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)