Xanana wins UNESCO peace prize

Xanana wins UNESCO peace prize

Agence France-Presse, Paris

East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao on Wednesday was awarded UNESCO's Felix Houphouet-Boigny Peace Prize in recognition of the former guerrilla leader's dedication to independence and reconciliation in the world's newest nation.

An international jury presided by former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger said in a statement Gusmao won the 122,000- euro (US$121,000) prize for "his fight for human dignity and for his conduct which has elevated the human spirit not only for his region but in the world".

Gusmao, whose full name is Jose Alexandre Gusmao, was a leader of the tiny island's campaign for independence from Indonesia in the 1980s. He was arrested in 1992 and imprisoned until 1999.

East Timor was a Portuguese colony for four centuries before the European state withdrew abruptly in 1975, leaving the territory to be overrun and annexed by Indonesia.

Indonesia's occupation ended in chaos as its militiamen laid waste to East Timor to punish it for voting by a four-to-one majority for independence in a UN referendum on Aug. 30, 1999.

The jury said Gusmao has worked to reconcile his nation and encourage political pluralism.

The prize, created in 1989 and named after the Ivory Coast's first president, was last awarded to former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and former Irish president Mary Robinson. UNESCO did not award a prize in 2001.