Ethnological studies on E. Timor

DILI, East Timor: Dili Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo will initiate studies on the cultural development of the East Timorese, Antara reported yesterday.

The local people need to know about their culture and identity as an ethnic group, Belo said here Saturday. A small group of experts will meet next week to draw up a plan for the studies.

Belo said several studies on East Timorese culture have been conducted, mostly before the territory's 1976 integration into Indonesia. The results of those studies, conducted mostly by Western experts, are now kept in many foreign libraries.

"They wrote down whatever they knew, but they did not have or live the legacy," he said. "It's the East Timorese themselves who live East Timorese culture."

The group comprised experts on culture, anthropologists, sociologists and philosophers.

Belo said he had long planned establishing a center for the study of East Timor. (swe)