Jakarta – Indonesia's "security approach" in East Timor has failed to reduce tension in the disputed territory, the Catholic Church warned here Saturday.
Cardinal Justinus Darmaatmaja said Jakarta's actions in East Timor had done little to address the territory's problems and called for dialogue to end a stand-off which is now in its 22nd year.
Jennifer Hewett, Washington – The United States has accused the Indonesian Government of committing "serious human rights abuses", in contrast to Australia's muted stance on the issue.
In its annual report on human rights in 193 countries, the US State Department criticised Indonesia's record, citing many abuses and what it called "pervasive corruption".
Dublin Labour MEP, Bernie Malone, has urged Dick Spring, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and the European Commission, to raise Human Rights abuses in East Timor by Indonesia at the forthcoming EU-ASEAN Summit in Singapore this Thursday, 13 February.
Singapore – Senior officials of the ASEAN-European Union (EU) ended their two-day meeting where they agreed not to include the East Timor issue in the Joint Declaration draft as foreign ministry's Director General for Political Affairs Izhar Ibrahim said on Wednesday in Singapore.
Kuala Lumpur – Fifty Malaysian activists involved in a banned meeting on East Timor were Friday cleared of all charges but four members of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's ruling party were charged.
"The police told us this morning that all charges have been dropped and the case terminated," Tian Chua, a spokesman for the November 9 Civil Rights Group told reporters.
Wellington – Nobel Peace Prize co-winner Jose Ramos Horta on Friday asked New Zealand to help push for a referendum on independence in his native East Timor which was annexed by Indonesia.
"New Zealand has had, in the last couple of years, a good, discreet record in putting pressure on Indonesia," Horta told a press conference.
The police have referred the Investigation Papers concerning the meeting of the Asia Pacific Conference on East Timur [sic] II (APCET) and the one concerning the unlawful assembly which disrupted the said meeting on 9 November 1996 to the Attorney General Chambers.
Names:
Miguel Alex Correia, 22Paulino Almeida Pinto, 34Savio de Almeida, 27Paulo Lisboa, 34Abilio de Almeida,25Antonio Guterres, 26Salvador Alves, 40Martin Lopes, 53Cancio Almeida, 29Ponsiano Silvester, 20
Violations: Arbitrary Arrest
Location: Uatulari sub-district, Viqueque district, East Timor
Ref: UA 2/97 Further information: UA 12/96
This letter was sent by President Clinton to Senator Russell Feingold in response to the letter by Feingold and 14 and other Senators to the President before the APEC conference last November. It is significant that the President "notes with interest" the letter's proposal for a referendum on East Timorese self-determination. – Charlie Scheiner, ETAN
Reuters in Jakarta – Tension has risen in East Timor's capital Dili as Indonesian security officers continue searching for youths suspected of involvement in the killing of a soldier on Christmas Eve, residents said yesterday.
"The youths have become more and more restless because of the continuing search at night," one resident said.
Bruce Hextall – BHP Petroleum and large US oil and gas group Phillips Petroleum should decide by the end of March whether to press ahead with the development of a $2 billion-plus liquefied natural gas (LNG) project which would exploit the Timor Sea's Bayu/Undan gas field.
Washington – US republican congressman Frank Wolf has urged President Bill Clinton to meet East Timors 1996 Nobel Peace Prize co-laureate Bishop D. Ximenes Belo when he visits the US at the invitation of Yale University. Wolf told also a press conference on Thursday that Washington should use its good relations with Jakarta to "actively seek" a solution for the East Timor conflict.
Lisbon – Indonesia's Foreign Minister Ali Alatas nomination to the country's legislative elections next May as an East Timor representative does not make him a (East) Timorese, the Portuguese Foreign Minister Jaime Gama has said.
Joe Leahy, Jakarta – The National Commission on Human Rights is to investigate allegations an East Timorese woman was raped and held as a virtual slave at a military post after being accused of being a member of the territory's Fretilin guerilla movement.
Sydney – Indonesia's Foreign Minister Ali Alatas is on the East Timor list of candidates from the ruling Golkar Party to the legislative elections scheduled for May.
Rome – The East Timor issue is "an heritage from the Cold War era" that could be solved in the current new political environment, East Timorese activist Josi Ramos Horta has said.
Rome – East Timorese activist Josi Ramos Horta has said that the president of the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace, Roman Catholic Church Cardinal Etchegeray, was "deeply concerned" with the lack of school and professional education for the East Timorese youth. Ramos Horta made his comments on Tuesday after a 30-minute meeting with Etchegeray.
Rome – East Timorese activist Josi Ramos Horta has denied that the territorys resistance movement application to become an observer at the Socialist International (SI) would link East Timor self-determination supporters to political movements.
Washington – US republican congressman Frank Wolf has said that he will present the Clinton administration with solutions for the East Timor conflict. A spokesman for the congressman told Lusa on Tuesday that Wolf will talk about East Timor in a press conference this week at the US Congress.
Lisbon – The apostolic administrator of East Timor's diocese of Baucau Bishop D. Basmlio do Nascimento has stressed that popular revolt against the Indonesian troops can easily arise in the former Portuguese colony.
Rome – East Timor's resistance movement Conselho Nacional da Resistjncia Maubere (CNRM) has announced that it will apply for observer status at the Socialist International (SI) during this weeks IS Congress in Rome.
Sydney – The Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne, Hilton Deakin, has said that an Indonesian soldier was killed on Christmas Eve after he was found to have been paid to assassinate 1996 Nobel Peace Prize East Timorese Bishop D. Ximenes Belo.
Lisbon – East Timorese resistance leader Mari Alkatiri has said to be "surprised" with Josi Ramos Horta's announcement last week of a plan to form a "shadow government" for the territory occupied by Indonesia.
Lisbon – The Indonesian group that has bought Italian car maker Lamborghini was said to be a partner in the construction of a cement factory in East Timor.
David Shanks, Dublin – The East Timorese resistance to illegal Indonesian rule has called for an indefinite unilateral ceasefire in the former Protuguese colony.This reflects diplomatic suggestions from Western leaders to the resistence to lessen tensions with a so far intransigent Indonesia and to offer an "olive branch."
We the members of the East Timor House of Representatives, on behalf of our constituents of the people of East Timor, wish to express our grave disappointment that your prestigious Nobel Peace Prize has been used to reopen wounds that we have been trying to heal since our integration with Indonesia brought an end to a bloody civil war and a beginning to a process of development neve
We the members of the East Timor House of Representatives, on behalf of our constituents of the people of East Timor, wish to express our grave dissappointment that your prestigious Nobel Peace Prize has been used to reopen wounds that we have been trying to heal since our integration with Indonesia brought an end to a bloody civil war a beginning to a process of development never w
Amnesty International (UK) is calling on the UK Goverment to urgently revoke export licences granted to a UK company, Alvis, for the sale of armoured vehicles to Indonesia. This call comes in the light of mounting evidence about the use of such equipment in commiting grave human rights cviolations in that country.
Rather than produce an exhaustive list of the multiplicity of events occurred last year or try to place them in rigorous order of importance, the aim of this text is to identify the trajectories and underlying tendencies of the East Timor question during the period in question. It is, therefore, a fairly summary account of how the problem evolved during 1996.
Charlotte Clayton – Jose Ramos-Horta is the Fretilin activist and self styled Foreign Minister of a nonexisting Republic.
On December 11, 1996 Jose was awarded The Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. A prize that puts him in the same league as Theodore Roosevelt, Albert Schweitzer, Willy Brandt, Albert Lutuli and Martin Luther King.
Jakarta – After enduring 21 years of brutal occupation at the hands of the Indonesian military, the East Timorese people deserve the long-suppressed right to decide their future for themselves, said Florentino Sarmento, one of the most prominent and respected leaders of the East Timorese Catholic community.