign ministers on a private capacity basis in accordance with the terms laid out by the tripartite talks between Portugal, Indonesia and United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
Alatas, in New York attending the 49th session of the UN General Assembly, also said that based on the tripartite talks, Horta would be acting in a private capacity and that the meeting should not be construed as a negotiation process.
The tripartite talks are now in their fourth session with the latest taking place last May in Geneva during which both Portugal and Indonesia agreed to meet with East Timorese groups to improve the climate between the two sides.
The next round of talks is scheduled for January 1995 in New York.
Despite the integration of the former Portuguese colony into Indonesia since 1976, the United Nations still doesn't recognize Indonesia's sovereignty over East Timor.
However, the UN General Assembly which got underway last month, agreed to strike the East Timor issue out of its agenda yet again to give Indonesia and Portugal a chance to resolve the sovereignty issue.
Irawan revealed that the meeting between Alatas and Horta is being conducted under the latter's request. "This was a request from Ramos Horta," he said referring to the bid made sometime in September.
Alatas himself seemed to play down the meeting with the Fretilin leader saying he had often met with proponents hostile to integration.
"I have often met with Horta ...I am always ready to talk to anyone about East Timor as long as it is not part of a negotiation because negotiations can only be done in the tripartite talks," he said as quoted by Antara in New York.
Meanwhile Portuguese Foreign Minister Durao Barroso is scheduled to meet with pro-integration figures lead by Ambassador-at-large for East Timor Affairs F.X. Lopez da Cruz in Luxembourg today.
Lopez over the weekend was in London to attend the second round of conciliatory talks between pro and anti-integration East Timorese groups.
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Sponsored by the Indonesia-Portugal Friendship Association, Lopez met with Abilio Araujo, the head of the anti-integration group. Araujo himself will also meet with Alatas on Thursday morning prior to the minister's meeting with Horta.
The friendship association is a non-governmental entity funded by businesswoman Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, the eldest daughter of President Soeharto.
"The private capacity meetings will probably be more useful to Foreign Minister Barroso than myself since I have often met with anti-integration East Timorese," Alatas remarked.
Meanwhile in East Timor, military regional commander Col. Kiki Syahnakri on Sunday inspected the Armed Forces' Pusaka company which was involved last week in an armed incident with Fretilin guerrillas.
A company of Timorese locals, led by Juliong F., engaged in an exchange of fire killing five separatist guerrillas in two incidents last Tuesday and Wednesday.
No casualties were reported by security forces.
According to Juliong, the incident occurred when security forces caught guerrillas stealing food crops.
The rebels are becoming desperate and have had to resort to stealing because the people no longer support them, he said.
The once strong Fretilin guerrilla group in East Timor has now dwindled down to but a small number, with their activities limited mostly to minor raids in remote villages.(mds)