[A version of this appears in the latest edition of the Darwin-based AustralAsian]

Picture the scene. East Timor resistance hero Xanana Gusmao, described by Jakarta as a criminal jailed for possession of weapons, is picked up from his cell at 8:00pm on 15 July, and driven to the presidential palace. He is welcomed to dinner by South African President Nelson Mandela and Indonesia's roving ambassador Lopes da Cruz, an East Timorese. They talk for nearly two hours, Xanana apparently saying little.

Da Cruz had not seen Xanana since they were in the Portuguese army and in seminary together before East Timor's nightmare began on 7 December 1975. His whole career is built on opposing the independent East Timor Xanana fights for. Mandela, on the other hand, has long admired Xanana. Last September he gave Jose Ramos Horta a copy of his book with a message of encouragement for the resistance leader.

Some reports say dinner was at the presidential guest house, but one says it took place in President Suharto's living room. The official report says just these three were present, but one journalist says other Indonesian and South African officials were there too.

What did the dinner mean? Certainly it was an extraordinary publicity coup for East Timor activists. Ever since Xanana's arrest in November 1992 they have likened him to Mandela - leader of a liberation movement, captured and jailed, only to emerge (hopefully!) victorious due to world pressure possibly decades later. Having the two sit down to dinner in those august surroundings suggested Suharto didn't object to the parallel.

However, did Suharto really 'blink' in the face of world pressure (as one letter writer in the Sydney Morning Herald put it)? Or was he just being polite to his prominent guest, who had asked for the meeting and even expressed the hope Xanana should be released? Perhaps another grand but empty Suharto gesture - such as his 1993 'reconciliation' with the Petition of 50 dissidents? It is too early to be conclusive.

Mandela and Suharto are no strangers, nor are South Africa and Indonesia. The Xanana dinner adds a new element to an ongoing relationship. This context to the dinner provides both opportunities and obstacles.

Before the fall of apartheid, Indonesia gave financial support to the African National Congress chaired by Mandela. Some of this assistance may have come from Suharto privately. In mid-1995 a London report revealed that the Suharto family-owned Bank Putera Sukapura was involved in a complicated sanction-busting deal between 1990 and 1992, aimed at helping South African blacks. Corruption on the part of South Africa's Alan Boesak eventually scuppered the deal, despite Mandela's personal intervention with Suharto to try to save it.

Before July 1997, Suharto twice gave Mandela VIP treatment as ANC chairman, namely in 1991 and September 1994.

Since the restoration of diplomatic relations between Indonesia and South Africa in 1994, trade between them has risen over 300%. Mining was on the agenda of the latest Mandela-Suharto discussions. Indonesia is now the world's third largest coal producer, after Australia and South Africa. South Africa is exploring for nickel in Halmahera. Busang was a scam, but there's still enough gold in Indonesia to warrant comparison with Witwatersrand.

And there is more. South Africa and Indonesia rank 11th and 12th in the world for paper pulp production. Ethical codes within South Africa's logging industry have been discussed as models for Indonesia. The Indonesian textile giant Texmaco (which, incidentally, bought out Bank Putera Sukapura recently) is about to expand into South Africa. An illegal drugs trade passes through South Africa to Indonesia. The South African electoral watch dog was one model for Indonesia's KIPP. An Indonesian embassy staffer asked for asylum in Pretoria earlier this year, claiming he had evidence of Indonesian corruption.

In other words, Indonesia and South Africa are 'engaged', and can pressure one another. Some of that pressure can benefit East Timor. Ever since the 1994 meeting Mandela has urged Suharto to open an unemotional 'dialogue' on East Timor. Just before coming to Jakarta this time he said East Timor was being talked about 'in every corner of the globe'.

Mandela may be in no position to push harder. Many believe that in exchange for helping the ANC fight apartheid Indonesia wants South Africa to lean on Africa's Portuguese-speaking nations, among East Timor's strongest allies. South Africa has not become more outspoken at the UN on the need for change in East Timor - even on human rights.

However, just possibly Suharto could be looking for a mediator such as Mandela to resolve East Timor in a face-saving way. Stubborn as he is, the ageing president could be thinking of the history books. He has had to 'explain' East Timor to nearly every foreigner he meets in recent years. Suharto's support for negotiations in the southern Philippines shows he can move on contentious issues similar to East Timor's. ASEAN's apparently dovish position on the Hun Sen coup in Cambodia, largely driven by Indonesia, might suggest a new sensitivity.

Kofi Annan's activism is invigorating the UN process on East Timor. Mandela later made it clear his initiative had been fully consulted with Annan. Even if Jakarta officials later denied new initiatives were afoot, the fact that the Xanana dinner was kept secret till it was scooped by an Indonesian weekly seven days later suggests it may have been the occasion for something more significant.

The Nobel peace prize for Belo and Ramos Horta sat well with South Africa's public, which recalled the 1984 prize for Desmond Tutu. One South African editorial put it this way: 'The unexpected meeting between the world's most admired head of state and a leader of one of its most popular liberation organisations of the 1990s, at a state guest house a stone's throw from the presidential palace in Jakarta, has as much potential as anything to break the logjam'.

The editorial then warned Mandela to follow through. A meeting in Pretoria last Friday with Ramos Horta, and an invitation to Portuguese President Sampaio, suggest he wants to do just that.

[Gerry van Klinken, Editor, Inside Indonesia magazine.]