Government slams planned Ramos-Horta visit
Government slams planned Ramos-Horta visit
JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian government said on Sunday that
1996 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jose Ramos-Horta and other East
Timorese living abroad should not be engaged in campaign
activities in Indonesia, including East Timor.
"Horta's planned presence in East Timor for such a purpose
will surely spark controversy and tension, if not violent
conflict," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement
made available to The Jakarta Post.
"This will not serve any purpose except to indulge Horta's
avid publicity-seeking at the expense of current efforts to
maintain an atmosphere of order and calm necessary for the
implementation of the New York agreements," the statement said.
Under the agreements, popular consultation with East Timorese
living abroad will be conducted by the UN in their countries of
residence where they will be free to conduct their own campaign
and cast their votes, according to the statement.
It said that if Ramos-Horta wished to visit East Timor, he
must secure the consent of the Indonesian government and must
comply with the relevant immigration procedures.
"If he ignores these requirements, then he has to bear the
consequences of violating the law," it said.
The Indonesian government has said it will not tolerate
activities that undermine efforts jointly conducted with the UN
to promote peace, public order and tranquility in East Timor.
A statement by Ramos-Horta that he plans to visit East Timor
whether or not Indonesia gives its consent was carried widely by
the mass media.
"This is a provocative statement that will only jeopardize the
calm atmosphere that has begun to develop in East Timor just
recently. This cheap grandstanding act is just one more of his
usual publicity stunts designed to project himself into the
international limelight. It would just have been amusing were it
not for the fact that so much is at stake in the forthcoming
popular consultation in East Timor."
Equally lamentable is a statement by David Wimhurst, spokesman
for the UN Assistance Mission in East Timor (UNAMET), to the
effect that in accordance with the New York agreements, Ramos-
Horta may be allowed to campaign in East Timor.
It is regrettable that he deemed it appropriate to give his
own interpretation of the agreements between Indonesia and
Portugal and made the public statement that Ramos-Horta had the
right to campaign in East Timor, the statement said.
Wimhurst has to be reminded that the popular consultation is
not a full-fledged referendum in which East Timorese abroad would
travel to East Timor in order to continue to campaign and cast
their votes in East Timor.
Indonesia has rejected and will continue to reject such a
referendum because it is bound to precipitate a violent clash
between prointegration and anti-integration East Timorese, the
statement said.