Wahid lands in Christchurch

4:30 pm

Beleaguered Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid has arrived in Christchurch in the first visit to New Zealand by an Indonesian leader in almost three decades.

Landing in torrential, freezing rain after saying in Australia he would call a state of emergency if foes seeking his impeachment kept on badgering him, the frail Muslim cleric was met on New Zealand's South Island by Prime Minister Helen Clark.

Wahid faces a parliamentary hearing on August 1 and could be impeached over two financial scandals.

Political opponents also want him to account for his erratic 20-month rule as Indonesia's first democratically elected president, a demand he rejects.

Clark acknowledged her guest - almost blind at 60 after two strokes - could be regarded as a lameduck leader.

But she said the trip should improve ties strained - as were those between Indonesia and Australia - when Australia and New Zealand led a multinational force into East Timor after it voted in 1999 to break away from Jakarta.

"His political future looks rather difficult right now," Clark told Radio New Zealand.

"In my experience with official talks of this kind you also have a good range of civil servants there who endure irrespective of who is in government," she said.

Like Australia, New Zealand was expected to press Wahid to ensure army officers and militia leaders are punished for atrocities committed in East Timor after the independence vote, when pro-Jakarta gunmen went on a bloody rampage.

The United Nations, running East Timor ahead of its expected independence next year, estimates more than 1,000 people were killed in the former Portuguese colony, which was invaded by Indonesia in 1975 and run by Jakarta for 24, often brutal, years.

Clark will discuss continuing militia activity in refugee camps in Indonesian West Timor, where a quarter of East Timor's 900,000 people fled during the violence two years ago.

She would also ask about the death of Private Leonard Manning, killed and mutilated on patrol near the West Timor border last July, and the first New Zealand soldier to die in action in about 30 years.

Clark said she also saw a chance to boost trade with Indonesia, which has a population of 211 million people, compared with New Zealand's four million.

After his 18-hour visit to New Zealand, Wahid flies to Darwin in Australia's tropical north, and then on Friday to Manila.

Before leaving Australia on Wednesday morning, the Indonesian leader warned he would call a state of emergency if his political rivals continued to demand he account for his rule.

Wahid faces some criticism at home for travelling in the run-up to the impeachment hearing, which has sunk the vast archipelago into political crisis and sparked violent clashes.

Former New Zealand UN ambassador Terence O'Brien said he believed the trip was partly aimed at improving his position domestically.

But there were risks in trying to make up with Australia, which is blamed by Indonesian nationalists for the loss of East Timor.

"The danger is that his opponents, particularly some elements in the army, might come out and say...he's gone down on bended knee and he's not tough enough," O'Brien said.

- REUTERS

Feature: Indonesia

CIA World Factbook: Indonesia (with map)

Dept. of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia

Antara news agency

Indonesian Observer

The Jakarta Post

UN Transitional Administration in E Timor

East Timor Action Network