'Xanana' to meet IMF in Washington
'Xanana' to meet IMF in Washington
WASHINGTON (AP): East Timor's independence leader, Xanana
Gusmao, will meet officials from the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund in Washington Wednesday to discuss
future financial aid for the former Portuguese colony, a World
Bank official said Friday.
He will be joined in the talks by Jose Ramos-Horta, another
independence leader and 1996 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
The bank official said prospective donor countries such as
Portugal, Australia, Japan and the United States had also been
invited, as well as the United Nations and the Asian Development
Bank.
The "informal meeting" would discuss "joint steps for
reconstruction and development in East Timor," said Peter
Stephens, a bank spokesman.
Gusmao, who has only recently been released from seven years
imprisonment in Jakarta, is also scheduled to visit New York next
week to meet U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
In a U.N.-sponsored referendum last month, a large majority of
East Timorese chose in a referendum to break free of 24 years of
control by Indonesia.
Anti-independence militias then waged a campaign of terror in
the province which led to deployment of an international
peacekeeping force in the province earlier this week. the
deployment of a multinational peacekeeping force.
The World Bank and the IMF are expected to help East Timor
develop national financial and economic institutions when the
province becomes independent later this year.
Another leader of the independence movement in East Timor,
Mario Alkatiri, said in Lisbon Friday that he was preparing to
negotiate with the Portuguese oil group Petrogal over future
cooperation with Portugal in producing oil off-shore.
Alkatiri told the Portuguese news agency Lusa that the Timor
National Resistance Council (TNRC) had instructed him to
negotiate the terms of cooperation between an independent Timor
and Petrogal.
The Portuguese company said Alkatiri had requested a meeting
with its president Manuel Ferreira de Oliveira.