'Star' treatment in East Timor for Megawati: Horta

'Star' treatment in East Timor for Megawati: Horta

Agencies, Singapore

East Timorese Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta on Thursday urged
Indonesian President Megawati Soekarnoputri to defy her critics
and attend East Timor's independence celebrations next month.

Megawati "would be honored by our people, would show herself
to be a stateswoman" if she went ahead with plans to join other
world leaders at the May 20 event marking the full statehood of
the former Indonesian province.

"She probably would be the star of the event," Ramos Horta
said at a forum with foreign correspondents in Singapore amid
strong political pressure in Indonesia on Megawati to skip the
celebration.

Indonesia invaded East Timor, a former Portuguese colony, in
1975 and annexed it the following year. Its often brutal rule
spawned strong resistance from East Timorese and widespread
condemnation overseas.

Jakarta relinquished East Timor to the United Nations in
October 1999 after an overwhelming vote for independence in a UN-
run ballot, triggering a bloody rampage by pro-Jakarta militias
backed by the Indonesian army.

Ramos Horta said he believed Megawati would once again
"surprise the skeptics and her critics" and go ahead with her
planned trip to East Timor.

He said that if she canceled the visit for whatever reason "we
still would understand, and this in no way would affect the
relationship that we have built already with her," but "it would
be a pity."

He cited the "extraordinary capacity of our people to step
back and put the past where it belongs," and vowed that like
former Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid, Megawati would be
received warmly by the East Timorese.

Some 15 heads of state are expected to attend the independence
handover, which will mark the official birth of the first new
nation of this millennium.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has invited world leaders to
the handover and East Timor's president-elect Xanana Gusmao
repeated the invitation to Megawati on Saturday, guaranteeing her
full security.

Ramos Horta also said that East Timor would not allow itself
to become a haven for separatist groups seeking independence from
Indonesia.

"There will be no rational-thinking government person that
would offer support, a base of support to any group in Indonesia
that wishes to secede from Indonesia," he said.

"We are conscious of the reality," he said. 'Even if someone
had noble intentions ... I hope that common sense would always
prevail."

Nobel Prize laureate Ramos Horta also said that the people of
East Timor feel fear and anxiety and that maintaining peace and
security is the biggest challenge for the poverty-stricken
territory.

"There is tension in the air. There is fear. There is anxiety.
After so many years of violence people are still afraid," he
added.

East Timor hopes to gain "observer status" in the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, within the year and become
a full member within three to five years, he said.

There are "too many meetings" in ASEAN for East Timor to be
able to afford to join the grouping now, he said, citing lack of
manpower and money for all the international flights.