RI must retain East Timor

Habibie's bungling in the case of East Timor has left the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) and Indonesia no other legitimate way out of the issue than the one explained below.

1. Based on reasoning, once the MPR, thus the Indonesian nation, has decided that a certain territory is part of Indonesia and its people are Indonesians, it should stand forever, at least until the time Indonesia as a state is no longer existing. So an MPR decree on Indonesia's territory should be considered by the MPR as irrevocable.

2. Future steps: Now that East Timor has been presented to the United Nations by Habibie, a person without any right whatsoever to tinker with MPR decrees, the MPR session to decide on East Timor should remain steadfast in the ideal that East Timor is an inseparable part of Indonesia, even though it is accepted that East Timor as a territory is under temporary UN governance.

Therefore the indigenous people of East Timor can remain Indonesian, and are free to enter and settle in any other part of Indonesia if they identify themselves upon entering as such, otherwise entry should be prohibited.

Another consequence is that Indonesia remains obliged to see to it that the people of East Timor are treated decently by whoever is in power there, or at least by protesting to the UN and the world if they are inhumanly treated. An example was shown in recent pictures of Australian soldiers handling East Timorese in a way they would not even handle their own sheep at home or perhaps like they usually treat their aboriginal citizens.

3. Supporting factors for the above reasoning are, among other things:

* Kosovo, which is under the UN, remains part of Yugoslavia (Serbia).

* China remains steadfast that Tibet, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and the Spratley Islands, and so on, are inseparable parts of China.

* Chechnya remains part of Russia.

Therefore the stand to be taken by the MPR on East Timor will indicate whether there are still nationalists in the sense of nationalists with the 1945 spirit of Indonesia.

JOOP WETIK

Jakarta