Bishop Belo criticized for being inexperienced

Bishop Belo criticized for being inexperienced

By Meidyatama Suryodiningrat

JAKARTA (JP): The head of the East Timor provincial
legislature has lashed out at Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo's
allegations of humans rights abuses, attributing them to
immaturity and inexperience.

"I'm not trying to attack the bishop, but he is still a young
man...He does not know how evil the Portuguese government was,"
said East Timor's chief legislator Antonio Freitas Parada
yesterday when asked about Belo.

Bishop Belo has been the most vocal critic of Jakarta's
policies on East Timor.

Parada's unprecedented comments on the Bishop came as a
surprise since, as the head of the mainly Catholic East Timorese
population, Belo wields tremendous influence which has, in the
past allowed him considerable leeway in leveling stinging
criticisms at the government.

Parada is currently in Jakarta to hand in a statement on
behalf of the Timorese people expressing their disgust at
Portugal's claims to represent the Timorese people in their legal
suit against Australia.

"We cannot accept what Portugal is doing," he said, saying
that the Timorese had integrated with Indonesia in 1976 and as
such gave its mandate to the Indonesian government to do what it
saw best in signing the Timor Gap treaty with Australia.

Lisbon is suing Canberra over its deal with Jakarta to exploit
a 61,000 square-kilometer sea stretch between East Timor and
Australia, known as the Timor Gap.

The case is currently being heard in the International Court
of Justice in the Hague.

"We the people of East Timor are the ones who have the right,
not them (Portugal)," he stated.

Parada said that Belo was ignorant of the hardship suffered by
the people of East Timor prior to the former-colony's integration
with Indonesia.

Parada added that by leaving at a young age and returning only
years after the integration, Belo had been spared from the
tortures of colonialism and had never felt the agony of civil
war. He thus failed to appreciate the prosperity the integration
has brought to the province.

The 47-year-old Belo was born in Baucau, East Timor. After
completing his elementary schooling in 1968 he left for Lisbon to
study at the Superior Institute and then at the Universiade
Catolica Portuguesa.

He continued his studies in Rome at the Universita Pontificia
Salesiana where he acquired a doctoral degree in 1981. He
returned home as the Catholic Bishop of East Timor a year later.

"He (Belo) came after the integration, so maybe he sees things
that are unfamiliar to him," Parada said.

However as someone who survived the colonial era, Parada
contends that things are better now than they were before.

"Now people are freer than before because before 1974 we
couldn't express ourselves," he said.

He cited as proof the freedom of East Timor's youth who, by
following the correct procedures and channels, may stage
demonstrations and lodge complaints.

Ninja

When asked to comment on the reports of ninja-like gangs
running amok in the streets of Dili, Parada told journalists that
he suspected they were juvenile delinquents.

"These ninjas are really groups of vigilantes," he said.

He denied reports that the situation was unsafe in Dili and
asserted that daily life was proceeding normally.

"How could I be here if it weren't," he jested.

Contrary to recent comments by critics and academics on the
need to reduce the armed forces' presence in East Timor, Parada
said that the military's role there was a crucial one.

"The role of the military is, in general, still very important
to strengthen integration," he said.

However he acknowledged that sometimes there were certain
individuals in the army who did break with the norms and infringe
upon the rights of others.

"There are abuses of human rights, but in my opinion it is
being done by individual parties and not by the government," he
said.

"The government is good. It's just certain individuals who
have been given power or are too emotional," he added.