Australia shifts stance on Timor

Australia shifts stance on Timor

ADELAIDE (Agencies): Australia unveiled a major policy shift
over East Timor on Tuesday and said it could see the restive
province eventually winning independence from Indonesia, Reuters
reported.

The Australian government, which previously only supported
autonomy for the territory, said it backed a political settlement
that could put East Timor on the path to long-term independence.

Australia, along with the United States, are the only Western
countries to recognize Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Canberra
still considered independence a "second-best outcome", but it now
supported a New Caledonia-style deal offering complete self-
determination after a period of autonomy.

"Our approach to East Timor is, I suppose, somewhat akin to
the way the Matignon approach worked in New Caledonia," he said,
citing the pact that set the South Pacific territory on the road
to independence from France, but only after 15 years of self-
rule.

"First of all you would have to put in place an autonomy
package," Downer told a news conference.

"The people of East Timor would have an opportunity to see how
autonomy really was ... and in the end give them, some years down
the road, the opportunity to pass judgment on whether they wanted
to continue with that arrangement."

East Timorese independence campaigner and Nobel Peace Prize
laureate Jose Ramos Horta welcomed Australia's policy shift.

"I would say we are on the same wavelength for the first time
in many years," Ramos Horta told Reuters.

Indonesia unilaterally incorporated East Timor in 1976, a year
after the abrupt departure of its Portuguese colonizers, in a
move never recognized by the United Nations.

Downer said Australia was concerned that independence could
spark the fragmentation of Indonesia and cause regional
instability.

However, he said, Australia believed the East Timorese would
not accept Indonesian offers of autonomy which did not include
the option of an "act of self-determination" in the future.

Indonesia and Portugal began talks last August on a proposal
by Indonesian President B.J. Habibie to grant wide-ranging
autonomy to East Timor.

"Our preference would be for an arrangement where East Timor
would have a higher degree of autonomy but remain legally part of
Indonesia," Downer said.

"On the other hand, if in the end it proves impossible for an
autonomy package to be sold to the people of East Timor ... then
presumably East Timor will chart its own future as an independent
state," he said. "We would see that as a second-best outcome, but
on the other hand we would obviously have to live with that."

Downer said that Australia had informed Jakarta of its new
position, which he described as a significant shift in policy
from Canberra's long-held position of supporting the status quo
in East Timor.

"It (the East Timor question) is an enormous cost to them
(Indonesia), not just financially, not just in terms of human
lives, but also in terms of their standing in the international
community," he said.

"I don't think there is a better path for them than the one we
have proposed," he said.

In Jakarta, officials regretted Australia's new stance,
arguing that it would only complicate efforts to reach an
internationally acceptable resolution.

"We are concerned and deeply regret that the Australian
government has changed its policy on East Timor," the spokesman
for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ghaffar Fadyl, told The
Jakarta Post.

"This decision prejudges the ongoing negotiations between
Indonesia and Portugal under the auspices of the United Nations
which recently had shown some progress," he said.

"And furthermore it will have an adverse effect on the search
for a just, comprehensive and internationally acceptable solution
to the problem."

Separately, Minister/State Secretary Akbar Tandjung reiterated
the government's stance that its plan to grant special autonomy
to East Timor was the final solution to the question.

"The autonomy that we would give East Timor is the same that
we give to others," Akbar said after a meeting with President
B.J. Habibie at Merdeka Palace.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas is on an overseas trip
and could not be reached for comment.

Separately, Armed Forces (ABRI) Chief of Territorial Affairs
Lt. Gen. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said ABRI fully supported the
special autonomy option for East Timor as a settlement to the
problem.

"If Australia has changed its stance we would need to study
its new position," Susilo said. (prb/rms)