The Asia Pacific Coalition for East Timor (APCET) is a coalition of Asian human rights groups and East Timor solidarity networks that was founded at a conference in Manila in 1994 with the aim of galvanising solidarity with East Timor's struggle for national self-determination.

With East Timor having won its political independence, the fifth and final APCET conference, held in Dili on May 15-19, decided to transform APCET into a new coalition with a focus on issues of self-determination and demilitarisation in the broader Asia-Pacific region.

The conference was attended by 150 delegates. Australian organisations represented at the conference were Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific (ASAP) and the Australian Coalition for East Timor (ACET). Representatives from Burma, Aceh, West Papua, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Maintain, Malaysia and Indonesia highlighted the peoples' struggles in those countries and emphasised the useful role a more far-reaching solidarity coalition could play in the region.

Activists and human rights workers from East Timor also supported the resolution to expand APCET's brief, and decided to form their own solidarity organisation, which will be part of the new grouping.

During the fifth APCET meeting several statements on UNPO members where made.

On Aceh:

- To call upon both the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) to resume peace negotiations in Aceh and allow the inclusion of civil society as part of this democratic process
- To call for amnesty for all political prisoners in Aceh, including the thousands detained during the one year martial law period from May 2003-2004
- To call upon the Indonesian government to stop the isolation of political detainees by transferring Acehnese prisoners from Aceh to prisons elsewhere in Indonesia

- To demand the release of Nobel Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and other NLD leaders and the release of all political prisoners in Burma
- To support the call for tripartite dialogue between the NLD, ethnic nationalities and the Burmese military regime
- To stop all forms of human rights violations (particularly sexual violations against ethnic women of Burma, and forced labour practices)

- To demand that the Indonesian government stop their policy of dividing the Papua province
- To call upon the Indonesian government and the West Papuan people to resolve the problems of West Papua through peaceful dialogue
- To call upon the UN Secretary-General to review the UN’s role in the Act of Free Choice (PEPERA) in 1969.


This article was compiled with information from Initiatives for International Dialogue and Green Left