From: Indonesia Publications/Task Force <apakabar@igc.org>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.portuguese
Date: 27 Jul 92 18:44 PDT
Subject: East Timor Newsbriefs July 27
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1591800210:000:16392
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!apakabar    Jul 27 18:44:00 1992


From: Indonesia Publications/Task Force <apakabar>
Subject: East Timor Newsbriefs July 27



    Reuter, Jakarta, July 27 - East Timor's Roman Catholic bishop,
likening his people to robots, said Indonesia's military should get out
of civilian life and urged Jakarta to consider giving Timorese some
autonomy.
    "I am very worried. Everything is made and built by the military,"
Bishop Ximenes Belo said, in an interview with the Indonesian monthly
magazine Matra published on Monday.
    The Indonesian army, which invaded the former Portuguese colony of
East Timor in 1975, continues to control most aspects of life there and
has been criticised for human rights abuses.
    Criticism of Indonesian rule, which is still not internationally
recognised, has risen since the army fired into a crowd of mourners in
the local capital Dili last November, killing up to 180 people.
    "The military's vast involvement here could mean there's no chance
for civilians to carry on with development. The people and civilians
should be encouraged and allowed to carry on the development, while the
military withdraws," Belo said.
    Belo has often criticised Indonesian rule and locals say he carries
considerable influence among the predominantly Catholic Timorese.
    But he denied the church was opposed to integration with the rest of
the Indonesian archipelago or that it had encouraged disgruntled urban
youth to demonstrate.
    East Timor's military commander, in charge of at least 10,000 troops
in the small territory, last month publicly warned Belo to keep out of
politics.
    Belo did not refer directly to those comments but said accusations
against him only made the church and military more suspicious of each
other.
    "If both of us have the same intention to create peace in East Timor
I think civilian supremacy should be the priority. The armed forces
should only do a purely military job," the bishop said.
    He urged the government to let East Timorese take more control of
the territory.
    "We East Timorese are just like robots. We're told to go here and
there. But who told us was not obvious. They play behind the stage," he
said.
    "Give us special status or more autonomy. We have a different
history and culture...I know we're going to be sunk if we live on our
own. We don't have skilled workers and infrastructure, that's why we
joined Indonesia."



   AFP, Jakarta, july 27 - The Roman Catholic bishop of East Timor has made
a strong plea in an interview published Monday for Indonesia to allow greater
freedom and autonomy for people in the troubled former Portuguese colony.
   "The main thing is, we want to be a little more free, and that is
fundamental. Not free from Indonesia, but free as citizens of this unified
country," Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo said in an interview published by
the Matra monthly magazine.
   Belo said that for him, the question of the "integration" of East Timor
into Indonesia in 1976 was no longer a problem but the people of East Timor
should be "given the key" so that they could involve themselves in the life of
the nation.
   "People should be free to move, free to think, free to express opinions,
free to say that they are not pleased," Belo said, adding that "conditions
here are still unrestful in general, there is still something wrong."
   Indonesia unilaterally declared the former Portuguese colony its 27th
province in 1976. The United Nations still views Lisbon as the legitimate
administrator of the area.
   As a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church, the dominant religion in East
Timor, Belo is directly responsible to Pope John Paul II in the Vatican and is
not a member of the Indonesian Council of Bishops like other church leaders in
the country.
   "Continue to give attention to East Timor. If possible give it a wider or
a special autonomy. This is because we are different in history, different in
culture," Belo said.
   Indonesian had been a Dutch colony for more than 350 years until it gained
independence in 1945.
   Belo, 44, also criticized the Indonesian military's "territorial
operation" in East Timor in which troops are stationed at village level to
help in the construction of infrastructure.



    Reuter, Manila, July 25 - Portugal said on Saturday it would approve
an economic agreement between ASEAN and the European Community only if
Indonesia changed its policy towards East Timor.
    "Indonesia invaded East Timor. They created the problem," Portuguese
secretary of state for foreign affairs Jose Durao Barroso said when
asked why Portugal refused to approve the accord.
    "We think that Indonesia does not respect human rights," Barroso
told reporters, adding Portugal cannot approve a new agreement with
ASEAN "unless there is a fundamental change in Indonesia's policy over
East Timor."
    The agreement was scheduled to be approved in October by the EC and
economic ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
    It defines the framework of future economic relations between the EC
and the ASEAN states, which include Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore,
Thailand, Brunei and the Philippines.
    Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975 and annexed the predominantly
Roman Catholic island in 1976.
    Delia Albert, in charge of ASEAN affairs at the Philippine foreign
ministry, has described the dispute over East Timor as a bilateral
matter between Lisbon and Jakarta that should not block a new accord.
    But Durao Barroso said the issue is "not a bilateral question" and
concerns EC policy on "human rights, democracy and development."
    Portugal has strongly condemned a massacre of protesters in East
Timor last November in which Indonesia said 50 people died while
independent observers placed the death toll at 180.
    British Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd, whose country currently
chairs the EC, met his Indonesian counterpart Ali Alatas on Friday and
told him the agreement will not be approved until Portugal lifts its
objections, diplomats said.



     Kyodo, Manila, July 25 - Portugal said Saturday it will keep 
blocking a new Europe-Southeast Asia cooperation agreement unless 
Indonesia makes ''substantial changes'' in its policy on East Timor.
     A top Portuguese official said Jakarta's policies on East
Timor, a former Portuguese colony where Indonesian troops gunned
down demonstrators last fall, is a sticking point in cooperation
between the European Community (EC) and the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN).
     ''We have nothing against ASEAN,'' Jose Durao Barroso,
Portugal's secretary of state for foreign affairs and cooperation,
told a press conference.  ''But we have strong reservations against
Indonesia because of the policy of Indonesia towards East Timor.''
     Witnesses said more than 100 people died after soldiers fired
on unarmed mourners at a procession in November in East Timor's
capital of Dili.  Jakarta says soldiers were provoked by an unruly
mob and that 50 died and 90 remain missing.
     The incident and subsequent arrests and convictions of
demonstrators provoked an international outcry, which Indonesia has
angrily rejected as intrusion in its domestic affairs.
     At Saturday's press conference, British Foreign Secretary
Douglas Hurd said the EC cannot overrule Lisbon's opposition as the
12-nation grouping operates on the basis of consensus.
     But despite the snag over the new agreement, Hurd said,
cooperation between the two regional blocs, whose two-way trade last
year totaled 50 billion dollars, will continue under a 12-year-old
agreement.
     EC foreign ministers put off a decision last Monday on a draft
for the new ASEAN-EC cooperation agreement because ''the issue of
the respect of human rights in East Timor was raised,'' Hurd said.
     Barroso said Portugal was the only state to speak out in ''very
strong terms'' against the proposal but insisted that ''the
Portuguese position has a great understanding of most European
states.''
     Indonesia seized East Timor in 1975 after its Portuguese
colonial rulers left and the next year annexed the area in a move
not internationally recognized.
     During the ASEAN-EC talks, Philippine Foreign Secretary Raul
Manglapus expressed ASEAN's disappointment over the EC's failure to
reach a decision on the issue.
     ''We deeply regret this development, after both sides have long
worked towards the conclusion of a new cooperation agreement,'' he
said at the start of the meeting.
     Manglapus said ASEAN hopes the new ASEAN-EC agreement will be
signed in October when representatives of the two groups meet in
Manila.



   UPI, Manila, Martin Abbugao, July 25 - ASEAN foreign ministers said 
Saturday they were disappointed human rights complaints had scuttled a major
economic agreement with the European Community, but remained hopeful the
treaty could still be completed.
   Foreign ministers from both regions said the proposed ASEAN-EC
Cooperation Agreement, which would replace an outdated 1980 pact, was
vital to expanding trade and other economic links.
   Portugal derailed the proposed agreement July 20, refusing to enter
into the deal with ASEAN in protest of alleged human rights abuses in
Indonesia, which is one of six ASEAN members.
   "Indonesia invaded East Timor," Portuguese Secretary of State Jose
Barrosa said Saturday. "They created the problem. They have to explain
it to their colleagues in ASEAN.
   "We will not accept an agreement with ASEAN until Indonesia makes
some fundamental changes in its policies over East Timor."
   Portugal alleges some 100,000 people have been massacred in East
Timor since Indonesia annexed the former Portuguese territory in 1976.
   The protest underlines a growing rift between ASEAN and its major
economic partners in the West over the issue of human rights.
   In talks earlier this week, the group's seven biggest trading
partners said they would increasingly link economic aid to human rights
records in recipient countries, directly contradicting the official
ASEAN position.
   The emerging democracies of ASEAN, which groups Brunei, Malaysia,
Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore, insist such
restrictions violated their cultural integrity.
   The group maintained Saturday it would resist the prodding of Western
countries to publicly pressure Burma on its alleged human rights abuses
and said it was satisfied the military regime in Rangoon was the
country's legitimate government.
   ASEAN ministers said they made no progress on reviving talks on the
proposed economic agreement during meetings Saturday with British
Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd, whose country holds the presidency of
the EC, and EC Commissioner Abel Matutes.
   Despite the impasse, Philippine Foreign Minister Raul Manglapus said
he hoped the proposed agreement could be signed during an ASEAN-EC
meeting scheduled to be held in Manila in October.
   ASEAN "deeply regrets this development, after both sides have long
worked towards the conclusion of a new cooperation agreement," he said.
"Despite our disappointment, ASEAN continues to hope that a new
agreement will be negotiated soon."
   Trade between EC and ASEAN, the world's fastest growing region, has
continually expanded, reaching an all-time high in 1991 of more than $50
billion.


Source: Washington Post, July 26, 1992

Southeast Asians, West At Odds Over Rights

By William Branigin
Washington Post Foreign Service

   MANILA, July 25 - Western countries today urged Southeast Asian
nations to take a firmer stand against human rights violations in the
region, particularly those committed by the ruling Burmese military
junta.
   While the West wants to increase pressure on the Burmese junta,
widely viewed as one of the world's worst violators of human rights, the
six-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is resisting
all moves to impose sanctions on the military government and has emerged
as one of its leading defenders. ASEAN comprises Thailand, Malaysia,
Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei and the Philippines.
   Secretary of State James A. Baker III flew to Manila today after his
latest round of Middle East diplomacy to participate in meetings between
ASEAN foreign ministers and envoys of the group's seven main
industrialized trading partners. Besides the United States, these ASEAN
"dialogue partners" are Canada, the European Community, Australia, New
Zealand, South Korea and Japan.
   Groups in the United States, including the Congressional Human Rights
Caucus and Asia Watch, have urged Baker to raise human rights issues in
his talks with ASEAN leaders. Asia Watch cited close relations between
Thailand's armed forces and both the Burmese junta and Cambodia's
notorious Khmer Rouge guerrilla group. It also urged Baker to express
concern about Indonesia's failure to account for dead and missing
opposition activists in East Timor and in the province of Aceh.
   In meetings with ASEAN, officials of the United States, Canada and
Australia have strongly condemned the Burmese junta and called for
concerted pressure on it, only to hear ASEAN defend its policies of
"constructive engagement" and "quiet diplomacy," participants said.
   ASEAN and the Western states even disagree about what to call the
country. Australian, Canadian, British and U.S. officials used the
traditional name, Burma, in their speeches, while ASEAN officials tend
to use Myanmar, the name decreed by the junta in 1989.
   While the rift over the Burmese situation represents a relatively
minor exception to the harmony between ASEAN and its trading partners on
most issues, it encapsulates a larger divergence of views on human
rights in general.
   In a joint communique at the end of a foreign ministers' conference
Wednesday, ASEAN said environmental and human rights issues should be
left out of "economic and development cooperation." Human rights are
"governed by the distinct culture and history and socioeconomic
conditions in each country," it said.
   As ASEAN was deliberating this week, Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese
opposition leader who won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, began her fourth
year under house arrest  without charge or trial.
   The Burmese junta, made up of proteges of longtime dictator Ne Win,
took power in 1988 amid a bloody crackdown against democracy
demonstrators. In 1990, the opposition won 80 percent of the seats in a
parliamentary election, but the junta refused to cede power and jailed,
intimidated or drove into exile most of the winning candidates. Many
opponents of the junta have been killed or tortured, tens of thousands
of Burmese have been brutally pressed into forced labor as porters in
counterinsurgency campaigns, and more than 270,000 Muslims of the
Rohinga ethnic minority have fled to  Bangladesh to escape persecution
by troops.
   In a speech Friday, Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans said it
was "clear that Burma's rulers are not contemplating the early
installation of a democratic government" and that the country's human
rights record remains "among the world's worst."
   U.S. Undersecretary of State Robert B. Zoellick told the ASEAN
ministers, "Burma is now exporting pain and death outside its borders in
staggering terms." Besides the refugees who have flooded into Bangladesh
and Thailand, he said, "Burma is also a primary source of heroin for
addicts around the world. . . . Isn't it time to say enough is enough?"
   In response, Philippine Assistant Foreign Secretary Romualdo Ong told
reporters, "We have a unique ASEAN approach to our esteemed neighbor,
and we plan to follow that track." He said, "Human rights are indeed a
universal problem, but when you assess individual human rights, it is
important to consider the local context."
   Ong said today that ASEAN is satisfied with "encouraging indications
of a more liberal tendency by the Myanmar authorities," including "the
release of a large number of political prisoners" and junta permission
for family members to visit Aung San Suu Kyi. He said she was "free to
leave anytime" on condition that she remain in exile.
   Ong said ASEAN views the Burmese junta as a "legitimate" and "legally
constituted" government. Regarding Aung San Suu Kyi's detention, he
said: "We don't like to stand in public judgment of a neighbor. . . . We
have to assume that the Burmese have their own reasons for keeping
things the way they are."