East Timor's Bishop Belo steps down for health reasons
East Timor's Bishop Belo steps down for health reasons
Jose Belo Associated Press Dili, East Timor
The Roman Catholic bishop who won a Nobel Peace Prize for leading nonviolent resistance to Indonesia's quarter-century occupation of East Timor stepped down Tuesday from his religious post, citing poor health.
"I am suffering from both physical and mental fatigue that will require a long period of recuperation," Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo said in a statement released by his diocese in East Timor's capital, Dili.
Belo, 54, has complained of ill health recently. Last week, he returned from a three-month stay in Portugal, where he underwent undisclosed medical treatment.
Belo became bishop of Dili in 1983 and emerged as a spiritual leader and symbol of resistance against Indonesia, which invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975.
In 1996 he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Jose Ramos-Horta, a prominent independence leader who is currently East Timor's foreign minister, for advocating nonviolent resistance to Indonesian rule.
Ramos-Horta said he was "surprised" and "saddened" by the news.
"He personified part of our struggle side-by-side with (President) Xanana Gusmao," Ramos-Horta was quoted as saying by the Portuguese news agency Lusa.
Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said that East Timor still needed Belo as the world's newest country grapples with the challenges of nation building.
"Bishop Ximenes Belo has had a positive role in our country and I hope that, even removed from his diocese, he can still help us consolidate peace and stability with his opinions and criticisms," he quoted him as saying by the news agency.
East Timor's 800,000 people are 97 percent Roman Catholic. Belo said he had informed Pope John Paul II of his decision to resign as bishop and that the pontiff had accepted it.
There was no immediate comment from the Vatican.
While he sometimes cooperated with the Indonesian authorities, Belo stood up to Soeharto - the dictator of Indonesia until 1998 - and criticized human rights abuses by the police and military.
He was revered by the population for personally intervening in disputes between Indonesian security forces and pro-independence demonstrators.
In August 1999, a UN-sponsored referendum on self- determination resulted in an overwhelming vote for independence for East Timor.
During the run-up to the vote and its aftermath, anti- independence militias backed by the Indonesian army went on a rampage, killing up to 2,000 civilians, burning and looting houses and driving 250,000 people from their homes.
Belo was airlifted to Australia a day after gun-toting militia gangs stormed his home and set it on fire. The gangs then attacked thousands of refugees sheltering on the grounds of his home and forcibly shipped them to Indonesia.
He returned after international peacekeepers arrived to restore order.
After a period of transitional UN administration, East Timor gained full independence in May this year.
In the run-up to independence, Belo made it clear that he had no political ambitions. Since then, Belo and the country's other bishop, Basilio Nascimento, have been instrumental in achieving national reconciliation and assisting tens of thousands of refugees to return home from Indonesia.