Michael Perry, Sydney – South African President Nelson Mandela's mediation in East Timor could provide the "face-saving" device for Indonesian President Suharto to end the 22-year conflict, 1996 Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos Horta said on Wednesday.
East Timor independence leader Horta said Mandela's intervention was a major step towards bringing peace to East Timor, possibly by the year 2000.
Horta said Suharto's consent to a recent meeting between Mandela and jailed rebel leader Xanana Gusmao could be a sign that Suharto wants to resolve the East Timor conflict soon. "We could only think he (Suharto) wants to resolve the conflict as he's reaching the end of his regime," Horta told a Rotary Club-sponsored meeting in Sydney.
Suharto, 76, has been president for almost 30 years and is expected to be re-elected unopposed in 1998.
"I believe that 22 years after the invasion, with so many people killed on the Timorese side, but also thousands of Indonesians killed in the battlefield in East Timor, Suharto may be realising there has to be a solution," Horta said.
"President Mandela's mediation is a face-saving device," he said.
Mandela met Gusmao in Jakarta during his state visit to Indonesia in July and later sent a letter to Suharto suggesting Gusmao be released.
Mandela, 79, spent 27 years in prison for his opposition to apartheid in South Africa. Gusmao, 50, is serving a 20-year term for resisting Indonesian annexation of East Timor.
Indonesian officials have said Suharto will consider Mandela's suggestion, but have not given a time frame.
"If anyone can talk to Suharto, it is Mandela," said Horta, who recently returned from South Africa where he was briefed by Mandela on his meeting with Gusmao.
"Suharto has high regard for Mandela...because Mandela is slightly older and Suharto prefers to listen to older people."
Indonesia traditionally frees prisoners on its independence day August 17, although Indonesian sources have suggested November or early 1998 would be a more likely timing for Gusmao's release. Suharto ordered thousands of Indonesia troops to invade East Timor in 1975 after Portugal abandoned the colony in 1974.
Jakarta annexed the territory in 1976, but the United Nations has never recognised Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor.
Human rights groups estimate that 200,000 people have died in the East Timor conflict, mostly through famine and disease.