Reconciliation needed to ensure stability in E. Timor: Gusmao
Reconciliation needed to ensure stability in E. Timor: Gusmao
Agencies, Stockholm/Wellington
East Timor's President-elect Xanana Gusmao on Tuesday stressed
the need for a policy of justice that "eschews revenge,
resentment and hatred" against those who committed atrocities
during his nation's drive for independence from Indonesia.
Gusmao said his government would announce its position
regarding such suspects soon after it formally gains independence
on May 20. He said it is important that the healing process be
peaceful to ensure the stability of the half-island nation of
800,000 people.
He said he planned to travel to New York to ask the United
Nations to extend their peacekeeping mission for two more years,
"with only a gradual downsizing."
Gusmao acknowledged that fighting in the Middle East and
troubles facing Afghanistan were taking much of the world's
attention and said it was important for East Timor to set a good
example with a smooth transition to independence and cooperation
with Indonesia.
"To relieve the burden on the international community, we must
see our reconciliation efforts as a means of consolidating
national stability and of contributing to world peace," he said
in a speech at a two-day international conference to debate ways
to address the aftermath of conflict.
The leader has said he wanted to grant amnesty to those
already indicted and in prison and would ask parliament to issue
a decree granting the president special powers to do so.
"We advocate a reconciliation process whereby justice is meted
out to perpetrators but which eschews revenge, resentment and
hatred," Gusmao said on Tuesday.
The United Nations blames Indonesia's security forces for
orchestrating the bloodshed, in which hundreds of people were
killed and much of the territory's housing and infrastructure
destroyed after an independence referendum on Aug. 1, 1999.
The violence only stopped when international peacekeepers
arrived. East Timor shares an island with West Timor, an
Indonesian province.
Gusmao, a former guerrilla leader, was elected president by a
landslide earlier this month after a 24-year struggle to break
free of Indonesian rule. He will be inaugurated on May 20, when
the U.N. transitional administration ends.
Swedish Prime Minister Goeran Persson said it was important to
study what happens after genocide and other human rights
violations and learn how better to handle the aftermath.
"It demands from us ... courage, awareness and a will to share
responsibility," he said in opening remarks.
Representatives from more than 40 countries, including the
United States and South Africa, were attending the forum, which
follows similar conferences arranged by the Swedish government on
the Holocaust in January 2000 and on intolerance in January 2001.
In Wellington, New Zealand government officials said on
Tuesday that Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will
briefly visit East Timor during a week-long swing through four
Asia-Pacific countries beginning late this week.
Japan, which occupied East Timor during World War II, has
several hundred peacekeepers in the former Portuguese territory,
which was ruled by Indonesia for 24 often-bloody years.
Koizumi will be the first head of state to visit East Timor
since last Sunday's election of Gusmao to lead the territory to
independence next month.
The Japanese leader will call in to the capital, Dili, at the
weekend after a short stop in Vietnam and ahead of trips to
Australia and New Zealand, the New Zealand officials told
Reuters.