Jakarta – Indonesia's parliament speaker on Thursday urged President Megawati Sukarnoputri to snub next month's celebrations marking the formal independence of East Timor, which Jakarta once ruled with an iron fist.
East Timor will officially become the world's newest nation on May 20 after being under UN administration since it voted in 1999 to break from Indonesian rule, a decision that triggered an orgy of violence from pro-Jakarta militias opposed to the move.
"The time is not right to visit because East Timor still remains a sensitive issue. According to our colleagues in parliament ... the president should not visit East Timor," speaker Akbar Tandjung told reporters when asked about an invitation for Megawati to attend the May 20 ceremonies.
East Timor's independence hero and former anti-Indoensian guerrilla leader Xanana Gusmao was on Wednesday declared winner of the tiny territory's first presidential election, a victory that prompted warm words from Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda. Gusmao spent seven years in a Jakarta jail for taking up arms against Indonesian rule.
Wirajuda said Megawati, a nationalist who opposed the 1999 UN-organised ballot, had not decided whether to go there for the celebration. More than 185 heads of state have been invited, although some nationalist Indonesian MPs have already expressed hostility to the possibility Megawati might attend.
Jakarta should also seek to establish full diplomatic ties with the former Portuguese colony when the "time is right," Tandjung said without elaborating.
Timorese leaders have said Megawati's attendance at the ceremonies would be an "eloquent" sign of how far relations have come since pro-Jakarta militias, with backing from the Indonesian military, ravaged the territory after the independence vote.
The United Nations estimates more than 1,000 people were killed before and after the vote to end 24 years of Indonesian rule.
Yasril Ananta Baharuddin, a member of parliament's commission on defence and foreign affairs, told Reuters that MPs had no problem with the East Timor government and its people, but said it was unnecessary for Megawati to attend.
"The invitation is coming from the UN and this is just a symbolic gesture to transfer power with the presence of the international community, therefore the president should not go," Baharuddin said.