Boutros-Ghali to chair May meeting on East Timor

Boutros-Ghali to chair May meeting on East Timor

GENEVA (AFP): UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali will chair a meeting next month of the Indonesian and Portuguese foreign ministers on the former Portuguese colony of East Timor, UN spokeswoman Therese Gastaut said yesterday.

The meeting between Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas and Portugal's Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, to be held on May 6, had been announced by Portuguese sources last month.

The talks come after the UN Human Rights Commission, which noted "positive measures" by Indonesia which annexed East Timor in 1976, has pointed to "persistent human rights violations" on the island where the army massacred demonstrators in November 1991 in Dili.

Indonesian officials have put the death toll at around 50, with some 60 others still missing.

Lisbon is seeking a "just, overall and internationally acceptable solution" in Timor and wants self-determination for its inhabitants.