Subject: AFP: All pro-independence East Timorese
civil servants "should be fired"
Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 09:18:20 -0400
From: "John M. Miller" <fbp@igc.apc.org>Received from Joyo Indonesian
News:
All pro-independence East Timorese civil servants "should be fired"
JAKARTA, July 12 (AFP) - East Timorese civil servants working for the Indonesian
government should be fired if they are pro-independence, an Indonesian minister said
Monday.
Information Minister Yunus Yosfiah was quoted by the state Antara news agency as
saying: "If a civil servant from the provincial ministry is pro-independence ... that
person should be terminated from the civil service."Don't demand rupiah (an
Indonesian salary) if you are pro-independence ... How can it be possible to be
pro-independence and keep feeding yourself on an Indonesian salary?"
Antara said Yosfiah handed down the ultimatum at a meeting with civil servants from the
information ministry's staff in the East Timorese capital of Dili.
Yosfiah, a one-time military commander in East Timor, also urged his staff to remain
"neutral" in an forthcoming ballot scheduled for next month on an Indonesian
offer of integration with broad autonomy for the territory.
"Staff must be neutral, it means that they cannot force the public to either
accept or to refuse the autonomy proposal ... but give them a proper explanation on the
content of the offer," said Yosfiah.
"Let the (East Timorese) people choose between what is good and bad for them
according to their conscience. Do not ever push the people to choose the autonomy
offer."
Yosfiah was in Dili as a part of a whirlwind visit by a high-powered 16-minister
Indonesian delegation to East Timor.
The visit came two days after UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned that lack of
security -- which is the responsibility of the Indonesian police -- threatened the polls,
due for August 21 and 22.
East Timorese civil servants have said that since January, when Indonesia first
suggested it might let go of East Timor if its people chose independence rather than
autonomy, they have been asked to sign forms declaring their allegiance to Indonesia, or
lose their jobs.
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