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POLICE FIGHT WITH PROTESTERS AS POPE CALLS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Home > Journalism >Politics

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By Elizabeth Pisani
913 words
12 October 1989
Reuters News
(c) 1989 Reuters Limited

DILI, Indonesia, Oct 12, Reuter - Pro-independence demonstrators fought with police in East Timor on Thursday during a mass at which Pope John Paul told Indonesia to uphold human rights after what he called years of death and destruction.

A group of about 100 protesters threw chairs at baton-wielding police as the Pope watched from a raised altar on a barren seaside plain which Dili's bishop says Indonesian troops used as a killing ground after they took over the territory in 1975.

The protesters pushed forward waving banners in Portuguese reading "Pope, please save East Timor" and yelled "Long Live Fretilin" -- a guerrilla movement fighting for independence in East Timor.

The clash at the mass for around 100,000 people came after the Pope issued a strong appeal for reconciliation and human rights in the territory where up to 200,000 people are estimated to have died since the Indonesian annexation in 1976.

Indonesia invaded East Timor after Portugal abandoned 400 years of colonial rule as local conflicts slid towards civil war. This followed the 1974 coup in Lisbon which brought in a government committed to decolonisation.

"For many years now you have experienced destruction and death as a result of conflict. You have known what it means to be victims of hatred and struggle," the Pope told the crowd sheltering from the heat under a sea of umbrellas.

"Many innocent people have died while others have been prey to retaliation and revenge," he said, adding that the conflict had provoked hunger and economic difficulty.

Speaking from a grass-roofed altar with a yellow and white canopy, the Pope: "Respect for the rights which render life responsibility for life in East Timor will act with wisdom and good will towards all, as they search for a just and peaceful resolution of present difficulties."

The Pope left for the airport soon after the incident began in the closing stages of the mass.

Amnesty International and other bodies have accused Jakarta of repeated human rights violations since the invasion and the United Nations does not recognise its rule there.

Bishop Carlos Belo, the Vatican's administrator in Dili, said this week the site of the mass had been a detention centre where government troops had killed opponents. He said bodies were dumped in a nearby lake.

"The mass will sanctify a place where many many Timorese died," he said.

The number of people at the mass was half the predicted figure but foreign priests said Catholics had been intimidated by heavy security on roads and fear of interrogation by troops.

Critics have accused the Pope of implicitly recognising Jakarta's control by being the first foreign leader to visit East Timor since 1975.

The Pope, who said his visit was purely pastoral, made no reference to a call by Belo for a referendum on self-determination.

He did not kiss the ground on arrival, which could have been interpreted as meaning he supported independence.

In Dili, the Pope abandoned the previously discreet style of his Indonesian tour when he stepped carefully to avoid offending the dominant Moslem population.

He said he had followed the situation in predominantly Catholic East Timor with deep concern throughout his 11-year pontificate and declared: "Your land is much in need of Christian healing and reconciliation."

The foreign priests at the mass, who asked not to be identified, said there was still considerable opposition to Indonesian rule but this was passive.

Only a few hundred guerrillas of the Fretilin independence movement remain in the mountains, confined to occasional skirmishes with the 14,000 strong army garrison here.

The Pope knelt to kiss a crucifix on the ground in front of the altar at the mass but Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said this was a purely pastoral gesture with no political significance.

The Pontiff flew to Dili on board a Hercules military transport plane from the nearby island of Flores.

He returned to Jakarta after a four-hour stay in Dili where he also blessed a new cathedral built with government help.

In Lisbon, Fretilin issued a statement saying it had hoped for more from the Pope's visit.

It said the people had awaited encouraging words in the struggle for their rights.

"(But) we only heard some small references to the violation of human rights during an undefined period which is like ignoring they persist now," it added.

Fretilin said the Pope's visit had been exploited by Indonesian officials who were doing everything to make the Vatican implicitly recognise Jakarta's control of Timor.

"The inclusion of Timor in his tour to Indonesia, the Pope's visit to Dili in an Indonesian plane and the fact he did not symbolically kiss the ground endorses Indonesian diplomacy," it said.

Portuguese Foreign Minister Joao de Deus Pinheiro later said in a statement that the Pope had made no gesture or statement during his visit which could be interpreted as accepting Timor's integration into Indonesia.

"Before his visit, the Pope sent a diplomatic note to the Portuguese government maintaining (his) position on the international statute of Timor."

He said the Pope's homily during mass had called attention to the violation of human rights "using a condemnatory tone which could have been, however, more violent".

The Portuguese minister said it had been made clear once again that the Timor people, especially youths, rejected Indonesian rule.

 

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