RI welcomes Ramos Horta in E. Timor dialog
RI welcomes Ramos Horta in E. Timor dialog
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia yesterday opened the door for separatist leader Ramos Horta to participate in the planned United Nations-sponsored reconciliation dialogs between opposing East Timorese factions.
"Ramos Horta, or any other East Timorese figure, can participate in the dialog," Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas told journalists yesterday.
However, he warned that Horta's participation must comply with the terms set during the recent trilateral meeting between Indonesia, Portugal and the UN.
Following a meeting with President Soeharto at his residence on Jl. Cendana, Alatas yesterday asserted that the dialog must not become an alternative track to the ongoing negotiations between Jakarta and Lisbon.
The fifth set of trilateral talks between Alatas and his Portuguese counterpart Jose Manuel Durao Barroso was held in Geneva last Monday under the aegis of UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
The one-day meeting agreed that the UN would facilitate an extension of meetings between the Timorese people on both sides of the integration debate.
Both Jakarta and Lisbon agreed that the planned meeting should refrain from discussing East Timor's political status, concentrating on reconciliation and creating a conducive atmosphere for finding a solution to the issue.
The former Portuguese colony of East Timor was integrated into Indonesia in 1976. Nevertheless Portugal and its allies persist in their opposition and refuse to recognize East Timor's status as Indonesia's 27th province.
In Lisbon, Ramos Horta gave a sterile reaction to suggestions that he might participate in the dialog and refused to signal whether he would participate.
"I neither accept nor refuse," Horta said in a radio interview quoted by Reuters.
Ramos Horta, currently undergoing self-exile in Australia as the leader of the East Timor separatist movement, has repeatedly launched campaigns against Indonesia and demanded independence of the province.
Commenting on Horta's possible participation, a senior East Timorese pro-integration politician, Lopez da Cruz, told The Jakarta Post here yesterday that he welcomed the idea as long as the separatist leader complied with the terms set for the dialog.
"If his intentions are noble, if he truly seeks the truth, he will exercise restraint and come to hear our arguments," he said.
Last year, Lopez headed two exchanges in London with anti- integration East Timorese led by Abilio Araujo. "The UN's proposal is in line with the London meetings we have been having," he said.
When asked when he expected the UN-sponsored dialog would occur, Lopez said that a date had been designated, and he hoped that it would take place before the next round of meetings between Alatas and Barroso on May 19 in New York.
"That would make the secretary-general happy since the dialog was his idea," Lopez remarked.
Another pro-integration figure, Mariano Lopez da Cruz, in the town of Baucau, East Timor, also welcomed a dialog between the opposing groups.
"As long as the dialog discusses the East Timor issue outside of the political context," Mariano told Antara.
He added that the question of integration was really a non- issue for the East Timorese in the province since they had accepted integration.
"History has proven that through the existence of the Balibo Declaration," he said in reference to the 1974 document, which attested to the East Timorese's desire to integrate with Indonesia. (mds)