It is an issue with how Open Office Writer / NeoOffice Writer creates tables, not with how InDesign interprets tables.

Pasted from MS Word table:
1 2 3
A B C
% ^ &

Pasted from NeoOffice Writer (Mac version of Open Office) table:
1
2
3
A
B
C
%
^
&

Note that between each column of the table in MS Word, there is a tab (not visible in the HTML display). Between each column of the table in NeoOffice Writer, there is a carriage return.

The workaround is to transition through the Calc Spreadsheet, submit a feature request to the groups working on Open Office / NeoOffice for a change in how tables are handled in the open source Writer, or use a different application to access your text documents.

HTH

-mt