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RIGHTS-EAST TIMOR: Resistance Leader Seeks Rebuilding

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 28 1999 (IPS) - Timorese resistance leader Xanana Gusmao Tuesday pleaded for the reconstruction of East Timor and the quick deployment of international troops there to restore order after weeks of violence by pro-Indonesia forces.

Gusmao, freed three weeks ago from house arrest in Indonesia, made his appeal for international assistance as the United Nations announced that East Timor would need 135.5 million dollars in immediate emergency needs.

The Timorese leader met separately with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas Tuesday and declared that the situation of some 200,000 East Timorese, forcibly deported to West Timor, was especially dire.

“We need the multinational force to move fast into East Timor, to increase the number of troops there,” Gusmao, leader of the pro-independence National Council for Timorese Resistance (CNRT), said. Currently, only about half of the more than 7,000 Australian- led troops of the International Force, or Interfet, were deployed in East Timor.

Gusmao said that hundreds of thousands of East Timorese who had been moved to the Indonesian province of West Timor and to several Indonesian islands were in “very poor conditions of food and security. They live in fear.”

UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said that UN and Indonesian officials were discussing the repatriation of the East Timorese refugees, approximately 230,000 of whom were in West Timor. But Indonesian officials said it was “too early to discuss their return,” Eckhard said.

Gusmao said that, during their meeting, Alatas had promised Indonesia would “contribute to the greatest possible extent to pacify East Timor and to repatriate the refugees.”

Jose Ramos Horta, Gusmao’s deputy and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, added that the CNRT had urged all governments to exert diplomatic pressure for the return of the Timorese refugees and called for a “mini-Marshall Plan” of assistance to the island state.

According to UN officials and reports from the territory, East Timor has been largely destroyed in the violence by the militias – reportedly aided by some Indonesian troops – since the Aug. 30 ballot in which nearly 80 percent of East Timorese voters opted for independence from Indonesia.

The UN report issued Tuesday said that at least 135.5 million dollars would be needed to handle the basic requirements for the next six months of the roughly 500,000 East Timorese who were driven from their homes because of the violence.

Of that amount, more than 40 million dollars is needed for food aid, 22.4 million for shelter and other support to refugees, 24 million for medicine and 21.7 million for clean water and sanitation.

Ramos Horta added that the World Bank and more than 30 countries have confirmed their intention to assess East Timor’s rebuilding needs jointly and to estimate the territory’s long-term requirements.

After several weeks when thousands of East Timorese are believed to have been killed and hundreds of thousands lived with little food in makeshift camps, Gusmao’s arrival at the United Nations struck a somber note.

“You have been through a lot, and we’ve been through a lot together,” Annan said at the beginning of his meeting with the CNRT leader.

Although the United Nations succeeded in carrying out the Aug. 30 ballot, which has started East Timor’s process towards independence, it has come under fire for ignoring reports that pro- Indonesia forces were planning massacres if the results went against them.

“It’s no secret that threats (of violence) were widely made,” conceded Ian Martin, head of the UN Assistance Mission in East Timor (UNAMET), which pulled most of its personnel from East Timor earlier this month. However, he argued, there had been no indication of the scale and degree of organisation of the violence.

Alatas told Gusmao that Jakarta also had been “shocked” by the violence.

In any case, Gusmao argued, “we had fought for 23 years for this opportunity” to choose whether or not to accept Indonesia’s occupation, and the Timorese remained grateful to the United Nations for the vote even despite the brutal aftermath.

The task of rebuilding East Timor, however, appeared complex.

Indonesian entities – including some controlled by the military and by the family of the former Indonesian dictator, Suharto – own many of East Timor’s coffee plantations and timber resources. Despite the violence, Gusmao made clear that the CNRT did not intend to alienate Indonesian or other businesses.

“We will of course respect the right of people that legitimately had acquired economic interests in East Timor,” Gusmao said. He added that East Timor remains open for Indonesian investment.

Jorge Sampaio, president of Portugal, noted that the militias had destroyed the main property registry office in East Timor, complicating the determination of legitimate ownership further.

Many issues remained to be resolved once the United Nations set up a transitional authority in East Timor, which is expected to last for several years before the former Portuguese colony finally declared its independence. Annan conducted talks on the transition this week with Gusmao, as well as officials from Portugal and Indonesia, which had occupied East Timor since 1975.

Gusmao hoped that the UN transitional authority could be established quickly in East Timor. But Martin said that the United Nations would not exercise transitional authority until after Indonesia ratified the results of the Aug. 30 ballot – which was expected by late October or early November.

 
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