Subject: AFP: Portugal to discuss troop levels w/ UN
Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 10:36:55 -0500
From: "John M. Miller" <fbp@igc.apc.org>Agence France Presse October
31, 1998 03:19 GMT
Portugal to discuss Indonesian troop levels in East Timor with UN official LISBON, Oct
31
Portuguese Foreign Minister Jaime Gama will meet a United Nations official in Vienna
Tuesday to discuss reports that Indonesian troop levels in East Timor are higher than
admitted, a reliable source said.
Gama's spokesman Horacio Cesar said meanwhile that the reports went against an
undertaking given in August by Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas to Gama and UN
secretary-general Kofi Annan.
Alatas had pledged to reduce gradually the troop presence in the former Portuguese
colony which was annexed by Jakarta in 1976 after Lisbon moved out, Cesar said.
The source said Gama would be discussing the development with Annan's special
representative Jamsheed Marker.
According to apparently confidential Indonesian military documents circulating among
foreign journalists and said by Western embassies to be close to their own tallies, there
were 17,834 troops in East Timor by the end of July.
But Indonesian Armed Forces chief General Wiranto said it was a "lie" that
the troops in East Timor numbered 17,000. He did not say what the real figure was, but
military authorities have indicated that it was some 11,500 in mid-August.
Indonesia sent troops to the former Portuguese colony in 1975 and annexed it the
following year.
But the United Nations continues to regard Lisbon as the official administrator of East
Timor and its secretary general has sponsored peace talks between Portugal and Indonesia
since 1983.
The documents back up statements by East Timorese leaders, including Nobel laureate
Carlos Belo and jailed resistance leader Xanana Gusmao disputing Jakarta's claims it had
reduced its combat elements in the territory. em/mb
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