Bangkok – A Group of human-rights advocates successfully concluded two international seminars on East Timor this week despite continued "low intensity harassment" by Thai authorities.

The International Symposium on Peaceful Settlement for East Timor (Peaceset) held on Monday and Tuesday and the Third Asia Pacific Conference on East Timor (Apcet III) on Wednesday and Thursday drew more than 60 participants from 17 countries in Asia-Pacific and Europe.

Filipino Renato Constantino, a non-government organisation (NGO) representative, said the group was subjected to "low intensity but visible harassment".

He said at the Apcet III meeting held in Baan Siri, police officers and Labour Ministry officials were present. They took videos, asked questions, walked around the conference room and barred the international participants from speaking into microphones.

He said participants, particularly those from East Timor who held Indonesian passports, felt the intimidation, which caused considerable delay in the conference proceedings.

Bantorn Ondam, coordinator of Asian Cultural Forum on Development (Acfod), said Apcet III yesterday sent a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, expressing concern for the situation in East Timor and encouraging the UN's efforts in resolving the ongoing situation of conflict and human rights violation as well as in working towards a peaceful settlement in East Timor.

The letter, signed by Somchai Homla-or, secretary-general of Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, and Bantorn was delivered to a UN representative in Bangkok, who sent the letter to New York the same day.

Speaking at a press conference which included various co-organisers of the meetings, Constantino said the two meetings discussed the efforts being made to bring about a peaceful settlement and identified strategies that societies around the world could take to support the process.

Agio Pereira, of the East Timor Relief Association, said Apcet will hold the fourth meeting in Indonesia in the year 2000. He read out the Apcet conference statement, which recognised the long suffering of the East Timorese people since the invasion of Suharto's forces in 1975 and called for action from the civil societies and social movements around the world to support the peace process.

Pereira said the people of East Timor are suffering escalating human rights abuse especially in the current political and economic turmoil in Indonesia.

The conference called on the UN to:

Establish a working committee of UN and related agencies to prepare the foundation of the self-determination of the people of East Timor;

Establish a permanent office of the UN Commission for Human Rights in Dili, East Timor;

Extend the terms of reference of the All Inclusive East Timorese Dialogue to allow East Timorese participants to discuss the political status of East Timor;

Extend the UN's supervised Portugal-Indonesia governmental talks on East Timor to include the recognised leaders of the East Timorese people.