Subject: RT: UN Talks Postponed
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 1999 09:46:16 -0400
From: "John M. Miller" <fbp@igc.apc.org>U.N. Timor talks with Portugal
postponed -Indonesia
JAKARTA, April 8 (Reuters) - U.N. talks between Indonesia and Portugal on the future of
East Timor scheduled for later this month have been postponed, an Indonesian government
official said on Thursday.
``Yes...they are postponed. It is only due to technical problems, and not because we
are not ready,'' the official told Reuters.
The talks had been scheduled to resume on April 13 and continue until the following
day. In earlier talks last month, Foreign Ministers Ali Alatas of Indonesia and Jaime Gama
of Portugal agreed to allow the East Timorese to determine their fate in a direct ballot,
scheduled for July.
The official said he did not know exact date of the rescheduled talks. But Indonesia's
Alatas was still scheduled to meet Portuguese government officials at the United Nations
on April 22 as originally planned, the official said without giving further details.
The postponement followed an alleged massacre in Liquisa, 30 km (20 miles) west of the
East Timor capital Dili, on Tuesday. The territory's spiritual leader Bishop Carlos Belo
has said 25 died in the attack on a church blamed on pro-Jakarta forces.
Indonesia's military on Wednesday denied that specific incident had occurred, although
it admitted five people had been killed in the area in recent days.
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