Children of Timor veterans protest at Australian and U.S. embassies

Children of Timor veterans protest at Australian and U.S. embassies

JAKARTA (JP): Some 200 youths, offspring of veterans and
soldiers who died in the East Timor campaign, protested at the
Australian and United States embassies on Saturday, calling on
the countries to stay out of Indonesia's domestic affairs.

"We reject foreign interference. We won't keep quite if we
find foreigners intruding in our motherland," the group, calling
itself the Communication Forum of the Children of Fighters in the
East Timor Seroja Military Operation, said in a statement.

Traveling on five buses, they arrived with posters and photos
of their late fathers.

Three members of the group were allowed into the Australian
Embassy to present their statement to an embassy official.

They also presented an Australian flag to the official, saying
this was "a symbol to educate Australians to respect another
country's flag".

This was in reference to a series of anti-Indonesia protests
in Australia in which Indonesian flags were burned. Indonesian
protesters later retaliated by burning Australian flags, and at
one time even storming the Australian Embassy and replaced the
Australian flag with the Indonesian flag.

The protesters were later driven to the U.S. Embassy to hold a
similar protest before they dispersed.

The protests at the two embassies passed off without any major
incident.

In Sydney, meanwhile, more than 20,000 protesters took to the
streets on Saturday demanding urgent action to end the bloodshed
in East Timor, AFP reported.

The rally called on a "gutless" Australian government to
immediately withdraw recognition of Indonesia's sovereignty over
East Timor and to send in an armed peacekeeping force.

Wielding banners emblazoned with slogans such as "Howard You
Coward" and "East Timor -- Blood on Howard's hands", a breakaway
group of 30 demonstrators battered their way into the prime
minister's Sydney office.

To screams of "UN in, Indonesia out" the group rammed the
glass sliding doors.

The protesters ran to the lifts inside, which they occupied
for about five minutes before leaving voluntarily. No arrests
were made.

During the five-hour rally, dozens of solidarity activists,
politicians and union members made emotional pleas to the
government to take immediate military action to end the massacres
by pro-Indonesia militias.

The protest condemned Canberra's refusal to act without
Indonesian permission and a UN mandate.

Demonstrators, who brought the city to a standstill, vowed to
continue to stage mass rallies if an international peacekeeping
force was not in the region within a week.

They called for a war crimes tribunal and for international
financial agencies, such as the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund, to cut funding until peace was restored.

Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union spokesman
Andrew Ferguson told the noisy protest that Australian retailers
would be picketed if they failed to take Indonesian goods off
their shelves.

In Brussels, the International Confederation of Free Trade
Unions (ICFTU) said on Friday it was asking unions throughout the
world to join a campaign to isolate Indonesia both economically
and politically because of the violence in East Timor.

The ICFTU said it had sent a message to its 213 affiliates in
143 countries asking them to step up their East Timor protests
through demonstrations, rallies and pickets at Indonesian
diplomatic missions.

The confederation said it was also urging member unions to
lobby governments to recognize immediately East Timor's
independence and to put pressure on international financial
institutions to demand financial sanctions.

East Timor erupted in violence at the hands of pro-Jakarta
militias, reportedly supported and encouraged by Army elements,
after the United Nations announced that nearly 80 percent of
voters in a UN-organized poll had opted for independence from
Indonesia.

The ICFTU said it was planning a "day of world mobilization"
on Sept. 30 if the situation had not changed.

It said it had asked the World Bank and International Monetary
Fund to deduct from any nonhumanitarian aid to Indonesia a sum
equal to Indonesian military spending, which it said was
estimated at more than US$1 billion a year.

It said it had asked the United Nations to call a special
meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission to discuss the East
Timor situation. (asa)