East Timorese dialog historic event: Lopez
East Timorese dialog historic event: Lopez
By Meidyatama Suryodiningrat
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia's East Timorese leader Lopez da Cruz was upbeat as he described the coming All Inclusive Intra-East Timor dialog as a meeting of historic proportions.
The meeting is meant to reconcile adverse political factions for the first time in 20 years.
According to Lopez, the meeting planned for June 2 through June 6 in the quiet Austrian town of Burg Schlaining Schloss will be the first of its kind since the civil war in East Timor ended two decades ago.
Lopez said no specific agenda has been formulated for the meeting. The agenda will have to be decided through consensus on both sides.
"We could say that we want to explain about Pancasila or development, but they might not be interested," he said, adding that the Indonesian Timorese will be gathering Monday evening in Dili to throw out initial ideas for discussion.
Lopez emphasized that the discussion in Austria would not involve trying to find political solutions to the East Timor question.
Indonesia's 1976 integration of East Timor is still unrecognized by several countries which still consider Portugal the administrative power.
Under the aegis of the UN secretary-general, Indonesian and Portuguese foreign ministers have held periodic talks in a bid to find a solution to the matter. In January the ministers agreed to hold a reconciliatory dialog with UN facilitation between the East Timorese who accept the integration and those who oppose it.
The UN, without consultation, then made a list of 12 names of people from Indonesia and 14 from abroad to participate in the dialog. This sparked the anger of East Timorese Indonesians and prompted the postponement of an earlier date set for the meeting.
After intense discussions in New York last month, the UN accepted three more names to be added to the 12 already selected by the UN.
Those three are: Armindo Mariano Soares, the head of the government's Golkar faction in East Timor; Jose Piedade, chairman of the National Committee of Indonesian Youth in East Timor, and Tarciso dos Reis Amaral, head of the bureau of for social and cultural affairs.
When asked about Indonesia's insistence that they be included, Lopez told The Jakarta Post that the policy was based on a matter of principle."We do not want to be dictated to by the UN," he said.
Lopez argued that it would be unfair if Indonesia, home to most of the East Timorese people, was represented by only 12 people, while 14 represented the 15,000 East Timorese living in Australia and Portugal.
Indonesia also approved former East Timor governor Guilherme Maria Goncalves from an additional six names offered by the UN.
Other names included on the list of 16 from Indonesia are East Timor Governor Abilio Jose Osorio Soares, author Joao Saldhana, the head of the provincial legislature Antonio Freitas Parada and Dili regent Domingos Soares.
Although the list for Indonesia consists of several government officials, also included are two outspoken human rights critics, Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and Florentino Sarmento.
After speaking to Belo a day earlier, Lopez yesterday said the Bishop was enthusiastic about the dialog. "When I asked the Bishop yesterday, he told me that he would only be carrying the doctrine of the church, peace and reconciliation."
On the other side, the 12 participants from abroad represent the various anti-integration factions, such as Fretilin, Apodeti, UDT and Kota, along with their splinter groups.
The names included are Joao Viegas Carrascalao, Ramos Horta, Vincente da Silva Guterres, Jose Martins III, Manuel Tilman, A. Araujo, Jaime Ximenes and Abilio Sereno.
When asked whether jailed Fretilin rebel Xanana Gusmao had been invited, Lopez said that some considered this a possibility during the meeting in January, but Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas explained that Xanana's participation would be impossible because he is still serving time.
Meanwhile in Dili, a group of university students has petitioned UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to include Xanana in the dialog.