Subject: Journal News: East Timor supporters to
protest at Indonesian Consulate
Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 16:55:59 -0400
From: "John M. Miller" <fbp@igc.apc.org>East Timor supporters to
protest at Indonesian Consulate
By IMRAN VITTACHI The Journal News (Westchester, NY) 7/9/1999
NEW YORK -- A Westchester-based group advocating human rights and self-determination
for Indonesia-occupied East Timor will hang a provocative street sign next week outside
Jakarta's main diplomatic mission in the city.
On July 17, the East Timor Action Network plans to post a sign for 30 days, "East
Timor Way," at the northeast corner of Manhattan's 68th Street and Madison Avenue,
next to the Indonesian Consulate.
The date marks the 23rd anniversary of Indonesia's annexation of East Timor, a former
Portuguese colony that it had invaded the previous December. Under the occupation, up to
250,000 Timorese -- more than a fifth of the territory's population -- have died of famine
or killings, disappearances and torture alleged to have been committed by Indonesian armed
forces.
ETAN, a nationwide grass-roots movement started in 1991 by Hartsdale resident Charles
Scheiner to raise U.S. public awareness about East Timor, has persuaded politicians to
make sweeping cuts in U.S. military aid to Indonesia, and sees the street sign as a
political statement.
"We want the Indonesian government to know that people in New York recognize and
support East Timor," said Scheiner, a Pleasantville software engineering consultant
who, after hours, works out of his home as ETAN's national coordinator.
Scheiner and his fellow ETAN supporters want Indonesian diplomats to see the sign as
they walk to and from the consulate, to remind them of their government's promises to
respect the Timorese population's right to choose its future. Scheiner, who also acts as
the UN representative for the International Federation for East Timor, a worldwide
association of Timorese solidarity groups, is looking to recruit up to 200 volunteers to
serve as monitors for a historic referendum there next month.
A spokesman for the Indonesian Consulate said ETAN was trying to disrupt the
negotiations to bring about a political settlement in East Timor.
"The Indonesian government does not have the authority to ban ETAN's action, since
only the city of New York has a say in it," said Rizali W. Indrakesuma, the
consulate's chief information officer. "However, if this unnecessary action would be
targeted to the Indonesian government, we could only say it is very much regretted."
In January, Indonesian President B.J. Habibie vowed to grant the territory independence
if the population of 800,000 Timorese votes to be free. In brokering the vote with U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan in May, Habibie's foreign minister, Ali Alatas, insisted that
Indonesian troops remain in East Timor as a "security force."
The referendum, which has already been postponed from Aug. 8, could be stalled further,
following escalating factional bloodshed in recent weeks that has killed scores of
civilians. According to reports out of East Timor last weekend, pro-Indonesian Timorese
militias have attacked U.N. field offices and humanitarian convoys in a campaign to
sabotage the vote.
Last week, ETAN settled on the sign's wording with the city's Department of
Transportation -- the agency that oversees temporary street-sign applications -- but only
after the group charged First Amendment infringement and filed a federal lawsuit against
DOT officials. Rejecting ETAN's two previous applications for temporary signs on 68th
street, Robert Adamenko, an assistant DOT commissioner, had turned them down, citing in a
letter in October 1998 "the sensitive political nature of this request."
Although the latest sign application has been approved, Scheiner's group is pressing
the lawsuit. ETAN's attorney, Manhattan lawyer Nancy Chang of the Center for
Constitutional Rights, said DOT officials had violated ETAN's right to free speech and
expression by arbitrarily rejecting its applications. A DOT spokesman declined to comment
on the lawsuit.
"We are troubled by a system in which the right to put up political signs is
determined according to the discretion of Department of Transportation officials,"
Chang said.
Chang noted that city officials have allowed other international rights activists to
post signs -- such as "Tiananmen Square Corner" outside the Chinese Mission and
"Brothers to the Rescue Corner" outside the Cuban Mission -- in defiance of
foreign governments.
One of the rejected ETAN applications was for a sign commemorating a 1991 incident in
the East Timorese capital, Dili. Indonesian troops, using U.S.-made M-16s, were seen by
Western journalists firing on a crowd of hundreds of Timorese civilians. That event
inspired Scheiner, a former anti-Vietnam war activist, to work toward cutting U.S. sources
of weapons and military training for Indonesia.
Scheiner's group, which numbers 8,000 supporters, has successfully lobbied
congressional leaders -- including Reps. Benjamin Gilman, R-Greenville, whose district
includes Rockland and part of Westchester and Nita Lowey, D-Harrison -- to adopt
resolutions calling for a ban on U.S.-made arms and military aid to Jakarta.
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