E. Timorese urged to return home

E. Timorese urged to return home

Agence France-Presse, Lisbon

East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao has urged skilled workers living in former colonial power Portugal to return home and help rebuild the war-battered country.

"We know of doctors and technicians who are doing well here and who are not motivated to return," he said in an interview published in Portuguese daily Diario de Noticas on Wednesday.

"They should be conscious that right now giving is more essential than receiving," he added.

Portugal colonized East Timor for four centuries before it abruptly withdrew in 1975, leaving the territory to be annexed by Indonesia.

Some 4,000 East Timorese currently live in Portugal, the majority of them students who came to Portugal in the years following Jakarta's invasion of the tiny nation.

Much of East Timor's infrastructure was destroyed by departing Indonesian security forces and their militias after the country voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence from Indonesia in August 1999.

At least 1,000 people died in violence before or after the referendum, and more than 250,000 East Timorese fled or were forced across the border into Indonesian West Timor.

Tens of thousand have still not returned home and the country now faces a shortage of skilled workers, especially doctors.

East Timor, which officially became independent in May, has just 47 doctors for its 850,000 citizens according to the World Health Organization.

Gusmao began a five day official visit to Portugal on Saturday. During his stay in the country Gusmao sought medical attention for a back problem that caused him to cancel a scheduled trip to Braga in the far north of Portugal.

During a lunch with Portuguese bankers and business leaders on Monday Gusmao appealed for investment in East Timor.

Portugal is a leading foreign investor in Brazil and its five other former colonies in Africa.