Belo, Horta receive Nobel prize

By Lela E. Madjiah

OSLO (JP): Dili Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo accepted the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday with a call for the Indonesian government to release all East Timorese political prisoners in step towards peace in the former Portuguese territory.

The head of the Roman Catholic Church in East Timor said the gesture would demonstrate a sincere effort toward changing the serious human rights conditions in East Timor.

"(It) would help create an important opening on the road to peace," Belo said in his Nobel speech before the Norwegian Nobel Committee, King Harald and Queen Sonja of Norway and about a 1000 other invitees.

Belo shares the Nobel Peace Prize with self-exiled East Timor separatist spokesman Jose Ramos Horta. Besides medals and diplomas, the two men share the U.S.$1.2 million check prize.

Ramos Horta, whose selection raised questions in Jakarta and Dili about whether he deserved the award, restated his peace plan which includes autonomy and self-determination for East Timor.

Bishop Belo holds an Indonesian passport, making him the first Indonesian to receive the prestigious award.

The Indonesian ambassador to Norway was absent from the ceremony, apparently to avoid the possible embarrassment of Ramos Horta attacking Indonesia in his speech.

Ambassadors from fellow Association of Southeast Asian Nations also stayed away.

Among the guests at Oslo City Hall were Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio, Mozambique President Joaquim Alberto Chissano, Guinea Bissau President Joao Bernardo Vieira, Angolan Foreign Minister Venancio da Silva Moura and Vatican Cardinal Roger Etcheganay.

Nobel Committee Chairman Francis Sejersted said Belo and Ramos Horta were awarded the prize for their "long-lasting efforts to achieve a just and peaceful solution to the twenty-year-old conflict in East Timor."

This description of Ramos Horta's activities has been widely disputed by Jakarta. Indonesian officials have said Ramos Horta was a member of Fretilin, the political faction in East Timor which killed their fellow East Timorese during the civil war in the wake of the withdrawal of Portuguese colonial administration in 1975. Far from promoting peace, Ramos Horta's campaigns abroad have repeatedly foiled efforts to settle the conflict, they said.

Sejersted said the award was linked to human rights issues.

"We have constantly received confirmation that this was the right path to take, although the choice of this criterion has been criticized because it allegedly has nothing to do with peace.

"But it is precisely in forging a close link between the human rights criterion and peace that we believe we are realizing that criterion's most universal and most fundamental aspects. Peace, stability and harmony must be based on mutual respect."

Belo called for compromise.

"To make peace, we must be flexible as well as wise. We must truly recognize our own faults and move to change ourselves in the interests of making peace. I am no exception to this rule.

"Let us banish anger and hostility, vengeance and other dark emotions, and transform ourselves into humble instruments of peace," he said.

People in East Timor are not uncompromising, he said.

"They are not unwilling to forgive and overcome their bitterness. They wish to build bridges with their Indonesian brothers and sisters to find ways of creating harmony and tolerance," he said.

Belo called for dialog on East Timor.

"It is high time that there is authentic dialog. All people of goodwill must use every peaceful means of human ingenuity and intelligence to find ways to create a genuine peace based on mutual respect and human dignity," he said.

The bishop thanked the Nobel Committee's decision to focus on East Timor and the quest for peace in the territory.

East Timor was given the chance to be heard through the award, he said.

He called on all people in similar conditions, to use non- violent means to voice their grievances.

Bishop Belo said he placed high hopes on the United Nations ability to generate dialog on peace in East Timor.

Ramos Horta said he is "ready to enter into a process of dialog with the Indonesian authorities, under the auspices of the United Nations, without preconditions, to explore all possible ideas toward a comprehensive settlement of the conflict".

Ramos Horta said his share of the Nobel award should have gone to Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao.

Xanana, the former commander of the Fretilin separatist movement in East Timor, is in an Indonesian jail serving a 20- year jail term for heading an armed rebellion.

The United Nations has been promoting dialog between Indonesia and Portugal to settle the East Timor conflict. The next round of meetings are scheduled in New York later this month.