Lopes suspects foul play at Vienna meeting

Lopes suspects foul play at Vienna meeting

JAKARTA (JP): A senior East Timorese politician suspects foul
play in the wording of the final declaration for the All-
Inclusive East Timor Dialog that took place earlier this month.

Lopes da Cruz told journalists that the text of the final
declaration deviated from what was agreed upon during their
meeting in Austria.

"The following day in Vienna, when we examined the text of the
declaration in Portuguese, we found that a few things originally
agreed upon in the forum were not contained in the document,"
Lopes said. Some points were added without the consent of the
participants, he added.

The declaration issued at the end of the meeting in the
Austrian town of Stadschlaining has become a contentious issue,
with pro-Indonesia East Timorese claiming that points in the text
deviate from the agreements reached at the meeting.

The event brought together for the first time leaders of
various East Timorese factions who were fiercely locked into a
bloody civil war in 1975-76. Taking part in the reconciliation
meeting, which was sponsored by the United Nations, were 15 in
support of East Timor's integration with Indonesia and 12
opposed, all of whom live overseas. Dili Bishop Carlos Filipe
Ximenes Belo was present as a neutral delegate.

Because the meeting ended a day earlier than scheduled, Lopes
explained, participants had to rush the typing of the final
declaration, which was entirely entrusted to the representatives
of the anti-integration faction led by Ramos Horta.

"Being pressed for time we left the text to them because they
had the computer to type it. They could have been very
deceitful," he said.

Because the dialog was held amongst "our own people", the pro-
Indonesian delegation left Stadschlaining without examining the
document after it was typed. "If we had had another day, maybe we
could have been more careful," Lopes said.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas has admitted that the
pro-Indonesia East Timorese were caught off-guard by the
insertion of certain points in the declaration that they
otherwise would have rejected.

The 15 pro-Indonesia representatives and seven other delegates
to the Austrian talks have already written to UN Secretary
General Boutros Boutros-Ghali explaining their position.

Lopes said the declaration omits a whole paragraph which would
have acknowledged previous efforts at reconciliation by East
Timorese leaders.

Words were also added, without the full consent of
representatives, that left the impression that East Timor was
closed and forbid people from coming and going, Lopes said.

He said that a reference to an old UN resolution was also
inserted by the typist without the knowledge, let alone consent,
of all the participants.

Lopez declined to speculate, in view of the incident, whether
or not there would be a second East Timor dialog as had been
suggested by the participants in Austria.

The results of the meeting will be discussed on July 8 when
Alatas meets for the sixth round of talks with his Portuguese
counterpart in Geneva. There he will discuss the status of East
Timor under the auspices of Boutros-Ghali. (mds)