Indonesia studies Fretilin’s victory claims in Timor

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33944, 10 September 1975, Page 17

Indonesia studies Fretilin’s victory claims in Timor

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter —Copyright? JAKARTA, September 9. President Suharto today held a limited Cabinet meeting to discuss the situation in Portuguese Timor, where a Left-wing independence movement has claimed victory.

Before the meeting, President Suharto also held talks with the acting Foreign Minister (Professor Mochtar Kusumaatmadja) believed to have centred on Indonesian moves in the event of a victory in East Timor by Fretilin, the Revolutionary 7 Front for the Independence of East Timor.

Yesterday, Fretilin forces in Timor announced that they had defeated a rival independence movement, the Timor Democratic Union (U.D.T.), in the monthlong civil war.

The Fretilin announcement came as Professor Mochtar said Indonesia would reject any solution of the Timor issue based on the de facto situation there, and that the aspirations of the territory’s people as a whole had to be heeded. Indonesia could not accept the outcome of any talks which might be held between Fretilin and Lisbon’s peace envoy, Dr Antonio Almeida Santos, Professor Mochtar said.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman today declined to comment when asked whether such talks, should they take place, would prompt Indonesia to take unilateral military action. Indonesia’s forces have been in a position to intervene in Timor since the fighting began four weeks ago. The spokesman said that the Government hoped that Dr Santos would return to Jakarta soon to resume talks with Indonesian officials on a possible settlement of the problem. Meanwhile, the Indonesian consul to Portuguese Timor (Mr Tommodok) arrived in Jakarta last night from the colony’s capital of Dili from

where he was evacuated by an Indonesian destroyer last month. Mr Tommodok said that he would report to the Government on Portuguese Timor and the situation in Dili.

Some 15,000 refugees from Portuguese East Timor have crossed to Indonesian West Timor-since the war broke out.

The Jakarta daily newspaper, “Indonesia Times,” today accused Lisbon of trying to delay a settlement of the Timor problem. There were clear symptoms that the Portuguese administrators seemed to be

trying to protract the time of a settlement, the newspaper said. “It is not astonishing if such an unpopular policy is adopted by the Portuguese administrators. The morality of colonialism is that of discrimination and prospering upon the sufferings of the colonised peoples,” it added.