New Zealand Premier Bolger strikes a chord with Soeharto
JAKARTA (JP): New Zealand Prime Minister Jim Bolger ended his visit in Indonesia yesterday having created closer ties with President Soeharto, but he now faces mounting criticisms at home for the way he treated the East Timor issue.
Bolger was taken on a tour of Soeharto's Tri S Tapos ranch yesterday where he received information on the background of the facility which produces high-quality cattle.
The prime minister and his wife Joan Bolger lunched with the President and Mrs. Tien Soeharto at the Presidential Palace in Bogor. Bolger bade farewell to Soeharto at the palace before he headed to the Halim Perdanakusuma airport to catch a flight to Singapore for the second leg of his Southeast Asian tour.
State Secretary Moerdiono said Bolger confirmed his attendance in the forthcoming Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders meeting here in November.
"The prime minister pledged his support for the success of the APEC summit," he said, after Bolger had left the palace.
Opposition
In Wellington, opposition members of parliament attacked Bolger yesterday for what they called his "apologist" stand on the East Timor question.
Bolger had been reported by the New Zealand press as saying that most of the blame for East Timor should be put on former Portuguese and Dutch colonial rule in the region.
"The problems of East Timor go back to the old colonial regime that carved an island up and decided one half belonged to the Portuguese and the other half belonged to the Dutch," he said. "There was nothing that New Zealand can do to change the constitutional position, and that's where it rests."
New Zealand is one of the few countries which recognizes the formal integration of the former Portuguese colony with Indonesia.
However, before Bolger left Wellington, a petition was signed by more than half of the New Zealand MPs demanding him to press the issue of human rights in East Timor with President Soeharto.
He did raise the issue but Soeharto responded by inviting New Zealand members of parliament to come and see East Timor for themselves, to clear up their misgivings about Indonesia's intentions in the territory.
Labor Party
Phil Goff of the opposition Labor Party, who organized the petition, said he was willing to accept President Soeharto's invitation to visit East Timor. However, he added that he was doubtful a short visit would result in an accurate impression of what was happening.
Chairperson of the parliamentary foreign affairs select committee, Joy McLaughlin, said she was in favor of all committee members going, but she said she did not want them to be given a "sanitized" visit.
Meanwhile in Indonesia, a member of the House of Representatives from the Commission for Foreign Affairs, Abu Hasan Sazili, said the visit of New Zealand members of parliament should take place in the very near future. That way, he said, they could see the progress taking place in Indonesia's 27th province.
The House member, who is a member of the ruling party Golkar, viewed President Soeharto's invitation to the parliamentarians as a sound move.
"We should not respond emotionally to the East Timor issue, because if we do, they (members of the parliament) will get what they want and they will be on the winning side," he said, as quoted by the Antara news agency.(pwn)