A GROUP of East Timorese who sought political asylum at the Japanese Embassy left for Portugal last night amid a widespread security clampdown among diplomatic missions in Jakarta.
In the third break-in by East Timorese in two months and the fifth in two years, the 21 men on Tuesday scaled the fence of the embassy in central Jakarta and asked for asylum.
But Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hiroshi Hashiomoto was quoted as saying that his Government was unlikely to allow such a move because of constraints in Japan's legal system.
'Japan is not prepared to accept those seeking political asylum,' government spokesman Koken Nosaka said in Tokyo. The Japanese Embassy in Jakarta refused a similar bid by two East Timorese in 1989.
Instead, Portugal offered the men asylum or, more correctly, 'immigration' rights, the head of International Committee of the Red Cross in Indonesia, Henry Fournier, said yesterday.
The Red Cross has acted as a mediator in several similar incidents. Portugal is acknowledged by the United Nations as the administrative power in East Timor, a former colony.