UK rights activist to head UN mission in East Timor

UK rights activist to head UN mission in East Timor

JAKARTA (Agencies): United Nations Secretary-General Kofi
Annan named British human rights figure Ian Martin to head the UN
mission to East Timor which will prepare for the August direct
ballot on the future of the territory.

Martin, a former secretary-general of Amnesty International,
established the first UN human rights operation in Rwanda in
1995.

A specialist in Haitian affairs, Martin worked at the
Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and
in 1993 served on the joint UN-Organization of American States
mission to Haiti.

Some 600 UN staff will be deployed to oversee the August 8
ballot in the former Portuguese colony. The ballot will allow
East Timorese to vote on whether to remain part of Indonesia with
wide-ranging autonomy or become an independent state. The ballot
is being arranged according to a deal signed on May 5 by
Indonesian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas and his
Portuguese counterpart Jaime Gama.

According to Reuters, the UN team will include 400 voter
registration and polling officials, 15 to 18 political and
civilian police advisers and various logistics, communications,
and information staff.

The UN will use the Ministry of Education's Teachers Training
Center in Dili as its headquarter because the building can
accommodate nearly 1,000 people.

Meanwhile, a 15-strong team from Japan arrived in Dili on
Saturday to prepare for the planned operation of the Japanese
contingent under the UN flag.

The deputy head of Asian affairs at Japan's Foreign Ministry,
Sumio Tarui, said his team would be in Dili for about five days.

"We will hear the people's concerns here in East Timor and
Jakarta and we'll have an exchange of views with each other,"
Tarui said upon his arrival at Comoro Airport.

President B.J. Habibie has requested Japan, the United States,
Britain, Australia, the Philippines and Germany send police to
help secure the ballot in the province.

Habibie will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi's
special envoy, Seiichiro Noboru, on Monday. Noboru is expected to
inform the President about Japan's planned participation in the
UN mission to East Timor. Obuchi, through Noboru, also is
expected to ask for a security guarantee for the Japanese team.

Noboru will convey a letter from Obuchi containing a call for
continued efforts to keep order in East Timor so the referendum
can run smoothly, AFP reported.

Participating in a mission in a foreign country is a sensitive
issue in Japan, although the country sent a similar team to
supervise the general election in Cambodia in 1993.

In Bali, Alatas and Minister of Defense/Indonesian Military
(TNI) Commander Gen. Wiranto concluded on Friday their two-day
meeting with 31 proindependence members and 29 prointegration
members. The meeting was organized so the ministers could brief
the two groups about the government's autonomy offer for the
province.

Meanwhile, Dili Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo and Baucau
Bishop Basilio Do Nascimento will jointly organize in Australia a
week-long dialog, starting on May 22, between proindependence and
prointegration groups in the province.

The meeting is a follow-up to the Dare Dialog held in Dili
last September.

Antara reported the dialog also would be attended by
TNI's chief for territorial affairs, Lt. Gen. Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono, and Udayana Military Commander Maj. Gen. Adam Damiri,
who oversees security in East Timor.

The two bishops also invited Australian Foreign Minister
Alexander Downer, Nahdlatul Ulama chairman Abdurrahman Wahid and
Indonesian Bishops Council chairman Joseph Suwatan to the event.

Separately, American doctor Dan Murphy was expelled from East
Timor on Saturday for his alleged support of proindependence
groups.

The government said that while Murphy came to Indonesia as a
tourist, he had worked as a volunteer at Dili's Motael clinic for
six months. Most proindependence supporters prefer to be treated
at the clinic rather than at the military-run Wirahusada Hospital
in Dili. (prb)