NEWS - Nobel Guardian Hails East Ti

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Subject: NEWS - Nobel Guardian Hails East Timor Referendum

Nobel Guardian Hails East Timor Referendum

OSLO, Aug 31 (Reuters) - A guardian of the Nobel Peace Prize on Tuesday
hailed East Timor's independence referendum and said the 1996 award to
two East Timorese human rights campaigners may have helped nudge Jakarta
towards allowing the vote. 

Geir Lundestad, director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, said Monday's
vote meant the 1996 award to Roman Catholic bishop Carlos Belo and Jose
Ramos Horta was in the original spirit of the awards, which were
intended for outsiders fighting against heavy odds. 

"We are pleased that the referendum has taken place, despite some
violence," Lundestad told Reuters. "I don't think that we could claim
too much of the credit for the referendum. But perhaps we could claim
some." 

East Timor's voters turned out in huge numbers on Monday for a largely
peaceful independence ballot after 23 years of often brutal Indonesian
rule. 

Gauging the impact of the Peace Prize is impossible, but winners like
former Polish president and Solidarity union leader Lech Walesa in 1983
for his work against communism and ex-Costa Rican president Oscar Arias
for a 1987 Central American peace plan have said it gave crucial help to
their causes. 

Tibet, however, is still part of China despite the 1989 award to Tibetan
leader the Dalai Lama. Burma is still under military rule despite the
1991 prize to democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi. 

"I think (the prize) brought the situation in East Timor higher up on
the international agenda," Lundestad said. "The Indonesian invasion had
taken place in 1975 and East Timor had seemed to disappear almost
entirely from the agenda. 

"Many of those who supported East Timor's cause had lost courage. The
prize provided them with renewed strength and vigour. It created
additional interest, not only in Portugal and European Union countries,
but also in the United States and the United Nations in finding some
sort of diplomatic solution. 

"But I do not think that a diplomatic solution would have been found
without the changes in Indonesia," Lundestad said. 

After the downfall of former Indonesian president Suharto last year and
a widening eocnomic crisis, the new government of President B.J. Habibe
decided to allow the vote, apparently hoping it would improve ties with
the rest of the world. 

Lundestad said that the prize's founder Alfred Nobel, the inventor of
dynamite who died in 1896, would probably have approved the 1996 award. 

"This has been a prize very much in Alfred Nobel's spirit. These were
outsiders with limited hope and we have seen a dramatic reversal of
fortunes," he said. 

The 1999 award will be announced on October 15. Lundestad said that the
secretive five-member committee that makes the awards was due to meet at
least twice before deciding the winner. 

Copyright 1999 Reuters.All rights reserved. This mate