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.