From: Indonesia Publications/Task Force <apakabar>
Subject: Timor: Portugal Cries Sabotage
Forwarded from GreenNet reg.easttimor conference:
Topic 265Envoy: Jakarta sabotaging visit!
gn:tapolreg.easttimor 3:49 pm Oct 28, 1991
Jakarta 'sabotage visit'
Source: The Age, Melbourne. Date: 28 October 1991. Byline: Tom
Hyland. Story type: Unabridged.
JAKARTA 'SABOTAGE TIMOR VISIT'
Portugal accused Indonesia yesterday of effectively sabotaging
a visit by Portuguese MPs to East Timor by banning an
Australian journalist from covering the visit.
Lisbon's ambassador to Australia, Mr Jose Luis Gomez, said in
Melbourne that Jakarta had "picked a last-minute problem" to
prevent the visit because of fears it would lead to pro-
independence demonstrations.
It was ironic that a well-informed Australian journalist was
a pretext for blocking the visit, he said, given the history
of Australian reporting on East Timor and Indonesia.
At the launch of an international campaign to press for a
negotiated settlement of the Timor conflict, Mr Gomez praised
the Foreign Minister, Senator Evans, for his "astonishing
achievement" in helping secure the Cambodian peace treaty and
urged him to use his skills to work for the self-determination
of East Timor.
Portugal yesterday suspended the parliamentary delegation's
trip to its former colony, due to get underway on 4 November.
Mr Vitor Crespo, President of the National Assembly, said the
visit would not take place as long as "Indonesia's veto
affecting the media due to accompany the delegation remains in
place".
Jakarta objected to the inclusion of Ms Jill Jolliffe, a
Lisbon-based Australian freelance journalist, in the media
party to accompany the delegation. Mr Jolliffe, who reported
from East Timor in 1974 and 1975 and has written two books on
the territory, was to have covered the visit for 'The Age' and
the 'Sydney Morning Herald'.
Mr Gomez said the visit had been the subject of "extremely
difficult" UN negotiations since 1982. "Very ironically, they
refused the name of a very well-known Australian journalist
who knows the situation in East Timor well," he said.
"With this refusal, we thought it impossible to go. The
censorship was happening even before the delegation left
Lisbon. For us, it was a question of principle. We didn't
expect this to happen. We did not include Jolliffe as a
provocation but because she knows the situation well and is a
good journalist."
Mr Gomez said Indonesia had continually placed obstacles in
the way of the visit because it feared anti-Indonesian
protests.
"All reports indicated the terror campaign (in Timor) in the
past few weeks has been enormous," he said. "They were trying
to manipulate the situation as much as possible, and making it
difficult for the people to meet the delegation. It was very
difficult for them to say 'no' to the delegation, so they've
made it impossible."
Indonesia has accused Ms Jolliffe of being biased and a
support of Fretilin, the independence movement which has
resisted Indonesian rule since its 1975 invasion. Six
Australian journalists were killed in East Timor in October
and December 1975, allegedly by Indonesian troops.