Indonesia welcomes Mandela's offer on E. Timor
Indonesia welcomes Mandela's offer on E. Timor
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia welcomed yesterday Nelson Mandela's
offer to help with the United Nations' efforts to find a peaceful
settlement to the question of East Timor.
Ghaffar Fadyl, chief spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, said however that any role that the South African
president played in the East Timor issue must be informal.
"Mandela's offer of assistance was a positive idea," Ghaffar
told The Jakarta Post by phone.
"The offer should be in the framework of the tripartite
dialog," he said, referring to the series of meetings Indonesia
and Portugal have held under the auspices of the UN Secretary
General.
In the latest attempt to step up his East Timor initiative,
Mandela today is scheduled to meet with Portuguese President
Jorge Sampaio of Portugal in Pretoria, according to Reuters.
Sampaio would be accompanied by his foreign minister Jaime Gama.
The lunch-time meeting will take place at Mandela's private
residence.
Mandela visited Jakarta this month during which he met with
President Soeharto, and also with Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao,
who is serving a 20-year jail term for leading an armed rebellion
for a separate East Timor state.
On Friday, Mandela saw Jose Ramos Horta, the exiled East Timor
separatist leader, in South Africa.
Fransisco Xavier Lopez da Cruz, East Timor's senior politician
and a staunch supporter of integration with Indonesia, was
present when Mandela met with Xanana in Jakarta to give his side
of the story.
Lopez had welcomed Mandela's initiative, stressing also that
the UN-sponsored dialog must remain the chief forum to settle the
East Timor problem.
Lopez, Indonesia's ambassador-at-large on East Timor affairs,
yesterday denied a Portuguese press report claiming that Mandela,
while in Jakarta, had called for Xanana's release.
He said the matter was not discussed during the meeting, and
he believed that it did not surface either when Mandela met with
President Soeharto.
"Mandela could not have asked the Indonesian government to
release Xanana because he was convicted for a crime. He is not a
political prisoner," Lopez argued.
"If we have to free him, then we should also release other
criminals," he said.
Other Indonesian officials were not available to comment on
the report printed last weekend by the Portuguese newspaper
Expresso.
Mandela announced his East Timor initiative on Friday,
stressing that he intended to assist, and not undermine, UN
Secretary General Koffi Annan's efforts.
The tripartite dialogs moved one little step further last
month when the foreign ministers of Indonesia and Portugal agreed
to arrange for a lower-level meeting to discuss technical
details.
On Monday, UN spokesman Fred Eckhard announced that Annan was
sending Jamsheed Marker, his special representative for East
Timor, to South Africa for talks with Mandela.
Mandela had briefed Annan on his encounter with Xanana and the
UN chief "welcomes the efforts" by the South African president,
Eckhard said. (10)