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.