Subject: AFP: Megawati says she will accept result
of East Timor vote
Date: Sun, 01 Aug 1999 11:26:01 -0400
From: "John M. Miller" <fbp@igc.apc.org>Received from Joyo Indonesian
News:
Megawati says she will accept result of East Timor vote
JAKARTA, July 29 (AFP) - Indonesian opposition leader and presidential hopeful Megawati
Sukarnoputri said Thursday she would accept the outcome of the referendum on East Timor,
whether or not its people vote for independence.
"It is not my intention what so ever not to respect the decision of the people of
East Timor," Megawati said in a nationally televised speech.
"The agreement signed by Indonesia and Portugal is binding in nature for the whole
Indonesian nation," she said.
Megawati was making her first policy speech since her Indonesian Democracy
Party-Struggle (PDIP) topped the June 7 elections with 33.7 percent of the vote.
She called on all sides in East Timor to forsake violence.
"There should be no efforts by any side through whatever means to influence the
choice of the people in East Timor," she said.
The people of the former Portuguese colony invaded by Indonesia in 1975 are due to vote
on August 30 whether to accept or reject an offer of autonomy under Indonesia.
However, she warned against any other troubled areas of Indonesia trying to use the
East Timor referendum as an argument to try to break away from the republic her father,
the country's first president, helped found.
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