Also: FORMER INTEGRATION FIGHTER CALLS ON E TIMORESE TO CONTINUE RECONCILIATION

MAKASTI TO SEND RECONCILIATION TEAM TO EAST TIMOR

August 7, 2003 9:31pm Antara

Kupang, E. Nusa Tenggara, Aug 7 (ANTARA) - The East Timor Community Council in Indonesia (Makasti) will soon send a team to East Timor to assess the possibility of cooperation in building up reconciliation with their fellow East Timorese.

"The team is slated to meet with East Timor prominent figures who are going to be speakers at a seminar on reconciliation here next September," Makasti's spokesman, Filomeno de Jesus Haornay, said here Thursday.

He said the reconciliation process should keep going until all East Timorese people are reconciled.

The reconciliation process, according to Filomeno, is better conducted in the East Nusa Tenggara provincial city of Kupang instead of Denpasar, Jakarta, or even abroad.

"Kupang is a strategic place for the process because it is easily accessible by East Timorese in the other parts of NTT and those in East Timor," he said.

Filomeno noted that there has been an institution in East Timor which strives to unite all East Timorese but it does not function optimally.

Makasti also plans to build a peace house on the border of NTT and East Timor which is expected to function as a place for meetings among East Timor people in Indonesia and in East Timor.

He said the corner stone of the peace house will be laid on October 13.

(THROUGH ASIA PULSE)

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FORMER INTEGRATION FIGHTER CALLS ON E TIMORESE TO CONTINUE RECONCILIATION

August 8, 2003 9:41pm Antara

Atambua, E Nusa Tenggara, Aug 8 (ANTARA) - Former Chief of the Integration Fighters Legion (PPI) Joao da Silva Tavares has called on all East Timorese people to continue reconciliation process.

The only way to create stability in East Timor is to reconcile all East Timorese people, Tavares who is also a former chief of Bobonaro district between 1976 and 1989 told newsmen here Friday.

The expected reconciliation is the convergence of the inner hearts of the East Timorese people who had conflicts in the past and the readiness to forgive each other without one party trying to bring the other to court or taking revenge, he said.

According to Tavares, the correctional facility is not a right place to solve the problems being faced by the newly born country.

He opined that the right place lies in the inner hearts of the East Timorese people who are ready to forgive each other, forget the bitter experience in the past and step forward to peaceful future.

Tavares further said reconciliation would be strong and durable if the East Timorese would forgive each other but not seek mistakes and take revenge.

"We should not seek legal process against those considered guilty," he added.

If the government and people of East Timor are still seeking legal process against those considered guilty, horizontal conflicts will sooner or later recur in the nascent state.

Contrariwise, if the East Timorese government and people give priority to forgiving each other, the Democratic Republic of East Timor will exist forever.

On the occasion, Tavares also said he decided to live far from the border shared by Indonesia's East Nusa Tenggara province and East Timor as a way to create peace for East Timorese younger generation.

"Certain quarters in East Timor would consider it a constraint to create peace if I live in the border areas," he said.

Tavares who decided to live in Indonesia's province of Yogyakarta however promised to always support reconciliation process to create peace among East Timorese people.

East Timor officially seceded from Indonesia in October, 1999 as a consequence of the pro-independence camp's victory in the United Nations organized popular consultation held on August 30, 1999.

The territory integrated into Indonesia in 1976 but the United Nations never recognized the integration process.

(THROUGH ASIA PULSE)

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