Gusmao wants to be a photographer

Gusmao wants to be a photographer

DILI (AP): East Timor's independence leader Xanana Gusmao doesn't want to be the territory's first president. He would rather be a photographer.

But whether he can fulfill this wish is debatable.

Ask just about anyone on the streets of East Timor's capital, Dili, who they want as their first president and the answer will be a resounding: "Xanana!"

When the fledgling nation signed a landmark multibillion dollar oil and natural gas deal with Australia recently, Gusmao wasn't participating with other dignitaries. He was poking a camera in their faces, taking their picture.

When about 5,000 people gathered earlier this month to witness the signing of a nonviolence pact between rival parties contesting the historic parliamentary elections being held on Aug. 30, he was working the crowd with his Minolta SLR.

Flanked by a team of bodyguards, Gusmao climbed atop a platform and elbowed his way into the middle of a mob of other cameramen and photographers, vying for the winning shot.

Having achieved his goal to lead his ravaged homeland to independence after 24 years of repressive Indonesian rule, and four centuries of Portuguese colonialism, Gusmao has had enough of politics.

"I would rather be a photographer than a politician," he told The Associated Press.

But his longtime friend and colleague, acting Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta, said Gusmao's destiny lies in politics.

"He does not want the job. But his responsibility to the East Timorese people is to be the first elected president of this country. He realizes that," Ramos-Horta said.

"And he would starve as a photographer. He is very bad," the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate added.

Gusmao was born June 20, 1946, the second of eight children.

At age 13, his schoolteacher father packed him off to a Jesuit seminary in the hills above Dili.

In 1968, he got his first taste of life as a soldier when he was recruited by the Portuguese into their colonial army to serve three years of national service.

Although Portugal was a neo-fascist state at the time, its army in East Timor was a hotbed of leftist activity. Most junior officers were reservists fed up with the bloody wars in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea Bissau. They indoctrinated their East Timorese soldiers, including Gusmao, with a healthy dose of social-democratic ideals that remain with him to this day.

Portugal withdrew from the territory in 1975 following an army-led coup in Lisbon. Indonesia invaded in December, and Gusmao joined the resistance army known as Falintil, consisting mostly of former colonial troops.

By 1982 he had assumed command of the war-weary guerrillas, with whom he had been living off the land and generosity of the people.

This support helped them survive massive offensives by Indonesia's savage, U.S.-trained and equipped military. But a third of the population perished - the highest per capita death toll of any modern war. Gusmao and his men killed thousands of the invaders, terrifying and demoralizing the occupiers.

In 1992, the Indonesians captured Gusmao during a clandestine visit to Dili and jailed him in Jakarta. He remained incarcerated until 1999, when the fall of Indonesia's brutal dictator Soeharto paved the way for the tiny territory to hold a referendum on self-determination.

Gusmao was released and returned to East Timor in October, after Australian-led peacekeepers had restored order. Hailed as a hero, he immediately set about promoting reconciliation between those who had been for and against independence.

With the impending elections - which will choose a new 88- member assembly that will steer the nascent nation to independence - Gusmao has stepped up his calls for national unity amid fears of political unrest.

"No more fighting," he told the crowd which had gathered to witness the signing of the nonviolence pact. "During the past 24 years we have suffered enough. It is time for democracy."

Gusmao isn't a candidate on the upcoming ballot. However, he could still be elected to office in presidential elections early next year.

Despite the pressure to become president, Gusmao says he is acutely aware of the mess other new nations have found themselves in when former freedom fighters took over the government after independence.

"The history of the Third World is repeating itself: the leader of the resistance will end up as president, even if he is not up to the task. Guerrilla commanders will be generals ... all because we were the heroes," he wrote in his autobiography To Resist is to Win.