RI envoy hosts welcome dinner for Bishop Belo
By Lela E. Madjiah
OSLO (JP): Indonesian Ambassador for Norway Amiruddin Noor hosted a dinner Sunday for Dili Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, who is here to accept the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize today.
"Please feel free to ask us for any assistance you may need. We would be happy to help in any way," Amiruddin told Belo at the dinner.
The head of the East Timor Roman Catholic community shares the Nobel prize with self-exiled East Timor separatist spokesman Jose Ramos-Horta. The bishop, traveling on an Indonesian passport, is the first Indonesian to receive the award.
He arrived Sunday morning with his younger sister Julieta Filipe, nephew Amandio de Araujo, Indonesian Catholic priest Y.B. Mangunwijaya, and two church officials from East Timor -- Father Domingos Segueca and Lucia Gusmao.
Two Indonesian embassy staff welcomed Belo at the airport.
Indonesia has officially welcomed the award given to the Bishop, but questioned the Nobel committee's decision to award it jointly to him and Ramos-Horta.
Indonesian officials have said that Ramos-Horta was a senior official of Fretilin which was responsible for killing their fellow East Timorese in the civil war that erupted in the wake of the Portuguese withdrawal from the territory in 1975. Officials said Ramos Horta's various campaigns for the separatist cause have undermined rather than contributed to the efforts to bring peace to East Timor.
No representatives from the Indonesian government will attend today's award giving ceremony because of the presence of Ramos Horta. An embassy source confirmed that none of the other ASEAN ambassadors to Norway would attend the ceremony at City Hall.
Earlier Sunday, Bishop Belo led a solemn mass at St. Olav Catholic Cathedral which was attended by hundreds of people. Oslo Bishop Gerhard Schwenzer accompanied the Dili bishop in the mass which was widely covered by local and international media.
Bishop Belo said he would accept the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of "all the victims of the East Timor conflict and also of those who have suffered in the defense of freedom, truth, justice and peace in Indonesia and other parts of the world."
He called on world leaders to set their interests aside and to help find a just and peaceful settlement of the conflict.
Prayers were conducted in Latin and other languages, including Indonesian, English, Norwegian, Arabic, French, Cantonese, Portuguese and Tetum, an East Timorese language.
King Harald, Queen Sonja, previous Nobel laureates and members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, led by chairman Francis Sejersted, are among those who will attend today's ceremony at City Hall.
The two winners will present separate orations after accepting their diplomas and medals.
The event will be highlighted by a torchlight procession past the Grand Hotel, where the laureates and their entourages stay. Today's event will close with a banquet at the hotel.
Belo and Horta are scheduled to meet with Norwegian Prime Minister Thorbjorn Jaglan on Wednesday morning. They will also meet with members of the Standing Committee of Foreign Affairs of the Storting, the Norwegian Parliament, and Norwegian Minister Foreign Minister Bjorn Tore Godal.