Asylum seekers fly to Portugal
Asylum seekers fly to Portugal
JAKARTA (JP): The 21 East Timorese youths who sought political
asylum at the Japanese embassy on Tuesday left for Portugal
yesterday afternoon after Lisbon said it was ready to accept
them.
The young men, aged between 19 and 25, were transported from
the embassy compound to the airport in a passenger bus owned by
the Indonesian Red Cross, flanked by two cars carrying officials
of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
They then boarded commercial flight 832 of the Dutch carrier
KLM, which took off at 7:40 p.m. The East Timorese are to be
taken to Lisbon via Amsterdam.
Portugal said on Tuesday that it was willing to take in the
asylum-seekers. "I cannot ignore a request from anybody who seeks
refuge in our country. That is obvious," Portuguese Prime
Minister Antonio Guterres said, as quoted by Reuters.
In Osaka, Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono reportedly
discussed the incident with Indonesia's Minister of Foreign
Affairs Ali Alatas, who is there for the APEC meeting.
"We've been consulting with the Indonesian government," a
spokesman of the Japanese foreign ministry told reporters. He
added that both Japan and Indonesia "clearly understand and
respect their human rights".
Alatas had little to say about the incident.
"All I can say is that the pattern has become a bit boring,"
he said. He added that every time there is a major international
conference "a few of our youngsters decide to scale the fence of
an embassy."
He said the incident had been provoked by outside parties,
since the youths' statements "were too-beautiful letters" which
could not have been written by the young East Timorese.
"Nobody's taking this seriously anymore," he added.
Alatas said that Indonesia and Japan were quietly resolving
the issue. "Indonesia's attitude has been clear from the
beginning. If they want to leave the country, they can leave the
country," he added.
The 21 East Timorese scaled the embassy's fence on Tuesday
morning, in full view of the passing traffic. They were the third
group to enter a foreign embassy in two months. Last year, just
before the previous APEC meeting, 29 East Timorese entered the
U.S. Embassy in Jakarta and staged a lengthy sit-in. (01/emb)