EAST TIMOR-U.S.: Timorese Leader Appeals to Clinton for Help

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 11 1994 (IPS) - Xanana Gusmao, the imprisoned leader of East Timor’s resistance movement, is appealing to U.S. President Bill Clinton to press Indonesia to address the Timor crisis.

In a letter sent to Clinton Thursday by the Portuguese Embassy in Washington, Xanana appeals for support “in raising with (Indonesian) President Suharto…the need for Jakarta to display greater political goodwill”.

The letter comes on the eve of Clinton’s arrival in Indonesia to attend the meeting of the 18 Pacific Rim nations of the Asian- Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, which is to begin Nov. 15 in the Indonesian town of Bogor.

Xanana, the commander of the Timorese resistance army called FALINTIL, asked Clinton to support the Timorese people’s bid for political self-determination in his bilateral talks with Suharto next week.

“We believe that the U.S. is capable of contributing decisively to the search for a solution to the East Timor problem, encouraging the Jakarta regime to engage in dialogue with the Resistance,” Xanana wrote in the letter made public Friday.

Calling it a “great shame”, he complained that “the countries of the North continue to allow the regimes of the South, advocating cultural differences, to deny universal human rights standards in favour of economic development,” at the expense of many lives.

Activists here believe the letter, written in English and sent from Xanana’s cell in Jakarta’s Cipinang Prison where he has been jailed since 1992, may truly anger the Suharto government with its detailed plea for assistance to Clinton.

Clinton has already promised Portuguese Prime Minister Anibal Cavaco Silva that he will discuss East Timor privately with Suharto, although he has resisted the idea of bringing the subject up in public at the APEC Summit.

The resistance movement led by Xanana has continued to fight for East Timor’s independence, which the Pacific island state had nearly attained from Portugal when Indonesia invaded it in 1975.

One year later, Jakarta annexed East Timor and executed a brutal crackdown in which some 200,000 people — about a third of the nation’s population at independence — were killed.