By Jon Land

Two East Timorese were sentenced to prison for three years on June 27 for raising the flag of Fretilin in Dili on July 17 of last year. The peaceful protest marked the date that Suharto signed a bill declaring East Timor part of Indonesia.

Three Timorese youth were also sentenced for their involvement in peaceful demonstrations on April 14 in Dili. All received sentences of 20 months for “planning actions of hostility and hatred against the Indonesian government”.

It is believed that they will be moved from prison in Dili to elsewhere in Indonesia, as have at least a dozen other prisoners in recent weeks.

Security activity has increased in preparation for the July 15 arrival of the UN special rapporteur on torture and extrajudicial killings. Indonesian authorities do not want a repeat of the protests that took place in April, during a tightly controlled visit by foreign journalists.

In Malaysia on June 24, a special forum on East Timor organised by the Front of Malaysia Action, an umbrella group for 30 NGOs, criticised the ASEAN countries for allowing human rights violations such as those in East Timor to go unquestioned. “Every thing is done in the name of the solidarity between ASEAN members, but ASEAN should not be used to conceal human rights violations and genocide”, stated Hussein Ali, president of the opposition Malaysian Popular Party.

A film on the Dili massacre and other atrocities of the Indonesian military was shown at the forum, which received strong criticism from the Indonesian government. Malaysian minister for foreign affairs Abdullah Ahmad Badawi declared on June 26 that he wanted a ban on any future meetings and discussions of East Timor by Malaysian NGOs.

A petition campaign, “Indonesia out of Maubere”, has been launched in Portugal. East Timorese representatives were granted observer status at the summit of Portuguese-speaking states, which met in Lisbon on June 28.

In Canada, pressure from the East Timor Alert Network and other human rights groups has forced the Canadian government to cancel the Sulawesi Regional Development Program.

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