Govt rejects plan for UN rights office here

Govt rejects plan for UN rights office here

JAKARTA (JP): The government denied yesterday a United Nations
officials' claim that a human rights office would open here soon
to monitor the situation in East Timor.

The Indonesian foreign ministry's director for international
organizations, N. Hassan Wirayuda, told The Jakarta Post that no
agreement to set up an office here had been reached.

"There are not enough grounds for the commissioner to place a
representative in Jakarta to monitor the human rights situation
in East Timor," Hassan said.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Jose Ayala Lasso
expressed the hope in Geneva Wednesday that an agreement might
soon be reached with Jakarta to allow the commissioner to place a
representative here.

Lasso further claimed that Indonesia had made a new proposal
on the matter a fortnight ago.

Hassan maintained yesterday that such statements were untrue.

He explained that Indonesia had for several years conducted
talks on technical cooperation in the field of human rights with
the human rights commissioner and the human rights center in
Geneva.

A memorandum of intent on the technical cooperation was signed
in October 1994. The cooperation entailed a broad cooperation in
human rights development and awareness in Indonesia.

However, according to Hassan, there have been attempts to
deviate the cooperation into human rights monitoring such as
would be implied by having a human rights office here.

He said it would be completely untrue to suggest that
Indonesia had agreed to the establishment of a monitoring office
since what had been signed in 1994 covered only technical
cooperation.

"We have observed since last year a tendency to shift away
from the technical cooperation aspect," he said.

When asked why he thought Lasso would make such a statement,
Hassan replied: "There's probably pressure from western countries
on Ayala Lasso's office to head in that direction."

As a follow-up to the memorandum signed in 1994, the UN
Commissioner's office presented a draft memorandum of
understanding last year. Unfortunately, said Hassan, the draft
had veered away from technical cooperation into human rights
monitoring.

"As a counter, we presented our own draft two weeks ago ...
which contains no elements of human rights monitoring," Hassan
said.

Thus, he argued, it would be untrue to suggest that
Indonesia's recent proposal, as remarked by Lasso, meant the
establishment of a UN human rights office here was likely in the
near future.

The post of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights was created
after the 1993 UN Human Rights Conference in Vienna.

Lasso is soon to step down from his three-year term to become
foreign minister of Ecuador.

The Indonesian delegation to the 50th annual meeting of the UN
human rights commission, due to begin Monday in Geneva, would be
headed by the foreign ministry's director general for political
affairs Izhar Ibrahim.

Hassan would not predict whether the question of East Timor
would be raised in either a resolution or the chairman's
statement. "We'll have to wait and see whether they decide to
bring it up," he said.

The former Portuguese colony of East Timor has been a regular
inclusion in the commission chairman's statement for the past few
years. It integrated into Indonesia in 1976, but the United
Nations still considers Lisbon the administering power there.

The issue is expected to be discussed in the second half of
the six-week meeting. (mds)