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U.S. supports reforms in Indonesia, Thailand

March 5, 1999
Web posted at: 4:12 a.m. EST (0912 GMT)

In this story: Back on track Protests block Albright RELATED STORIES, SITES

JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) -- U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright urged Indonesia Friday to resolve growing violence in East Timor and strive towards a fast-track economic reform program.

She also secured agreement from Indonesian President B.J. Habibie for international monitors for the country's June 7 parliamentary election.

Habibie pledged the election, expected to be the most volatile and violent in Indonesia for years, would be free and fair, she told reporters after an hour-long meeting at the Presidential Palace in central Jakarta.

"The sense that I got from talking with the president is that he is obviously devoted to having this happen -- a free, fair and open election," she told a joint news conference with Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas.

"There was a recognition that often a country going through this kind of electoral process can benefit from having outside technical assistance," she added.

Albright is the first senior U.S. official to visit Indonesia since the resignation of former President Suharto in May.

Indonesia's 125 million voters will elect a new 500-seat parliament in the country's first taste of democracy in four decades.

Pressed by a wave of large pro-democracy protests, Habibie agreed to bring the election forward from 2002 and to implement wide-ranging reforms, including ending the three- party system dictated by disgraced former President Suharto.

Back on track

Albright said Indonesia's human rights record had greatly improved since Habibie took over from Suharto after bloody riots last May. Democracy was blossoming in the world's fourth most populous nation, she said.

"Obviously from my sense there was a huge improvement in the human rights situation. We consider continued work on human rights issues very important to what I see as this new spirit of democracy that is blossoming here in Indonesia," she said.

But Albright pressed Habibie to push ahead with reforming the banking sector and to "do everything possible to keep the economic reform rolling."

"The president accepted the fact that all that was necessary," she added.

Economists say banking reforms are vital to efforts to drag Indonesia out of its worst economic crisis in three decades.

But last week, the government abruptly delayed a planned announcement of which banks would be closed and which would be saved under its rescue package for the debt-laden sector.

In a last-minute change of plan, Albright's travel itinerary was switched and she will leave Indonesia for London on Friday, a U.S. official said, for talks which may be related to the crisis in Kosovo.

Albright had a busy day agenda Friday. She had meetings scheduled with the main opposition leaders including Megawati Sukarnoputri of the Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle, Amien Rais, who heads the National Mandate Party, and Abdurrahman Wahid, leader of the mainly Muslim nation's largest Muslim group.

Protests block Albright

She also met East Timorese rebel leader Xanana Gusmao, who was released from house arrest to meet her at the Foreign Affairs Department.

He was taken to the meeting after protesters blocked the Albright motorcade travelling to Gusmao's home.

Gusmao pressed Albright to urge the United Nations to send a police force to his bloodied homeland immediately to help restore peace during international negotiations about the territory's fate, his lawyer, Johnson Panjaitan, told reporters.

Jakarta is offering East Timorese a choice between independence and enhanced autonomy as part of Indonesia.

The issue has blackened Indonesia's international reputation since it invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975. The United Nations does not recognise Jakarta's rule there.

On Thursday Albright said she was concerned at violence in East Timor and at reports that the Indonesian armed forces supplied weapons to pro-Jakarta loyalists.

Indonesia has denied arming civilian militias but says it has given guns to official paramilitary units charged with helping security forces maintain peace.

Albright brought up the wider question of the communal violence which has ravaged many parts of Indonesia.

"The call I have been making in all my statements is the importance of solving all these problems in a non-violent way," she said. "The cycle of violence will not lead to a resolution of the various issues."

Indonesia has been racked by waves of violence over the past year as ethnic, religious and social tensions boil over amid a ravaging economic and political crisis.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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