Megawati Backs Free East Timor
President Megawati Sukarnoputri said Thursday that she respects East Timor’s right to independence from Indonesia and apologized for past atrocities in two other restive provinces.
It was the first time Megawati--who had opposed East Timor’s secession--publicly acknowledged its right to self-determination.
“We openly respect our brothers’ choice to live in their own state,” she told the People’s Consultative Assembly as part of her first state of the nation speech.
At least 600 people were killed and much of East Timor’s infrastructure destroyed when Indonesia’s army and allied militia went on a rampage after a U.N.-sponsored independence referendum in 1999. In her speech, Megawati vowed to take legal action against anyone proved guilty of atrocities.
She also apologized for human rights abuses in Indonesia’s Aceh and Irian Jaya provinces, where separatists have waged secession campaigns. However, she said she would never allow the two regions to break away.
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