UNTAET responsible for East Timor hardships: Araujo

UNTAET responsible for East Timor hardships: Araujo

JAKARTA (JP): President of the Timorese Nationalist Party
(PNT) Abilio Araujo said on Monday the United Nations
Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) was
responsible for the current hardships in East Timor.

"We, the East Timorese, are not yet free. We are not yet an
independent people and it is the responsibility of UNTAET and the
international community to deal with the current situation in
East Timor," Araujo said in an interview with The Jakarta Post.

Araujo, former president of an armed wing of the East Timor
proindependence group, Fretilin, arrived here on Sunday to meet
President Abdurrahman Wahid and Vice President Megawati
Soekarnoputri. He also plans to attend the United National Front
congress in Kupang to be held from Jan. 26 to Jan. 28.

"International support falls short of meeting the serious
current shortages and needs of our new country while there is
little we can do during this transitional period," he said.

Araujo, therefore, called on all East Timorese to push for a
general election in two or three years to lay a strong foundation
for its future as a sovereign state.

"Through a general election we will have a parliament that
will draw up our constitution. The same parliament will also
elect the new president," he said.

He said it was the duty of UNTAET to promote democracy in East
Timor.

"UNTAET tends to act in favor of CNRT, arguing that CNRT
represents 80 percent of the population. I am against any
discrimination," he said, referring to the National Council for
East Timor Resistance led by Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao.

Araujo expressed regret over Xanana's decisions on a number of
strategic issues such as language and currency. Xanana has stated
that East Timor would use Portuguese as the official language and
the Portuguese escudo as the new currency to replace the
Indonesian rupiah.

"There is no reason at all for any particular Timorese
political force to claim exclusivity in representing the East
Timorese people. PNT considers attempts to impose those policies
as a fait accompli that should have been decided by the proper
bodies," he said.

Araujo himself favors Bahasa Indonesia as the official
language, with Portuguese taught as a second official language.
In the long run, Tetun will become the official language as well.

"Using Bahasa Indonesia will enable us to have a greater
presence in the community of Malay-speaking people, a community
which East Timor is part of, and where 300 million people
understand each other by means of Malay, the root of Bahasa
Indonesia," said Araujo.

He dismissed as emotional the argument that Bahasa Indonesia
had to be eliminated from East Timor as a legacy of a brutal
regime.

"The military does not represent all Indonesians. If Bahasa
Indonesia is rejected on that basis, then we should reject
Portuguese for the same reason. We do not reject Portuguese for
the fact that it is a legacy of 500 years of Portuguese
colonialism," he said.

Araujo said he was against attempts to bring to court members
of the Indonesian Military (TNI) charged with planning or
involvement in the mayhem in East Timor following the Aug. 30,
1999 ballot which resulted in East Timor's separation from
Indonesia.

"I have repeatedly stressed the need for reconciliation among
East Timorese as a precondition toward building our future. This
reconciliation should include Indonesians (the military),
otherwise we will always have open wounds," he said.

"We both have mistakes and we should look forward and forgive
each other," he said, adding that as a former military commander,
he did not have problems with reconciliation.

During his meeting with Abdurrahman, Araujo asked Indonesia to
help rebuild East Timor due to his worries of the return of
Portugal to its former colony.

Araujo also asked Abdurrahman to let some 2,000 East Timorese
students continue their studies in Indonesia and asserted the
need for East Timor to join the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN).

The East Timorese figure presented Abdurrahman with compact
discs of Amalia Rodrigues' FADO and Maria Joao Pires' piano
recital Nocturnes composed by Frederic Chopin. (lem)