U.S. policy on RI not hurt by 'money links'

U.S. policy on RI not hurt by 'money links'

WASHINGTON (Reuter): The State Department said on Wednesday
there was no truth in suggestions that U.S. policy on Indonesia
had been paralyzed by a controversy over President Bill Clinton's
links to Asian money.

"That's nonsense," department spokesman Nicholas Burns said of
the allegation in a published report that quoted U.S. diplomats
in Jakarta as saying this was the "first tangible example" of the
affair hurting U.S. foreign relations.

Donations to Clinton's Democratic Party by people linked to
Indonesia's Lippo Group ahead of last year's presidential
election touched off a long-running scandal in Washington over
contributions by Indonesian, Chinese and Taiwanese nationals.

"It surprises me that people who would be serving in Jakarta
would be so blind to the fact that our (Indonesia) policy has
moved forward in this administration," Burns told a news
briefing.

He said the Clinton administration had taken an active line on
human rights, co-sponsoring a UN human rights commission
resolution on the situation in East Timor, a former Portuguese
colony that integrated into Indonesia in 1976.

It had also restricted the transfer to Indonesia of small arms
and equipment that could be used to commit human rights abuses,
and just Tuesday Clinton met East Timor's Bishop Carlos Filipe
Ximenes Belo, co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, he said.

Despite differences on human rights, the United States had a
"strategic relationship" with Indonesia and had worked well with
Jakarta on arms control, peace-keeping, and Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation (APEC) issues, Burns said.

"We do engage the Indonesian leadership on all of these
issues," he said.

"I don't know what to make of this article," Burns said,
adding that if the anonymous diplomats quoted in the report could
be identified, they should be reprimanded.

Diplomacy -- Page 4