Timor devastation 'worse than Bosnia'

Timor devastation 'worse than Bosnia'

BAUCAU, East Timor (AFP): Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio
on Monday described the devastation in East Timor as "worse than
Bosnia" and appealed to international donors to speed up their
aid to the territory.

"It's worse than Bosnia," he told a press conference at this
coastal city on the second day of a three day visit.

"I never thought I would see something like this. One could
not think that small little houses, corrugated-roofed little
houses could be so systematically destroyed," he said of the
havoc wreaked by Indonesian armed forces-backed militia after
East Timorese voted for independence last year.

"It's necessary that the pledge announced at the donors
conferences and the different trust funds must be materialized."

Whole cities were razed to the ground in the militia reign of
terror, hundreds killed and more than 250,000 people either fled
or were deported before international troops landed on September
20 to halt the rampage.

"We all have the feeling that there is a sense of urgency ...
it's a great responsibility for the international community,"
Sampaio said.

Speaking outside the Baucau church and at a press conference,
the president emphasized Portugal's own aid was extended "only as
a friend," and that Lisbon had no dreams of recolonizing East
Timor, which it ruled for 400 years before the 1975 Indonesian
invasion.

"We cannot impose anything. Portugal has nothing to demand of
East Timor. Portugal has a duty, a duty in the context of
international community, to help the United Nations and the
Timorese so that the (reconstruction) initiative can become a
reality," he said.

"(The attention of the world) is focused on the day-to-day
lives of the Timorese ... you must respond to the world, you must
say that you know that the struggle now is for peace, for
security, for reconstruction and national reconciliation."

Earlier Monday, Sampaio decorated East Timorese Bishop Basilio
do Nascimento with one of his country's highest honors, the Great
Cross of the Order of Liberty.

"Don Basilio was in his own way a hero, a hero of freedom,"
the president said, as he presented the bishop with the yellow
and white sash from which the medallion was suspended.

Nascimento, the bishop of Baucau, worked hand in hand with the
local Indonesian military commander and the local pro-Jakarta
militia and resistance to save the town from the wave of violence
that destroyed the rest of the country after last year's
independence vote.

"I share this honor with my religious colleagues, with men of
the resistance, and members of the local government," he told
Sampaio.

"I hope to share it with some Indonesians, the military
commander, the police commander, the commander of the militia" in
Baucau, he added.

UN personnel working in Baucau during and after the Aug. 30
ballot in which East Timorese voted overwhelmingly for
independence from Indonesia, have said Baucau was a unique model
of cooperation.

Because of that, they said, it was the only city in East Timor
to escape being virtually destroyed.

Sampaio is the first Portuguese head of state to visit the
tiny half-island, which was a colony of Lisbon before Portugal's
abrupt withdrawal in 1975 triggered Indonesia's invasion and 24-
year occupation.

Sampaio received news from Portugal on Monday that his mother
had died. East Timorese independence leader Xanana Gusmao, who
accompanied Sampaio to Baucau, was seen consoling him.