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Jakarta, Canberra to start mending fences

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Agence France Presse - January 24, 2000

Jakarta – Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said here Monday that Jakarta and Canberra have agreed to look to the future and start rebuilding their relationship, dragged to an all-time low over the East Timor crisis.

"Australia and Indonesia ... want now to look to the future and rebuild the relationship in a constructive way," Downer told a brief press conference after meeting with Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid.

Downer also indicated the two countries had got off to a good start saying Wahid had made it clear he would like to visit Australia, but the timing had yet to be worked out by both sides.

"The president and I agreed that what we need to do is look to the future. We didn't dwell on what happened last year," he said.

At the height of the Timor crisis in September, angry street demonstrations were staged in both countries and Indonesia unilaterally canceled a mutual security treaty.

Downer also said some progress had been made in his talks with Wahid over the problem of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan using Indonesia as a jump-off point to enter Australia.

The two sides had agreed to work together on the problem, which has seen more than 3,000 illegals entering northern Australia from Indonesia in the past six months, he said.

On the investment side, Downer added he had been encouraged by "some signs of more corporate interest" in a meeting with Australian businessmen.

He also said he and Indonesia's new Foreign Minister Alwi Shihab had agreed to stay "in close contact by telephone" in the coming months.

Shihab, speaking after a separate meeting with Downer, said time was needed for trust and understanding to be restored between the two countries.

"The meeting indicates a good relationship between the two countries. You know we're trying to heal the rift, to cure the wound, but it takes time," Shihab told journalists after 45- minutes of talks with Downer.

Though the spirit of reconciliation and neighborliness were already evident in both camps "trust and understanding" were need to start the healing process, he cautioned.

Downer is the first Australian minister to visit the Wahid government. Canberra was at the forefront of efforts to arrange the deployment of an international force in East Timor to stop a wave of killing and destruction by Indonesian army-backed militia.

The government of then-president B.J. Habibie approved the dispatch of the Australian-led forces, but the Australian embassy in Jakarta was targeted daily by snipers, demonstrators and fire bombers.

The two countries are also treading carefully around the issue of who should investigate and possibly try six Indonesian generals implicated in the post-ballot violence in East Timor.

Commenting on the issue of a possible international tribunal for the six Shihab said he was tasked "to prevent an international tribunal."

Downer, at his press conference said Canberra's position was "consistent with the UN Security Council resolution – we would look first at Indonesia's domestic process, and the Indonesian government made it clear today they are determined to do that.

Indonesia has set up its own commission of inquiry, handled by a special team drawn from the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), and Downer said Australia had provided some pertinent material requested by the Indonesian commission.

The six impliacted generals are former military chief Wiranto, intelligence's Zacky Anwar Makarim, former East Timor police chief Timbul Silaen, former East Timor military commander Tono Suratman and his immediate superior based in Bali, Adam Damiri, and operational chief, Syafrie Syamsuddin.

Indonesia has objected to the setting up of a UN inquiry or war crimes tribunal on the East Timor violence, saying it is capable of investigating allegations of atrocities and human rights abuses itself, and that it will not be bound by the UN findings.

More than 250,000 East Timorese fled the militia violence, or were forcibly deported, after an August 30 vote in which close to 80 percent of the electorate in the former Portuguese colony chose independence from Indonesia.
 

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