East Timor leaders say integration issue is final
East Timor leaders say integration issue is final
DILI, East Timor (JP): East Timorese leaders told a visiting senior official of the U.S. State Department yesterday that the integration of East Timor into Indonesia was final and should no longer be disputed by the international community.
The deputy chief of the East Timor legislative council, Maria Quintao, said after meeting with John Shattuck, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, that the international community should disbelieve the propaganda still being made by opponents of the integration.
Shattuck arrived in Jakarta on Tuesday for a nine-day visit to Indonesia. U.S. embassy officials in Jakarta described his trip as "part of the on-going dialog between Indonesia and the U.S."
The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor is a new office, created under the administration of President Bill Clinton out of two previously separate State Department bureaus: the bureau of human rights and the bureau of labor.
The State Department, in a report early this year, accused Indonesia of continued human rights violations, particularly in East Timor. The report said the United States had not seen any progress in accounting for the persons missing after a bloody incident in Dili, the capital of East Timor, in 1991.
During his three-day stay in Dili, Shattuck is scheduled to meet with regional military commander, Col. Kiki Syahnakri, and with Governor Abilio Jose Osorio Soares. He will also meet with Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, the Roman Catholic Church leader in East Timor.
According to Quintao, Shattuck has praised the development achieved in East Timor since the integration.
On the question of human rights, Quintao said that Shattuck had said that, although at times there were differences between Washington and Jakarta, they still shared the same goal of preserving human rights throughout the world.
Separately, the head of the East Timor legislative council, Antonio Freitas Parada, said that no country, particularly among developing countries, was free from human rights abuses.
He told the Post that abuses were caused by a lack of awareness about these matters on the part of both the people and leaders.
Antonio proposed that Washington extend aid to promote education in this field.
Meanwhile in Jakarta yesterday, U.S. Senator Charles Robb of the senate's sub-committee for East Asia and the Pacific arrived for a three-day stay as part of a regional tour which has so far taken him to South Korea and Myanmar.
Embassy officials said the trip was part of his work as a member of the senate sub-committee.
Shattuck's and Senator Robb's arrival here comes shortly after an Indonesian military inquiry which found officers to have been at fault in the Jan. 12 killing of civilians in East Timor. (yac/mds)