Pope encourages Belo to continue peace efforts

Pope encourages Belo to continue peace efforts

ROME (Agencies): Pope John Paul is encouraging Nobel peace laureate Bishop Carlos Belo to continue his work promoting peace in East Timor, Reuters said.

"Congratulations on the Nobel Prize. I hope it will be a shield for you to work more for peace in Timor," Belo quoted the Pope as saying during a brief private audience at the Vatican.

"The Holy Father was very pleased to receive me," Belo told a news conference. "He understands our situation very well.

"He told me to continue working for the people with the same enthusiasm, the same faith and same loyalty," Belo said.

It was the first meeting between the Pope and Belo since the bishop received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on Dec. 10.

Belo, the Vatican's administrator in Dili, East Timor, won the $1.1 million prize jointly with Jose Ramos Horta, a self-exiled East Timor separatist leader.

The Holy See's position on East Timor follows the United Nations' line, which does not recognize the integration of the former Portuguese colony with Indonesia.

Belo refused to answer what he termed political questions but repeated calls for a dialog over Timor and the release of political prisoners.

"Let's all sit down and talk," he said.

"All that needs to be said is that the people want to see their cultural, religious, ethnic and historical identity respected, as the Pope always says. That's all".

The 48-year-old bishop said his relations with the Indonesian government have not changed because of the prize.

"We're there. We serve the people. We try to have good relations and when people come to me and tell me of abuses of human rights I try to talk about it to improve the situation," he said."

"But these relations (with the Indonesian government) are not stellar," he joked.

The bishop is scheduled to return to East Timor on Monday.

It is not immediately clear whether he would stop over in Jakarta. Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security Soesilo Soedarman said last week that he hoped to meet the Nobel laureate upon his return from Oslo and the Vatican.

The bishop came under strong criticisms last month for remarks attributed to him in a German magazine. In an October Der Spiegel article, he said the Indonesian military had treated East Timorese like "scabby dogs".

He later denied ever making the statement and that his remarks were manipulated by the German reporter. He nevertheless apologized to those who felt offended by the article.

Talks

In New York, Indonesian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas said on Friday talks with his Portuguese counterpart have been called off but could be revived "in the not too distant future" by the UN chief, AFP reported.

Alatas told journalists that outgoing UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali had decided that preparations were insufficient for a scheduled meeting to go ahead Saturday.

The talks in New York were to involve Boutros-Ghali with the Alatas and his Portuguese counterpart Jaime Gama.

Alatas blamed Gama for the impasse, saying that Lisbon had repeatedly postponed or canceled preparatory meetings.

It would have been the ninth scheduled round of tripartite talks since December 1992 aimed at finding a political solution to the 20-year old East Timor problem.

Alatas said that the negotiations would have essentially been a "stock-taking" review of earlier sessions, prior to incoming UN chief Kofi Annan taking over the process when he assumes office on Jan. 1.

Alatas said Annan had informed him that he would "look into the possibility of resumption of this dialog in the not too distant future."

"Under what format I don't know, but I think he is thinking in terms of improving" the existing format, Alatas said.

Annan said at a news conference on Wednesday that he would look "very critically" at the negotiating process that had failed to produce results in 20 years.

"We think it is important for Mr. Kofi Annan to find out from both sides whether we are still looking for the same objectives, namely to find a solution that is neither the basic position of Portugal nor the basic position of Indonesia, but somewhere in between," said Alatas.

Alatas stressed that "at the beginning of the talks, it was clear that we were looking for something in the middle: not agreeing to Portugal's basic position which is a referendum at all costs, and not agreeing to the Indonesian basic position which says East Timor is the 27th province of Indonesia."

He accused Portugal of inflexibility, for "remaining on its basic position, and only talking about a referendum" for the disputed territory.