---------------------------------------------------------- FREE for JOIN Indonesia Daily News Online via EMAIL: go to: http://www.indo-news.com/subscribe.html - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - Please Visit Our Sponsor http://www.indo-news.com/cgi-bin/ads1 ---------------------------------------------------------- The Australian 27 July 99 Portugal told Menzies that Jakarta would take E Timor By foreign editor GREG SHERIDAN THE Portuguese Government in the 1960s believed if it ever lost control of=20 East Timor, Indonesia would take it over, despite saying it had no ambitions=20 to do so, according to confidential correspondence between Portuguese Prime=20 Minister Antonio Salazar and Australia's Robert Menzies.=20 The Australian has obtained copies of this correspondence.=20 Menzies and Salazar exchanged letters concerning Timor on several occasions=20 from 1961 to 1963, with Menzies seeking to draw Salazar into some general=20 consideration of self-determination for East Timor.=20 But during this period, when the matter came up for vote at the UN, Australi= a=20 supported Portugal against majority opinion in Asia but siding with most=20 Western nations.=20 Privately, however, Menzies raised self-determination, telling Salazar in=20 October 1961: "I should add that the Australian government has pledged itsel= f=20 to the principle of self-determination for all peoples."=20 Menzies also warned Salazar that without self-determination of some kind=20 serious civil disorder would break out in East Timor.=20 The Portuguese dictator responded by trying to frighten Menzies with the=20 prospect of Indonesian rule and invoking anti-communist solidarity.=20 Salazar wrote: "Given the fact that Timor cannot be an independent State, th= e=20 territory either continues to be a part of Portugal as an autonomous provinc= e=20 that it is, or is annexed to the Republic of Indonesia =96 there does not se= em=20 to be any foreseeable hypothesis of an Australian dominion or condominium.=20 "However good and intimate Australian relations with Indonesia may be, a=20 Portuguese Timor seems incomparably safer and more attentive to the interest= s=20 of Australia than the same Timor integrated in that republic."=20 Menzies was never explicit about what form self-determination should take an= d=20 did not contest Salazar's view that it would mean eventually Indonesian rule= .=20 Salazar told Menzies Portugal was unable to gain UN support only because of=20 the opposition of the Afro-Asian bloc at the UN and communist influence.=20 Again and again he presented the only alternatives as Portuguese or=20 Indonesian rule. In late 1963 he wrote to Menzies: "We would have to conclud= e=20 that there are only two possibilities: either the maintenance of the=20 territory under Portuguese sovereignty . . . or its annexation by the=20 Republic of Indonesia."=20 In a few weeks we will finally find out if Salazar was wrong.=20 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Didistribusikan tgl. 27 Jul 1999 jam 19:34:17 GMT+1 oleh: Indonesia Daily News Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.Indo-News.com/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
