---------------------------------------------------------- FREE for JOIN Indonesia Daily News Online via EMAIL: go to: http://www.indo-news.com/subscribe.html - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - Please Visit Our Sponsor http://www.indo-news.com/cgi-bin/ads1 ---------------------------------------------------------- SUPANGKAT'S COLUMN: WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE INDEPENDENCE OPTION? ALATAS PEBBLE IN THE SHOE TURNED US INTO A PARIAH NATION Ramos Horta predicted that our financial crisis eventually will force Indonesia to give up on East Timor. When I asked Foreign Minister Alatas about this statement he said that Horta can keep on dreaming for independence but it won't happen. It doesn't matter now. It already happened and Horta's prediction came true. But I really want to know who was the conceptor of the option for independence? It was rumored that Dewi Fortuna (meaning Lucky Goddess) was the brain behind it. Others said it was General Achmad Tirtosudiro. But surely it was not Alatas who opposed the independence idea all along. He was even surpirsed about the cabinet's decision he had to announce himself to the media. The reason of economic burden as predicted by Horta is very much in order. But who was it ? I didn't have the chance to ask either Xanana Gusmao or Ramos Horta at the press conference in the UN Tueday morning because the time was up, not only there were too many questions but because Xanana had to answer the questions in good but slow English, sometimes in Portuguese. It was another possibility that general Achmad Tirto proposed the idea because he is the only independence fighter in the present regime where he serves as Deputy Chairman of the DPA. And as independence fighter like a.o. President Nelson Mandela, he might have some sympathy for the independence. Unlike Vice President general Try who called Xanana "a rat" having no respect for independence struggle. The option for independence was like an unstoppable lightning, it developed quickly into an inspiration from heaven, it became a euphoria not only in East Timor itself but in the United Nations circle as well where most of them had been waiting for. The word independence seemed to be charged with such an unstoppable energy from heaven, reminiscient of our own independence struggle almost fifty years ago. Should they have known? Had Alatas underestimated East Timor and its people when he said that the problem is nothing but "a pebble in the shoe" but which turned out to be a hell for all of us making Indonesia a "pariah nation" a la Serbia and Rwanda? A bungling of this magnitude is not supposed to be trashed into obliviion. New York, September 29,1990. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Didistribusikan tgl. 29 Sep 1999 jam 14:09:06 GMT+1 oleh: Indonesia Daily News Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.Indo-News.com/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
