Rais backs down
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From AAP
06feb02
INDONESIA'S most senior legislative leader Amien Rais has partially backed down from a vow to boycott John Howard's visit, saying he would meet the Australian Prime Minister at a business lunch.
But Mr Rais, the speaker of Indonesia's National Assembly, said he would still not receive Mr Howard, who had planned to make a courtesy call to the legislature on Thursday.
He said all 11 parties of the legislature had unanimously voted against Mr Howard's three-day visit starting today.
"I have to get along with my own parliament, it's ridiculous if I receive him here in this building," Mr Rais told reporters at the parliamentary complex.
Mr Rais's decision yesterday to snub the Prime Minister sparked a war of words with Mr Howard, who was in transit in Singapore from the US on his way to Jakarta.
Mr Howard issued a statement repudiating Mr Rais's claims that Australia supported independence for Indonesia's easternmost province of Papua and that Canberra blamed Jakarta for the passage of asylum seekers into Australia.
Mr Rais admitted there was no hard evidence for his claim that Australia supported independence for Papua.
"It's some misunderstanding and maybe we have to rectify it so I have made up my mind that although I won't receive Mr Howard ... tomorrow I will come to the (business leaders) luncheon."
But he said Australia's decision in January 1999 to recommend an independence vote in East Timor was still fresh in Indonesians' memories.
"They saw what happened in East Timor, for example, when, in the eyes of the Indonesian public, it was obvious that Canberra was so biased regarding East Timor and then, to some extent at least, Canberra had an indirect hand at least in pulling out East Timor from the Republic (of Indonesia)," he said.
Meanwhile, parliament speaker Akbar Tanjung confirmed today that he would join the boycott of Mr Howard's visit because the Commission on Foreign Affairs was opposed to it.
"I will not meet with him (Mr Howard) in person," Mr Tanjung said.
Mr Tanjung was unavailable for comment yesterday because he was being questioned by the attorney-general's office on corruption charges.
Mr Tanjung denied that the last-minute decision would embarrass the host country.
"I don't think it will be embarrassing for Indonesia," he said.
AAP