(21 Nov 1997) English/Nat
Indonesia's President Mohamed Suharto on Friday morning took time off from matters of state and visited an Indonesian trade fair at Cape Town's civic centre.
He was accompanied by Foreign Affairs Minister Alfred Nzo and Western Cape premier Hernus Kriel.
The visit was overshadowed by the human rights issues and the suppression of the East Timorese people.
Suharto, who was coaxed by President Nelson Mandela at Thursday's state banquet to do the Madiba jive, appeared relaxed.
He chatted to some of the 30 Indonesian producers who were exhibiting their products including leather, canned and frozen sea food, wooden and rattan furniture, glassware, textiles and batik.
From almost a zero base in the last five years, two-way trade between Indonesia and South Africa has grown to one-point-two-four (b) billion Rand, with the balance in South Africa's favour.
Trade relations have been hampered by the absence of direct transport links and the lack of formal agreement to facilitate economic co-operation.
SOUNDBITE:(English)
\"Cape Town does not exactly look like what poeple expected Africa to be, and I think it will be a very nice setting and an appropriate setting for us to do trade promotion, especially for people in Indonesia and Asia so they will look at Africa at a different angle\"
SUPER CAPTION:Mariam K. Sutalaksana, exhibitor
On Thursday, however, at the start of Suharto's three-day state visit to South Africa, bilateral agreements on trade and aviation were signed to boost trade.
While there has been a distinct emphasis on trade between the two countries, many have wanted to question Suharto on human rights issues in Indonesia.
Amnesty International on Thursday released photographs of alleged torture of young East Timorese women by Indonesian security forces.
President Mandela has come under some fire for apparently refusing to allow reporters to ask Suharto about East Timor and allegations of Indonesian human rights
Two agreements aimed at boosting economic links between the countries were signed on Thursday.
Later on Friday Suharto visited the kramat (shrine) of Islam's founder in South Africa, Shaikh Yusuf of Macassar.
He was an Indonesian prince who was exiled to the Cape by the Dutch more than 300 years ago, and spent some time on Robben Island.
SOUNDBITE: (Indonesian)
\"Independence and liberty is the right of all people therefore colonialism should be abolished from the whole of the world.\"
SUPER CAPTION: Suharto, Indonesian Prime Minister
However, the thorny issue of the disputed territory of East Timor has overshadowed the visit.
Indonesia annexed East Timor in 1976 - a year after its troops intervened in a civil war that broke out.
Previously Portugal had ruled the territory as a colony for more than four centuries and the United Nations still considers Portugal the legal ruler of East Timor.
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