Gusmao seeks closer military ties with Indonesia

Gusmao seeks closer military ties with Indonesia

Agence France-Presse, Singapore

East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao said here on Tuesday his
nation's armed forces were looking to build closer ties with
their former adversaries, the Indonesian military.

Gusmao, speaking to reporters after addressing a business
lunch in Singapore, repeated an offer he said he made to
Indonesian President Megawati Soekarnoputri when they met in
Malaysia seven months ago.

"I had a very good opportunity to talk with President Megawati
and I told her we can have in the future military cooperation,"
Gusmao, who for nearly 17 years led East Timor's guerrilla
struggle against Indonesia's rule in his territory.

"We are not establishing an army to fight with each other
again.

"Indonesia is our closest neighbor. It is why we can have more
cooperation, even in military terms."

But Gusmao, who was caught and thrown into an Indonesian jail
in 1992 before being released ahead of his nation's vote for
independence in 1999, emphasized cooperation would not begin
immediately.

"Not now, of course, but we have a perspective to cooperate in
the future."

Despite his status as a revolutionary hero, Gusmao has
consistently pursued reconciliation and friendship with
Indonesia.

The Indonesian military was the main security force during
Indonesia's repressive occupation of East Timor between 1975 and
1999.

Militias armed and organized by the Indonesian military
carried out a campaign of terror in 1999 to coincide with the
territory's vote for independence in which at least 1,000 people
were killed.

More than 200,000 people were also forced across the border
into West Timor as the militias pursued a scorched earth policy
that destroyed much of East Timor's urban infrastructure.

Prosecutors in East Timor have charged 350 people, including
top Indonesian officers, over the 1999 atrocities but 263 of them
remain at large in Indonesia.

In another development, prosecutors in East Timor on Tuesday
charged 17 former militiamen or soldiers with murderous attacks
on independence supporters and other civilians after the
territory voted in August 1999 to break away from Indonesia.

The United Nations-funded Serious Crimes Unit accused soldiers
with the Indonesian army and pro-Jakarta militiamen of
systematically attacking civilians, destroying villages, forcing
people into Indonesian West Timor and targeting and killing
independence supporters.

Three indictments filed at Dili District Court accuse the
former deputy commander of the Sakunar militia, Laurentino Soares
alias "Moko"; three East Timorese soldiers in the Indonesian
military; and 13 former Sakunar militia members.

Jakarta, which refuses to hand anyone over to East Timor
prosecutors, conducted its own rights trials over the 1999
slaughter but these were widely seen by international observers
as a whitewash.