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)