Diaspora talks upset Timorese

Diaspora talks upset Timorese

JAKARTA (JP): A group of East Timorese pro-integration leaders
warned yesterday that a meeting of exiled East Timorese in
Portugal could endanger the future of a UN-sponsored forum to
bridge the opposing camps in the integration debate.

Participants of the East Timorese National Convention in
Diaspora, as the meeting in Lisbon is called, "are destroying the
spirit of reconciliation and endangering the continuity of the
All-Inclusive East Timor Dialog (AIETD) forum itself", the
leaders said in a statement.

The convention, it said, was a political forum aimed at
undermining the efforts of the United Nations to find a just,
comprehensive and internationally acceptable solution.

"We express serious doubt about the continued validity of the
AIETD forum," it said.

The April 23 to April 27 meeting, sponsored by the Portuguese
government, has brought together East Timorese leaders in exile
opposed to the territory's integration with Indonesia.

Many of them have participated in the AIETD, which has
convened on at least two occasions in Austria as part of the
process organized by the UN to help find a settlement to the
question of East Timor's sovereignty.

The UN also has been coordinating a parallel tripartite dialog
involving the foreign ministers of Indonesia and Portugal, which
ruled East Timor until 1975, to settle the issue.

The prointegration figures, led by senior politician F.X.
Lopes Da Cruz, criticized the Portuguese government for
supporting the East Timorese in exile, whom they said constituted
a minority group among East Timorese.

They also appealed to the UN secretary general to bring up the
matter of the Lisbon meeting at the next tripartite dialog
meeting as a priority issue for discussion.

They recalled that the secretary general had specifically
asked that participants of the AIETD refrain from engaging in
activities that could disrupt efforts to create an atmosphere
conducive to dialog. (emb)