The Indonesian government's claim on what is says are its assets in East Timor may reflect its difficulty in accepting that a territory it once governed is now a newborn nation, standing on its own independent feet.

But critics say is much more than that. Some called East Timor President Xanana Gusmao's visit to Indonesia yesterday, a deliberate attempt to divert the people's attention from the Indonesian state's responsibility for human rights abuses in East Timor, including the violence that followed the 1999 independence ballot.

In a meeting in mid-June, the Indonesian delegation again told East Timorese officials that Indonesia now wanted to talk seriously about claiming its assets built in East Timor — which Jakarta had considered a province after it annexed it in 1976.

Even before East Timor became formally independent in May, Indonesia had been demanding that it be allowed to send down a team to calculate the values of assets it says it had built during the 24 years it ran the territory.

These include public infrastructure such as roads, office building, electricity facilities and telecommunication cables and private assets.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda has said the issue is a major one to be negotiated with East Timor. Indonesia has had several rounds of talks with the UN Transitional Authority in East Timor, but there have been no results so far, he said.

Society ruined

But some here say such claims do not make sense, arguing that Indonesia has created more damage in East Timor in terms of lives lost and its society ruined — rather than given assets to it.

"If Indonesia had to pay the Dutch for its assets in the country, we would not have much left now," said Taufan, programme coordinator of the Indonesia Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI), a Jakarta-based NGO with a long record of advocacy on human rights abuses in East Timor.

"This is an attempt of politicians to avoid their responsibility the question on human rights abuses (in East Timor) by twisting people's opinions to the less important issue," he pointed out. "Such demand is embarrassing since it shows a colonial attitude among Indonesian politicians.''

Activists say that the 1999 massacre by pro-Jakarta militia, which occurred in the days and weeks after the independence vote, cost East Timor up to US$4 million, according to Indonesian media estimates.

Most of East Timor's infrastructure and facilities were damaged or rendered useless after the violence.

These costs, critics say, do not even include all the destruction and backwardness East Timor has had to bear in the past 24 years under Jakarta's rule.

International tribunal

And at present, although Indonesia is holding a trial in Jakarta in relation to the 1999 violence, with pro-Jakarta militia leaders charged with torture and murder, international observers have faulted it for lack of transparency. Rights activists want an international tribunal as an alternative should the trial fail to bring justice.

Indonesia's claims to having left assets in East Timor may be attributed to by some to spite. After all, East Timor's separation was the first time since Indonesia's independence from the Dutch in 1945 — followed by the annexation of West Papua in 1961 and East Timor in 1974 — that the country lost a part of its territory.

Decades of nationalistic propaganda by the state have left, until today, many negative feelings on East Timor's independence.

"Unlike when it was with Indonesia, East Timor is no longer a good place," said Tamadi, a 50-year-old farmer-turned-taxi driver from central Java.

"There is a war there and people are suffering,'' he said, although violence has ended.

''That is because of Xanana Gusmao who wanted East Timor to split fromIndonesia. (President) Habibie must also be blamed for letting it happen,'' he continued.

Taufan concedes that there are also those among the better educated who think similarly. The main reason, he believes, is lack of information through the years that prevented them from critically analysing Jakarta's propaganda.

"Members of the local parliament in Kalimantan recently asked me why my organisation had to help the Timorese," he recalled.

"But they understood when I explained about cases of rights abuses and the historical fact that our forefathers had never took East Timor as part of the Dutch colony to be converted into Indonesia.''

Still, he says most Indonesians accept the change in East Timor. "You can see that there are many East Timorese in Indonesia, but we never heard that they were harassed by Indonesians," he pointed out.

Others say Indonesia has bigger problems to deal with. ''I don't know much about East Timor,'' said 27-year-old office worker Malvi.

''But there are many things that we should now pay more attention to. The government should think about how to stop the cost of living from increasing and get rid of crimes instead of fighting with the Timorese," she said.

But for many politicians, East Timor is far from a finished story.

Debates raged here on whether President Megawati Sukarnoputri should attend East Timor's independence rites on May 20, after Timorese President Xanana Gusmao personally came to invite her. In the end, she did attend the ceremony.

Felt cheated

But Amien Rias, speaker of People's Consultative Assembly and leader of National Mandate Party, said that many Indonesians will not be able to forget feeling ''cheated'' during the UN sponsored ballot in 1999 — and how East Timor turned its back on Indonesia.

Taufan says the debate about East Timor had more to do with Jakarta's power struggle then East Timor itself.

"Right now political parties are running against time for the 2004 election. It won't be surprising if theissue of East Timor has become a part of political game in Jakarta, where politicians try every way to gain more votes for themselves and discredit others," he said.

As for Jakarta's claims to the ''assets'' it left in East Timor, EastTimor Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said: "The Indonesian government already knows clearly that our approach to this problem is a zero-sum approach.''

"We will forget everything and you will forget everything. We will start from zero," he told Tempo magazine.