House to hold plenary session on East Timor

JAKARTA (JP): The House of Representatives will hold a plenary meeting later this week to discuss the latest developments in East Timor, which has been troubled by racial and religious tensions in recent weeks.

Aisyah Amini of the United Development Party (PPP), who is also chair of Commission I, overseeing security and political affairs, said yesterday that the House will discuss the findings of the visit to the territory made last week by herself and her colleague B.N. Marbun.

The House will prepare a number of proposals regarding the problem, including its call for the establishment of an inter- religions forum to help contain racial and religious tensions, Aisyah said.

She said that, during her visit to East Timor, local officials have promised that they will help the return to the province of dozens of Moslem "refugees" who fled the province following the riots. The officials also guaranteed their safety, she added.

"I don't know whether these promises have been kept, because I haven't heard whether those people are now home," she said during a break at a symposium on Islam.

About 80 non-native East Timorese fled to Surabaya, East Java, earlier this month citing continued intimidation from East Timorese. Recent reports from Surabaya, however, suggest that they have now returned to East Timor.

Aisyah and Marbun flew to the East Timor capital Dili and the city of Maliana last Thursday, joining Baharuddin Lopa and Charles Himawan of the National Commission on Human Rights, who were already there to launch their own investigation.

"We visited damaged buildings, we found out that people had fled their homes because of the riots. We spoke to teachers whose school buildings and dormitories were burned down," she said. "All of that created fear among the people there."

She said she hoped the consultation forum among religions in East Timor would be established soon in order to help people learn to live together peacefully. "People look up to those religious leaders for guidance," she said.

"No one region in Indonesia should be exclusively for one religion only," she said. "Our Constitution protects the rights of the people to seek a livelihood and practice their religions (in any part of the country)."

The riots, which targeted migrants, who are mostly Moslems, were reportedly sparked by a comment of a prisons official which denigrated Roman Catholicism -- the main religion in the province.

Aisyah dismissed the suggestion of Dili Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo that the government designate East Timor "a special Catholic region."

"There's no such region in Indonesia. This notion is against the drive to establish unity," Aisyah said. "This will only create gaps and conflicts, ones which are more serious in nature."

"There should not be any exclusive region, and there is none in this world," she said. "People should be free to go anywhere, to the United States, to East Timor. East Timorese people can go anywhere they want to, so other people should also be able to go there."

In an interview with Gatra weekly, Bishop Belo said he once proposed that East Timor be declared a region of Catholic people. The proposal was rejected, he said.

Belo said the recent religious and ethnic violence is only the tip of the iceberg and that the local people's frustration stems from numerous social injustices.

Aisyah rejected the accusation the migrants had not adjusted to local norms.

"It's relative...Everybody has their own traits and signs of upbringing, and they should indeed adapt to the local norms," she said. "But this should not be a one-way process. The hosts should also strive to adapt to the newcomers," she added. (swe)

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