DAP calls for a new 2000 Budget to be presented in Parliament later this
month which would include a special budgetary allocation to enable Malaysia
to spearhead an ASEAN co-ordinated initiative to help rebuild East
Timor
Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang
(Petaling Jaya, Saturday): On Monday,
East Timor independence leader Xanana Gusmao who heads the National Council
of the Timorese Resistance (CNRT), the biggest political organization
in East Timor, will visit Malaysia for a three-day visit together
with Jose Ramos-Horta, a Nobel peace prize laureate and CNRT vice-president,
as part of his Asian tour to seek support in helping rebuild the
territory.
The Malaysian Government’s stand and record on East Timorese independence
had not been a happy one, whether it be:
-
Malaysia’s token force of 20 military observers to the United Nations
peacekeeping force in East Timor under the UN Transitional Administration
in East Timor (UNTAET) responsible for East Timor for the next two
to three years to prepare the territory for independence and nationhood;
-
Malaysia’s opposition to United Nations investigations into human rights
violations and atrocities in East Timor after the August 30
vote for independence by the East Timorese last year.
-
The lawless and gangsterish break-up of the peaceful and private Second
Asia-Pacific Conference on East Timor (APCET) in Kuala Lumpur on 9th November
1996.
-
Malaysian government’s indifference to the massacre of a quarter of a million
East Timorese since Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor in 1975.
This is however the time to let bygones be bygones.
DAP calls for a new 2000 Budget to be presented in Parliament later
this month which would include a special budgetary allocation to enable
Malaysia to spearhead an ASEAN co-ordinated initiative to help rebuild
East Timor.
An all-party parliamentary committee should be formed to show that this
is an initiative which has the support of all political parties, whether
Barisan Nasional or Barisan Alternative.
(5/2/2000)
*Lim Kit Siang - DAP National Chairman