Subject: NYTimes: Albright Addresses New Warning to
Indonesia
Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 08:57:16 -0400The New York Times September 27, 1999
Albright Addresses New Warning to Indonesia
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
NEW YORK -- Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met Sunday with the man expected to
lead an independent East Timor and warned Indonesia that it risks losing America aid and
investment unless it protects refugees in areas it controls.
Albright's warning was one of the strongest yet by Washington, which has been reluctant
to threaten sanctions against the world's fourth most populous country and one vital to
Asia's economy. It was also the first time that Washington had made clear that it would
hold Jakarta accountable for behavior beyond the border of East Timor.
Albright, in New York for the opening last week of the U.N. General Assembly session,
spoke about the threat facing 100,000 to 200,000 refugees who were forced into West Timor
during a siege of violence by militias backed by the Indonesian military. The refugees are
reportedly being threatened and attacked by militia members who fled there as peacekeepers
arrived in East Timor.
Commenting on a report from her assistant secretary of state for refugees, who has just
been in East and West Timor, Albright said that "what she has reported to me is
terribly troubling."
The assistant secretary, Julia Taft, said that while civilian authorities in West Timor
seemed genuinely concerned about the refugees, it was evident that pro-Indonesian
militias, in collusion with the Indonesia army, had infiltrated refugee camps and were
intimidating people.
"The government and armed forces of Indonesia should understand that what happens
in West Timor and to East Timorese living elsewhere in Indonesia is as important to the
United States as what happens in East Timor itself," Albright said at a news
conference with the East Timorese leader, Jose Alexandre Gusmao.
Sunday a senior administration official said in an interview, "We believe that the
key to getting Indonesia to accept" a peacekeeping force, "was the threat of
severe consequences if they didn't -- primarily loss of economic aid."
"What the secretary is saying is, Look, you don't just check the box and get out
of the East Timor situation simply by evacuating your troops and turning it over to the
U.N. if terrible things are going on in West Timor," the official said.
Albright will deliver the same message to Indonesia's foreign minister, Ali Alatas, on
Monday, aides said. She will tell him that the United States is also concerned about the
government's response to protests in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, and elsewhere in the
country. Aides added that she will tell the government that it must continue to adhere to
its promises of democratic change.
But the government of President B.J. Habibie is not the only player, and American
officials also intended their strong message to be heard by Megawati Sukarnoputri. Her
party will hold a plurality of seats in a new national parliament, and she hopes to be
elected president in indirect elections later this year.
Ms. Megawati, the daughter of Indonesia's first president, Sukarno, is thought to be a
nationalist in her father's mold and may attract military nationalists to her cause.
Gusmao, who was imprisoned in Indonesia for seven years before being released in
August, pressed in their meeting Sunday for American attention to the safety of East
Timorese scattered not only in West Timor but also across other Indonesian islands,
Albright's aides said.
Gusmao, known as Xanana, is in New York to meet with Secretary-General Kofi Annan and
other U.N. officials who are preparing to take over the administration and defense of East
Timor after a new Indonesian parliament assembles and ratifies the East Timorese vote for
independence. After the East Timorese elect a government, the United Nations plans to
withdraw.
Albright last met with Gusmao when she was visiting Indonesia in March. Indonesians and
some foreign governments see him as the most likely leader of an independent East Timor.
He has been more moderate than Jose Ramos-Horta, who has led an independence campaign from
exile. Ramos-Horta was also at Sunday's meeting.
Gusmao, 53, was a military and political hero of the long guerrilla war against
Indonesia, which began even before Indonesian troops seized the territory in 1975 after
administrators from a collapsing Portuguese empire fled.
Gusmao was brought into three-way talks between Indonesia, Portugal and the United
Nations as Indonesia moved toward allowing the East Timorese to vote in the referendum on
their future.
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