Xanana in Jakarta to meet Abdurrahman
JAKARTA (JP): East Timor independence leader Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao arrived here for the first time since his release from detention in September to meet with President Abdurrahman Wahid.
Xanana's aide, Natasha Louise, told The Jakarta Post by telephone that the former guerrilla leader, expected to be East Timor's first president, arrived with his delegation from the country's capital of Dili on Saturday night.
His team includes the deputy commander of the armed resistance group Falintil, Taur Matan Ruak, and two liaison officers from the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor, Louise said.
She said that in Jakarta Xanana was joined by other pro- independence leaders, Nobel co-laureate Ramos Horta and Mari Alkatiri, who arrived here from Singapore on Sunday morning.
"We have confirmed a meeting with President Abdurrahman on Tuesday at 4 p.m," Louise said.
Abdurrahman is due to return from a summit meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Manila on Monday.
Louise said the delegation would also meet with other top government officials whose names are not yet confirmed. She said the East Timor delegation is due to leave Jakarta on Wednesday.
A spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Jakarta, Sri Wahyu Endah, said Xanana and his delegation were flown in from Dili to Surabaya, East Java, on an ICRC airplane.
From Surabaya, the delegation left to Jakarta on a commercial flight, Endah said.
An informed source told the Post that Xanana would also meet with a number of human rights activists, lawyers and the Jakarta- based Portuguese envoy Ana Gomes at a luxury hotel in South Jakarta on Sunday evening.
Meanwhile, Asmara Nababan, secretary of the Commission for Investigation of Human Rights Abuses in East Timor, said the commission was also scheduled to meet with Xanana before he leaves for Dili on Wednesday.
The commission said after a meeting with Abdurrahman on Saturday that it had secured permission from the President to summon top military brass, including Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security Gen. Wiranto, to question them on the outbreak of violence in East Timor following the Aug. 30 ballot.
The commission recovered 26 bodies on Thursday from three mass graves in East Nusa Tenggara, including those of three Catholic priests, believed to be victims of a pro-integration militia attack.
Horta said earlier this month that he and Xanana would pay a visit to Abdurrahman on Nov. 30 to "begin the process of reconciliation and rebuilding of relations" with Indonesia.
Xanana was captured by the military in 1992 for leading an armed rebellion. He was sentenced the following year to life imprisonment, which was later commuted to 20 years and then pardoned on Sept. 7 by the government of former president B.J. Habibie, after a ballot in East Timor rejected the government's option of special autonomy status. (das/byg)