Zoellick to meet with Megawati on Aug. 10

Zoellick to meet with Megawati on Aug. 10

CRAWFORD, Texas (AFP): U.S. Trade Representative Robert
Zoellick will head to Indonesia August 10-11 for meetings with
new President Megawati Soekarnoputri, the White House said
Tuesday.

"Ambassador Zoellick will meet with President Megawati to
express the United States' strong support for a stable, united,
democratic, and prosperous Indonesia," Bush spokesman Scott
McClellan said in a statement.

A U.S. official who declined to be identified told AFP that
Zoellick would stop in Indonesia as part of a regional trip set
to also take him to India to discuss a new round World Trade
Organization talks.

During a July 23 press conference in Rome, Bush had praised
Megawati and said he looked forward to working with her "to
address Indonesia's challenges of economic reform, peaceful
resolution of separatist challenges and maintaining territorial
integrity."

"We hope all parties will work together to maintain peace,
support the constitution, and promote national reconciliation,"
said Bush.

Megawati was sworn in July 23 as Indonesia's new president
after parliament voted unanimously to dismiss her predecessor,
Abdurrahman Wahid, the first democratically-elected leader of the
world's fourth most populous country.

During a later visit to Australia, U.S. Secretary of State
Colin Powell said the United States wants to improve bilateral
ties with Indonesia but not at the expense of improvements in
Jakarta's human rights performance.

Powell told commercial television in Canberra the U.S.
Congress would reassess Washington's restrictions on U.S.
military assistance to Jakarta if it could be satisfied human
rights abuses by the Indonesian military had been curbed.

The United States and Australia severed the bulk of their
military ties with Jakarta after Indonesian troops were
implicated in bloody attempts to crush the independence movement
in East Timor in 1999.

Australia led a UN-sanctioned peacekeeping force into the
territory in September that year, heavily backed by U.S. military
logistical support.

"We want to have a relationship with the Indonesian military,
but we also want to be satisfied that those human rights abuses
are behind us," Powell said.

"We want to be sure that the Indonesian military will be
operating in a very, very positive and democratic way.

"Our Congress has in place certain restrictions on what we can
do with the Indonesians, so we will approach the new Indonesian
government with an attitude of helpfulness but with also an
attitude of caution."

Powell said if the new administration of Megawati was able to
rein in continued human rights abuses in restive Indonesian
provinces such as Aceh and Irian Jaya "we'll go back to our
Congress to get those laws modified or waived if that seems to be
appropriate".