By Max Lane
The major East Timorese newspapers Suara Timor Timur and Novas carried lead stories on March 29 about Indonesia's People's Democratic Party's (PRD) position on East Timorese self-determination.
That day, the Election Implementation Committee for the "province" of East Timor was sworn in. Two members of the national Election Implementation Committee, including PRD representative Aan Rusdianto, were in Dili for the ceremony.
Rusdianto refused to participate in the ceremony or sign the certification documents. He declared that the PRD does not recognise that East Timor is part of Indonesia. The second national delegate, from the People's Choice Party, threatened to report the PRD for stating its own views rather than official policy.
Rusdianto left the ceremony to join about 50 East Timorese protesters calling for a boycott in East Timor of the Indonesian general election. Most of the activists were from the recently formed Socialist Party of Timor (PST).
Rusdianto read out a PRD statement, which was reported in full in the Dili newspapers, calling for a United Nations-supervised referendum on self-determination, the immediate withdrawal of all Indonesian military and civilian security personnel from East Timor and the unconditional release of Xanana Gusmao and political prisoners.
Rusdianto explained that the PRD rejected the formation of provincial and district Election Implementation Committees in East Timor. East Timor, he said, was still on the agenda of the UN as an unresolved issue, and no country, including Indonesia and Portugal, had the right to carry out elections in East Timor.
"The people of East Timor must determine their own fate", he said, "rather than their fate being determined by a parliament that will be the product of elections organised by the Habibie regime and which will not be organised in a free and fair manner".
The PST also issued a statement on March 23 in Jakarta at a media conference attended by PST central committee member Nelson Tomas Correia and PRD representative Hendri Kuok. The PST reaffirmed its call for a boycott of the Indonesian election on the basis that East Timor is not a part of Indonesia, is not recognised by the UN as a part of Indonesia, and therefore Indonesian laws do not apply in East Timor. Correia said the PST would support a referendum on self-determination only as a step towards total independence for the East Timorese people.