APSN Banner

Timorese parties call for self-determination

Source
Press release - August 12, 1998

Sydney – The five East Timorese political parties in East Timor have made a combined call for self-determination for their people and set out a plan to end the illegal Indonesian occupation and annexation of their country.

The five, UDT, Fretilin, Apodeti, Kato and Trabalhista, rejected out of hand any notion of East Timor being incorporated into Indonesia as some kind of autonomous province. The World President of the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT), Joco Carrascalco, said tonight UDT had vigorously promoted self-determination for the East Timorese people during last week's talks in New York between Portugal and Indonesia under the auspices of the United Nations.

In the course of those talks, Portugal agreed to discuss, without prejudice, the Indonesian proposal that East Timor be incorporated into Indonesia as an autonomous province. Portugal's position sounded alarm bells for East Timorese who fear a replay of 1975, when Portugal publicly supported self-determination in East Timor while secretly negotiating an agreement which opened the way for the Indonesia invasion.

Mr Carrascalco said the declaration by the five parties was the authentic voice of East Timorese. "It is vital for everyone outside East Timor who is involved in these issues to listen to the people actually living there under the daily oppression of the brutal Indonesian military regime," Mr Carrascalco said.

"We must support them in every way we can. One of the first steps they, and we of UDT around the world, propose is the release of Xanana Gusmco and the participation of East Timorese in the talks on East Timor's future. It is heartening to see the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan's, support for this."

Mr Carrascalco said it was a measure of the fortitude of the East Timorese that after 23 years of brutal repression and genocide in which 200,000 innocent East Timorese people have been killed, the five political parties still exist and have put aside their differences to openly challenge their oppressor.

In 1974, UDT and Fretilin were contending for power, Trabalhista, the Labour party, and Kota, the traditional monarchist party, were diamentrically opposed, and Apodeti was campaigning for integration into Indonesia.

[On August 10 Annan called for Gusmao's release "sooner rather than later" in order to let him play a full role in the debate on East Timor's future. "He may be the last to be released, but what is important is that they [the Indonesians] are not rejecting the idea that he has to be released," he said, adding that "He has a role to play and one can even now talk to him about the discussions,", referring to promises to allow greater access to Gusmao - James Balowski.].

Country