Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, Jakarta – The Indonesian government has again extended the deadline for the repatriation of East Timorese refugees living in squalid camps in West Timor.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirayuda said Friday the refugees would lose their refugee status by December 31, 2002 – the third such deadline.
East Timor's Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta says the legal framework needed to attract foreign investment will be established by the end of this year.
Speaking at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Hong Kong, Mr Ramos-Horta said East Timor had a budget deficit of 30 million US dollars this year, which had been filled by contributions from donor countries.
The diplomat who nursed East Timor to nationhood is the new UN Human Rights Commissioner. Jill Jolliffe recalls his reign in Dili.
Peter Kammerer – Relations with Indonesia are progressing strongly, with issues such as the return of refugees to be settled within months, Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta said yesterday.
Mr Ramos Horta, on a private visit to Hong Kong before the Asean Regional Forum in Brunei on Monday, said Dili and Jakarta were involved in numerous negotiations.
The head of the UN mission in East Timor met Friday with Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri for discussions aimed to "consolidate and intensify" relations between Dili and Jakarta.
President Xanana Gusmao vetoed the East Timorese government's tax-hiking fiscal bill Friday, in his second clash this month with Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri over financial and economic policies.
Jakarta – Indonesian prosecutors have demanded a prison sentence of more than 10 years for East Timor's former police chief, saying he did nothing to prevent or to halt militia massacres in 1999 in which police and troops took part.
Emad Mekay, Washington – Two very distinct welcomes have greeted the newest member of the International Monetary Fund (IMF): free-market advice from the Fund and World Bank and warnings from civil society groups about who controls its money.
A senior Indonesian military officer was accused of ignoring massacres of at least 39 civilians by army-backed pro-Jakarta militias following East Timor's vote for independence in August 1999.
Jakarta – An East Timorese farmer testified Wednesday that he saw Indonesian soldiers fire on a pro-independence leader's house during the violence that engulfed the territory in 1999.
East Timor formally joined the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Tuesday, with Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri describing the event in Washington as "an important day for us, a historic day".
He thanked the two institutions for their pivotal help during his country's three-year transition, under UN administration, to independence from Indonesian occupation.
The Indonesian commander of West Timor said Tuesday there were "one or two people" among his forces who "continued efforts" to derail the repatriation of East Timorese refugees, actions he would "not tolerate".
Jakarta – The exiled former commander of militias in East Timor said Tuesday he and his followers are prepared to face justice after they return home, but only following a period of readjustment.
Yemris Fointuna, Atambua – As many as 1,175 East Timorese refugees, or 335 families, including 35 Indonesian soldiers and civil servants, left East Nusa Tenggara on Monday for their newly independent homeland.
Jill Jolliffe, Darwin – Three Australian soldiers are being investigated over an alleged assault on a United Nations employee outside a bar at a military barracks in the East Timorese capital, Dili.
A UN police media officer, Antonio da Silva, said a complaint against the soldiers had been laid by an Irish civilian working for the UN administration.
Jakarta – East Timor's army on Tuesday replaced United Nations peacekeepers in one district of the new nation – the first step in a 20-month handover which will see the blue berets bow out.
The army took over responsibility for the Lautem district in the east, the UN said.
On 22 July more than a thousand East Timor refugees set off on their journey to cross the border from West Timor and return home.
Jean Philippe Chauzy (Extract) – Yesterday some 1,100 East Timorese refugees returned home to East Timor from the towns of Soe and Atambua in West Timor.
The movement, organised by the Indonesian West Timor Refugee Taskforce (Satlak) and funded by IOM, followed successful reconciliation talks between refugee leaders and government of East Timor.
Washington – East Timor, the world's youngest nation, was due to join the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank on Tuesday, the lending institutions said.
At a Washington ceremony, Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri was scheduled to sign the Articles of Agreement for the Asian country of 800,000 people to join the twin organizations.
An Indonesian general admitted on Monday that some soldiers and civilians have been trying to discourage the tens of thousands of East Timorese refugees in Indonesian West Timor from returning home.
Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri has rejected domestic and international criticism of a government amnesty and sentence reduction bill under discussion in the East Timorese legislature, saying the proposal aimed precisely to encourage "national debate".
Poor countries should spend less money on weapons and seek to resolve their internal differences or differences with their neighbours via dialogue, says East Timor's President Kay Rala Xanana Gusmao.
The monies saved from weapons and huge standing armies should go to education and health care for the poorest of our societies, he said.
Jill Jolliffe, Dili – The British Government has told families of the two British journalists killed in Balibo, East Timor, in 1975 that it will soon release classified documents concerning the deaths.
Margaret Wilson, a cousin of Malcolm Rennie, one of the slain reporters, said she was surprised at the news. "We were always told there was nothing to release," she said.
Berni K. Mustafa, Jakarta – Legal experts have welcomed the presence of the United Nations' special rapporteur on the Indonesian judicial system, saying it should increase the pressure for legal reform amid mounting criticism that the government is not doing enough.
East Timorese officials today told a United Nations meeting on children that the new nation was on the verge of adopting an international treaty that protects the rights of youngsters.
Dili and a Portugal Telecom-led consortium signed a 15-year concession Friday for the Lisbon-headquartered company to establish and operate the new country's telecommunications systems.
Jakarta – A UN legal investigator looking into Indonesia's judiciary added his voice on Friday to criticism of how the trials into East Timor violence in 1999 were being handled.
But United Nations special rapporteur Param Cumaraswamy declined to specify the problems he had raised in a meeting on Friday with Indonesian Attorney-General Muhammad Abdul Rachman.
Yemris Fointuna, Kupang – Hopes for East Timorese refugees to escape starvation went up in smoke in just 24 hours on Thursday as the East Nusa Tenggara administration announced it did not have enough rice for them.
John Aglionby – Since the fall of the dictator Suharto, Indonesia's reputation in the field of law enforcement has always been near the bottom of the scale – for instance a British police officer who was meant to stay for 18 months to help improve the local force left half way through his term in despair.
President Xanana Gusmao called Thursday to the nations of the North to grant debt relief to the countries in the South, who would, in their turn seek to implement "good governance" with transparency and responsibility.
The East Timor Defense Force (ETDF) assumes responsibility next week for all aspects of security in part of the new nation, and the Dili government was informed Thursday of progress in transferring defense control into Timorese hands.
New York – A proposed amnesty law in East Timor could undermine due process and equal protection of the law and allow those responsible for some of the most serious rights abuses to go unpunished, Human Rights Watch said today.
Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, Jakarta – After two months of hearings by the East Timor ad hoc human rights trial, held in the absence of eyewitnesses from East Timor, an East Timorese finally took the stand on Wednesday to testify about the military's support for pro-Jakarta militia groups at the time.
Jakarta – Indonesia's last governor of East Timor said on Thursday his trial for crimes against humanity during the territory's independence vote in 1999 was bogus and aimed only at deflecting international pressure.
Jakarta – An investigation into the murder of a Dutch journalist in East Timor in 1999 is still open, a Dutch police officer said Wednesday after giving Indonesian prosecutors fresh evidence in the case.
Jakarta – Indonesian prosecutors said Wednesday they would seek to reopen the investigation into the killing of a Dutch journalist in East Timor, after receiving new evidence from Dutch authorities.
A survivor of a bloody attack on a refugee-filled church compound in East Timor in April 1999 said Wednesday he saw uniformed Indonesian soldiers and police fire shots into the compound.
Antonio Concecao Santos, 27, was testifying to Indonesia's human right court in the trial of two officers and one former official for gross human rights violations in the territory.
Catharine Munro, Jakarta – Indonesian human rights prosecutors today raised the prospect of dropping charges against some defendants facing trial for gross human rights violations in East Timor in 1999.
Andrew Trounson, Melbourne – East Timor is getting down to business. And that means playing tough, even with your friends.
The Indonesian military, until recently occupiers of East Timor, may soon begin training officers for Dili's fledgling defense force, the UN mission in the newly independent country said Wednesday.
After signing and approving East Timor's state budget Tuesday, President Xanana Gusmao called for revision of the measures within four months, while also lamenting the lackluster nature of parliamentary debate and opposition parties in the new country.
A draft bill on amnesty and pardoning of sentences has been criticized as being "unconstitutional", "too general" and open to "dangerous interpretation", by a leading Timorese nongovernmental organization concerned with legal matters.
Irwan Firdaus, Jakarta – The former commander of Indonesian troops in East Timor went on trial Tuesday on charges of crimes against humanity for allegedly allowing his soldiers to commit atrocities in the former province.
"I am not a human rights abuser," declared Brig. Gen. Tono Suratman – now Indonesia's deputy military spokesman – moments before his trial began.
President Xanana Gusmao will address the East Timorese Tuesday in a nationally broadcast speech that an aide described Monday as centered on his two-week delay in signing the government's budget.
Nigel Wilson – East Timor's decision to pursue maritime boundaries that might include substantial Australian oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea will not derail talks aimed at defining the legal and commercial position of the Sunrise gas reservoirs.
[East Timor's fledgling parliament has made a key decision about the nation's borders which could be the first big test of its relations with Australia. Its declared a maritime boundary with Australia that would give East Timor full ownership of lucrative oil and gas deposits that now fall inside Australian waters ..
Prosecutors yesterday demanded that East Timor's former Indonesian-appointed governor be sent to prison for 10 and a half years – just six months more than the minimum sentence for crimes against humanity.
Two former top Indonesian ministers told a human rights trial yesterday that a savage outbreak of militia violence in East Timor in September 1999 caught the Jakarta government unawares.
Thalif Deen, United Nations – East Timor, the world's newest nation, will ask the United Nations to designate it a "least developed country" (LDC).
[The following letter to the the Sydney Morning Herald editor was issued by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Dr Jose Ramos-Horta.]
The Editor, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney July 11, 2002
Dear Sir,