INDONESIA GIVES GO-AHEAD FOR EAST TIMOR PEACE FORCE.
Indonesian President B. J. Habibie yesterday invited UN peacekeeping troops to enter East Timor in a dramatic reversal of policy, reports the Financial Times (p.1). ?I have made the decision to give our approval to a peacekeeping force together with the Indonesian military to maintain the security of East Timor,? Habibie said in a televised speech, yielding to international pressure and threats of sanctions. ?Too many people have lost their lives. We cannot wait any longer.?
Habibie said he had informed UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan of his decision minutes earlier and would send Foreign Minister Ali Alatas to the Security Council in New York at once to discuss the terms. He gave no hint about the likely arrival date of such troops, however, nor the form of cooperation with the Indonesian army. Indonesia?s powerful military, which is seen as having tolerated or orchestrated the violence in East Timor, said it supported the move.
Diplomats said unprecedented pressure by the World Bank and the IMF was instrumental in persuading Indonesia to accept the international peacekeeping force, the FT (p.6) says in a separate report. In separate statements, the Bank and the Fund had suggested that future aid to Indonesia would be linked to progress on East Timor. The IMF [on Friday] said it had suspended a planned economic mission to Indonesia which was a prerequisite for approval of the next IMF loan tranche of $450 million.
Earlier this year, the World Bank also said it was holding back a $600 million loan to Jakarta, notes the story. Wolfensohn said in Copenhagen today that the Bank and the Fund would not extend any new loans to Indonesia until the Bank Bali scandal had been cleared up, Reuters reports. "We and the Fund...are not doing any new lending until we can get that clarified," Wolfensohn is quoted as saying.
However, the FT continues, the suspension gained a highly political dimension last week, following comments by World Bank President James Wolfensohn in a letter to Habibie. Wolfensohn urged the government to honor its public commitment to the outcome of East Timor?s independence referendum.
The controversial link between aid and politics fuelled debate at last week?s emergency meeting in Auckland of APEC ministers and officials, says the story. On the margins of the meeting, Japan spoke against the politicization of international financial institutions.
Jakarta?s acquiescence last night, however, took its critics by surprise. Some said it was due to the ?combination of threats?, including moves by the US and the UK to suspend military assistance and arms sales to Indonesia.
>From now, says the story, the focus for aid organizations will be on new
programs for East Timor, where the World Bank is the largest of the few
international agencies with development projects as part of its national aid
program. Ironically, diplomatic sensitivities have prevented most
international
agencies from establishing aid projects in the territory. The UN refused to
recognize Jakarta?s annexation of East Timor in 1976.
Before last month?s independence referendum, the Bank planned to start an aid coordination process for East Timor and had already commenced informal aid, says the story.
Meanwhile, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka suggested on Friday that Japan has no plan to suspend official development assistance to Indonesia because of spreading violence in East Timor after a crucial vote for independence there, Jiji Press English News Service reports.
At the same time, East Timor lobby groups warned the UN today to beware of Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas trying to delay the deployment of a peacekeeping force in the ravaged territory, reports Agence France-Presse. Nobel peace laureate Jose Ramos-Horta, who returns to Washington tomorrow to continue pressing for American troops, also said he would lobby the World Bank for help to rebuild his country's shattered economy.
In commentary about the crisis, the Washington Post (p.A26) says that Indonesia will earn penalties if it fails to fully deliver on President Habibie?s promise to stop the atrocities in East Timor, burdening a country that itself needs the cooperation and company of the rest of the world.
In other news, a decision by the so-called Paris Club of creditor nations on dealing with Indonesia's enormous debt has been delayed until next year because of the situation in East Timor, AFP reports.