`Let them go,' Soeharto says of 29 E. Timorese

JAKARTA (JP): President Soeharto yesterday said that any East Timorese who still opposes Indonesia's integration of East Timor could leave the country.

In his first reported comment on the plan by 29 East Timorese protesters to go to Portugal, Soeharto was quoted as saying: "Let them go to Portugal. We have no objection if the 29 at the U.S. embassy leave."

His remarks were repeated by Mohammad Isnaeni, an executive of the August 17, 1945 Foundation who, along with other board members, met with the head of state at the presidential residence.

Soeharto said that any young East Timorese who opposes the integration is free to leave the country, according to Isnaeni. "The more the better."

East Timor Governor Abilio Jose Osorio Soares on Tuesday said that the anti-integration camp represents a tiny minority of the East Timorese people.

They managed however to steal international headlines by staging demonstrations last week to draw the attention of the foreign media which was in town for the APEC meetings.

The 29 youths who scaled the U.S. Embassy fence on Nov. 12 and staged a sit-in since then have announced their intention to take up a Portuguese offer of asylum.

Yesterday, on the 11th day of their occupation of the embassy parking grounds, they were finally moved into a building as preparations got underway to arrange their passage to Portugal.

Previously, they were camped outside in the open air, during which time one of them was taken ill and later admitted to a hospital.

The U.S. Embassy is coordinating the travel arrangements with the local office of the International Commission of the Red Cross. It was not immediately known when plans would be complete and when they protesters would leave the embassy compound.

Although the government and the military have given their assurances that the protesters would not be arrested upon leaving, the Jakarta Police said one of the protesters is wanted in connection with the murder of an off-duty soldier at a red- light district earlier this year. (emb/yns)