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.