E. Timor President Gusmao to visit NTT

KUPANG, East Nusa Tenggara: East Timor President Xanana Gusmao is scheduled to visit East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), or West Timor, later this month to encourage East Timorese refugees still living in camps there to return home.

East Nusa Tenggara provincial spokesman Johanis Bastian Kosapilawan said on Saturday that the province had received information from the Indonesian representative office in Dili, East Timor, that Xanana would visit Atambua and Kupang from Oct. 20 to 24.

A definitive agenda for the visit had not yet been released.

Xanana visited Atambua earlier this year. His visit was aimed at motivating more refugees to return to their homeland in East Timor and accelerating the process of reconciliation among East Timorese.

The Indonesian government has decided to stop all official assistance to the refugees by the end of this year.

Currently, the number of East Timorese refugees in NTT stand at about 33,000 and they are scattered over West Timor and some regions of Flores, Alor and the Sumba islands. --Antara