East Timorese leaders to visit Indonesia

East Timorese leaders to visit Indonesia

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters): Nobel peace prize co-winner Jose Ramos-Horta said on Wednesday that he and East Timorese independence leader Xanana Gusmao would meet Indonesia's new president Abdurrahman Wahid in Jakarta on Nov. 30.

"We are going to Jakarta, even before I finally return to East Timor, to pay tribute to the wisdom and vision of (President) Abdurrahman Wahid and begin the process of reconciliation and rebuilding of relations with that great country, the Republic of Indonesia," Ramos-Horta said.

Calling Wahid "my good friend," Ramos-Horta said the new Indonesian leader was a "man of great moral authority, something that was lacking in Indonesia for many years."

Ramos-Horta, expected to go home for the first time since 1974 on Dec. 1, made the comments while accepting an award from the Hague Appeal for Peace, a coalition of various groups that organized a conference in the Netherlands capital in May, to call for the abolition of war in the new century.

Cora Weiss, a veteran American peace campaigner and president of the Hague Appeal for Peace, said Ramos-Horta was honored for his non-violent struggle for East Timorese independence from Indonesia.

In 1996 he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with East Timor's spiritual leader, Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo.

Indonesia incorporated the former Portuguese colony in 1975 but agreed to let it go after East Timorese on Aug. 30 voted overwhelmingly for independence in a UN-organized ballot.

Pro-Jakarta militias went on the rampage to protest the vote before Australian-led troops entered the territory in mid- September to restore order.

Ramos-Horta, in his speech accepting the prize, noted that U.S. ambassador Richard Holbrooke was leaving for a trip to Timor on Thursday. Holbrooke and Assistant Secretary of State Stanley Roth are to visit East Timor, West Timor and Jakarta before returning to the United States on Nov. 24.