Xanana Gusmao, East Timor's symbol of hope
Xanana Gusmao, East Timor's symbol of hope
JAKARTA (AFP): East Timorese leader Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao walked to freedom here Tuesday with little but the bitter ashes of a dream awaiting him outside his jail house.
Eight days ago, Gusmao's people voted overwhelmingly under United Nations auspices to reject an offer of autonomy with Indonesia.
"I promise that as a free man, I will do everything to bring peace to East Timor and my people," Gusmao said on his release.
Gusmao, who spent 17 years in the forests and arid hills of East Timor to fight for his homeland's freedom, was the symbol of hope for those who voted on Aug. 30. His framed portrait was paraded round the city in the brief days of freedom before the ballot.
Regarded as the rightful leader of the new nation of "Timor Lorosae" (Rising Sun of Timor), his devotion to the East Timor cause has earned him international recognition as a man to be reckoned with.
South Africa's Nelson Mandela, to whom Gusmao has often been compared, made an unprecedented request, which was granted, to meet the jailed leader during the former South African president's visit to Jakarta in 1997.
Bowing to growing international pressure, Jakarta in February moved Gusmao from his prison cell to a strongly guarded house in central Jakarta.
Once one of Indonesia's most wanted men, he became a key figure in the search for a peaceful settlement in East Timor, regularly receiving foreign dignitaries at his house prison and holding telephone conversations with others.
Justice Minister Muladi, who officially freed Gusmao and handed him over to UN officials, cited his "proactive" role in the East Timor peace effort.
Affectionately known as Ze, Gusmao was arrested in November 1992 and jailed for plotting against the state and illegal position of weapons.
His original life sentence was commuted to 20 years by former president Soeharto, who ordered the invasion of East Timor in 1975.
The second eldest of seven children growing up in Laleia village near the township of Manatuto, Gusmao was born on June 20, 1946 as Jose Alejandro Gusmao.
After briefly attending a Roman Catholic seminary outside Dili he joined the Portuguese civil service in the 1970s, but by 1974 he was caught up in politics as a member of the Associacao Social Democratica Timor -- a new pro-independence political party.
Although married to Amelia Baptista Gusmao, with whom he has two children, he left to join the guerrillas two days after the Fretilin -- Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor -- proclaimed a free East Timor on Nov. 28, 1975 after Portugal had hastily pulled out.
Gusmao took on the leadership of Fretilin's armed wing in 1979 following the death of his predecessor Nicolaus Lobato in a skirmish with soldiers, and played a game of cat and mouse with Indonesian authorities for the next decade and a half before his arrest.
Despite his sufferings and captivity, Gusmao said last week that "at no point, have we fought against the people of Indonesia."
The East Timorese, he said, have fought "an oppressive system that has antagonized us."
Among his promises was amnesty for all -- even the pro- Indonesian militias now laying waste to East Timor supported by thousands of military reinforcements.