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KOLOM SUPANGKAT:
KOLOM SUPANGKAT:
DOWNER SET UP CONTACT GROUP, ERSARZ REFERENDUM
To the Australian Associated Press in Bali Foreign Minister Alatas said that
Indonesia is preparing to bring the sorry saga of East Timor to an end as it
has
other pressing issues to deal with.
However, the AAP wrote on February 25, that "Despite recent statements from
Indonesian President BJ Habibie that he wanted the issue of East Timor
resolves
before 2000, and from another minister that the troubled province could be
releas-
ed as soon as Janurary1, Mr Downer was less sure about the timetable after
talks
here with his Indonesian counterpart, Ali Alatas.........."
Apparently he wants somebody somewhere sometime to invent a face saving de-
vice for him so that he would be safed from the embarrassment of losing the
re-
ferendum to the pro-independence people of East Timor who has to reject first
the autonomy plan by way of consultation of a few out of 800.000 people which
is
absolutely unacceptable by the UN Secretary General and his personal
represent-
tative, Portugal and last but not least by the pro-independence people.
It is conceivable that Alatas would filibuster in the March 9, Tripartite
talking too
much about nothing.
In the meantime, the situation in the field is getting worse as a result of
the train-
ing and arming of the militia.
UNSG Kofi Annan is very disturbed by the violence in East Timor while his
personal
envoy Tamrat Samuel was in the field.
Indirect referendum, Contact Group
When I was writing this story good news came up that seems to be leading to-
wards the settlement of East Timor.
The good news is that the United Kingdom of Brittain is taking the initiative
to break
the deadlock in the Tripartite by selling the idea of compromise: indirect
referendum
as a face saving device for Alatas and Indonesia.
And Australian Foreign Minister managed to come with an excellent idea to set
up
a contact group consisting of: Australia, the United States, Japan, Brittain,
to inter-
fere with the deadlock and to take further and concrete measures to
participate pro-
actively in the implementation of self-determination: either autonomy or
indepen-
dence.
However, all these brilliant ideas of Downer and British Minister wouldn't be
very
hard to bring any result as long as the violent clashes in the field is going
on. Now
disarmament of both the militia and the Fretilin/Falintil is called for.
Finally there are countries who are willing to send peace keeping observers in
East Timor without formally involving the United Nations which will have to
involve
the UN Security Council and Indonesia has no reason to be embarrassed.
H.S. Supangkat
New York.
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Didistribusikan tgl. 26 Feb 1999 jam 13:11:37 GMT+1
oleh: Indonesia Daily News Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.Indo-News.com/
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