Organization: Central Michigan University
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Mon, 14 Dec 1992 08:06:59 EST
From:         Elliott Parker <3ZLUFUR@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU>
Subject:      ID: ICRC visits Xanana

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To: Indonesian Students Mailing List <indonesians@janus.berkeley.EDU>
Date: Wed, 9 Dec 92 14:18:32 CST

                     Copyright 1992 Agence France Presse
                              Agence France Presse

                                December  7, 1992


DATELINE:  JAKARTA

    Two Red Cross delegates visited detained East Timorese rebel leader Jose
"Xanana" Gusmao here Monday, the humanitarian organisation said, but it was
unable to shed much light on his condition.

    "Yes, I can confirm it that we had a meeting this morning here, in
 Jakarta, " said the chief International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
delegate to Indonesia, Pierre Herman Pont, when asked whether the ICRC had met
with Gusmao.

    The leader of East Timor's Fretelin pro-independence movement was captured
November 20 in the main East Timorese town of Dili.

    Pont and another ICRC delegate were the first independent parties to have
met with Gusmao, 45, since his arrest.

    Pont said the visit was made at police headquarters under the usual ICRC
terms for visits to prisoners -- with no witnesses, at the place of detention
and with the ICRC having the right to make a follow-up visit.

    But he told reporters he could not reveal anything specific on Gusmao's
condition or his surroundings.

    "You can assume that this person is alive, that he is not missing, that he
has not disappeared," Pont said, adding that the promise of a follow-up visit
accorded the detainee a degree of protection.

    The ICRC delegate also said he had given the Indonesian authorities a first
account of the visit, with remarks and suggestions, but that a complete report
would only be handed over to Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas.

    The ICRC visit to Gusmao and other suspected East Timorese rebels arrested
shortly before, during and in the wake of Gusmao's capture was discussed on
Friday in Geneva between Alatas and ICRC president Cornelio Somaruga, Pont
added.

    "After the visit to Xanana (Gusmao), the government of Indonesia will
provide ICRC a program, an agenda to enable the ICRC to follow up the visit
which took place today in  Jakarta  and to follow up with visits to the
prisoners in East Timor," Pont said, adding that no dates had been set yet.

    Gusmao was last seen in a nationally broadcast dialogue in Portuguese with
 Jakarta -appointed East Timor Governor Abilio Jose Osorio Soares, during which
the resistance leader renounced the cause of East Timorese independence and
called on his fellow rebels to surrender.

    The ICRC had demanded a visit with Gusmao the day of his capture.

    Pont said he believed Gusmao had been taken to the island of Bali shortly
after his capture and then moved to at least two different places of detention
in  Jakarta.

    Meanwhile, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in East Timor, Bishop
Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo, was quoted by the Suara Pembaruan daily as saying he
was seeking from the Indonesian military a written guarantee of the safety of
pro-independentists who decide to surrender.

    He told the daily that he was prepared to include a call for Fretilin
members and supporters to surrender in his Christmas pastoral letter, but only
if he could get such a written guarantee from the military's operational
commander in East Timor, Brigadier General Theo Syafei.

    The Indonesian government has renewed calls for Fretilin members and
supporters to surrender to the authorities, backed up with a plege of amnesty.

    The military has said 36 Fretilin members gave themselves up in Same, East
Timor on December 1, but there has been no independent confirmation.
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