Government pressured to freeze diplomatic ties with Australia

JAKARTA (JP): The country's main political parties have put their domestic rivalry behind them to unite in urging the government to freeze diplomatic ties with Australia over its perceived offensive policy on East Timor.

Yogyakarta and Central Java provincial chapters of the National Awakening Party (PKB) said in their statements on Saturday that decades of close relationships between the two countries could no longer be maintained for what they called Australia's intervention in Indonesia's domestic affairs.

"What Australia has done in connection to the East Timor issue recently is far from favorable for a healthy and beneficial relationship," secretary-general of PKB's Yogyakarta chapter Nur Ahmad Affandi said.

His Central Java counterpart Karding Abdulkadir said in Semarang that Australia had failed to behave as a good friend and neighbor of Indonesia by having foreign policies which complicated, instead of easing, the turmoil in the former Portuguese colony.

"It's better for us to break with Australia because it has been campaigning to discredit Indonesia, and even intended to force its way into the republic's territory," Karding said.

Earlier on Friday leaders of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), Golkar Party and National Mandate Party (PAN) were unanimous in accusing Australia of "spreading terror" with its persistent demand for an immediate dispatch of a peace keeping force to East Timor.

Australia has called on the United Nations and the world community to send a peacekeeping force to East Timor to stop the bloodshed which followed an overwhelming rejection to a wide- ranging autonomy package offered by Indonesia in the UN- sanctioned ballot on Aug. 30.

The Australian government said it had prepared 4,500 troops for an international peacekeeping contingent in East Timor.

Thousands of Timorese are feared to have been killed in the flurry of violence blamed on the military-backed prointegration militia groups, which contended the result of the vote citing alleged irregularities.

Karding lashed out at Australia's failure to stop anti- Indonesia demonstrators from attacking buildings and other facilities belonging to Indonesia.

A wave of rallies against Australia have also hit the capital city and other major towns in the country. Some of them ended up with flag burning actions.

Deputy chairman of PDI Perjuangan, Dimyati Hartono, told a seminar on Friday night he threw his weight behind a diplomatic break-up with Australia if the country continued its campaign against Indonesia.

"We can take the drastic measure if necessary, just to show Australia that it needs a good neighbor like us," Dimyati said as quoted by Antara. "And if Australian troops land in East Timor without UN consent, 200 million Indonesians will take up arms to fight them."

His National Mandate Party (PAN) counterpart A.M. Fatwa, who also spoke in the seminar, refrained from suggesting a complete break with Australia, but said Indonesia could pull its ambassador to Canberra back home.

"Never let Australia terrorize us. We're a big nation whose pride is now at stake," Fatwa said.

PDI Perjuangan, winner of the June elections, and PAN have officially accepted the results of the self-determination ballot on East Timor's future, which saw 78.5 percent of the vote cast in favor of independence.

Both Karding and Ahmad agreed that frozen ties with Australia would not wreak havoc on Indonesia's efforts to recover its battered economy.

"We gain no profits from our trade with Australia. Even if we freeze diplomatic ties with them, businesspeople from the two countries will continue their trade," Ahmad said.

Meanwhile, dozens of East Timorese proautonomy students in Semarang announced their rejection of the self-determination ballot results and said they were prepared to take to the forests for a guerrilla movement against the new East Timor government.

"We believe the outcome was set up by the UN which wants East Timor to part from Indonesia. We could have accepted a defeat if the ballot ran fairly," one of the students said.

He said his colleagues who are studying in Yogyakarta and East Java will follow suit. (swa/har/amd)