Lopez gives cautious welcome to Mandela's offer of help
Lopez gives cautious welcome to Mandela's offer of help
JAKARTA (JP): Fransisco Xavier Lopez da Cruz, a senior East
Timor politician and a supporter of integration with Indonesia,
gave a cautious welcome yesterday to Nelson Mandela's offer to
help with the negotiations to end the East Timor conflict.
The South African president, who visited Indonesia this month,
said in Johannesburg on Friday that he would assist United
Nations' Secretary General Koffi Annan in the latter's search for
a peaceful solution in East Timor.
Mandela last week met with East Timor separatist spokesman and
last year's Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos Horta. During his
visit in Jakarta, he met with Lopez and jailed separatist rebel
Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao.
"We welcome the offer as long as the nature of his assistance
remains informal," Lopez, Indonesia's ambassador at large on East
Timor affairs, told The Jakarta Post by phone.
He said the dialog between Indonesia and Portugal under the
auspices of the UN Secretary General was the chief forum to
settle the East Timor problem.
"We have the highest regard for the United Nations to find a
just and honest solution that could be accepted by the
international community," he said, adding: "Mandela's initiative
shouldn't interfere with the formal (UN) dialog."
The dialog, which had been held at foreign ministerial level,
entered its ninth round in New York last month with the two
countries agreeing to hold a lower-level meeting to discuss
specific details.
Lopez praised Mandela for maintaining his neutrality and
impartiality on the issue, as shown during this month's meeting
in Jakarta in which the South African president insisted on
seeing both him and Xanana at the State Palace at the same time.
News of the meeting only became known to the public a few days
after Mandela left the country.
Meanwhile, Koesnanto Anggoro of the Centre for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS) said Mandela's offer of assistance
would not likely be too effective because the main forum remained
the tripartite dialog at the United Nations.
Koesnanto admitted that Mandela had an international stature
and influence so much so that his country was now being widely
considered as a candidate for a permanent seat, if and when the
Security Council was expanded as currently being planned.
Koesnanto saw Mandela's East Timor initiative as part of his
effort to play a greater role in international stage.
Separately, Dewi Fortuna Anwar of the Indonesian Institute of
Sciences, said that Mandela could play a strategic, albeit
informal role, in the East Timor talks.
Dewi said his role as helping in the lobbying of various
parties in the conflict to bridge their differences.
She noted that the African National Congress, Mandela's party
and a liberation movement during the apartheid years in South
Africa, had close links with Fretilin, the East Timor separatist
movement which has been waging an armed insurgency.
Dewi said the initiative was also an expression of gratitude
from Mandela to the support the Indonesian government had given
to him and the ANC during the long fight against apartheid in
South Africa. (10)