EAST TIMOR WILL NOT SUPPORT BELARUS CANDIDACY AT UN HUMAN

C O N F I D E N T I A L DILI 000176

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EAP/MTS, IO/RHS, DRL/MLGA, EUR/PGI
TOKYO FOR HANS KLEMM
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 5/7/2017
TAGS: PHUM PREL UNHRC TT
SUBJECT: EAST TIMOR WILL NOT SUPPORT BELARUS CANDIDACY AT UN HUMAN
RIGHTS COUNCIL

REF: STATE 58056

CLASSIFIED BY: Eleanor Nagy, Charge d'Affaires ad interim, Exec,
State.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)



1.(SBU) East Timor FM Jose Luis Guterres, just back from a two
week visit to New York, told CDA April 7 that East Timor would
not vote for the candidacy of Belarus to the UN Human Rights
Council. Guterres stated that he had already instructed staff
at the UN on the matter. The FM added that the UN Human Rights
Council, which was designed to reform the UN's human rights
body, had been a disappointment thus far, and that East Timor
could not support a country with human rights problems such as
Belarus for membership on the Council.

2.(C) Guterres noted, however, that the Non-Aligned Movement
(NAM) would probably support Belarus. As a member of the NAM,
this put East Timor in a somewhat awkward position, but Guterres
said East Timor had made its position clear and that since there
was a secret ballot, the NAM would not have a record of how its
members had voted. Guterres himself had supported President
Bush and the U.S. during his statements at the NAM summit in
Havana, and would continue seeking ways to support the U.S. in
the NAM. East Timor also saw its membership in the Community of
Democracies and that body as a useful balance to the NAM.
However, South Africa and India, while both democracies, had
played a disappointing role in the NAM and elsewhere in not
advocating strongly enough for democratic principles and values.

NAGY