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)