Sakharov Prize /East Timor

[dawnstar@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

For  your information, the Sakharov Prize For Freedom of Thought, given
in honor of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, in 1990, the French President Nicole
Fontaine of the European Parlement, in Strasbourg, gave the prize to
XANANA GUSMAO. He was received,not dressed in commando battle fatigues
which he wore in the war since the eighties as the rebel armed
resistance fighter, before his arrest and sentence serving seven years
in prison, liberated last september. Now he is the future head of state
of East Timor, calling for national reconcilation, and no more
blood-bath to revenge battle scars. 

He got his prize and a standing ovation from the European deputies, many
of them who continue to support the Burmese junta and Total Fina gas and
oil investment there. 

Meanwhile, in Indonesia, Wahid has announced that the general Wiranto,
the minister of security, may be brought before a Tribunal to face
charges of responsability for not having prevented the violence in East
Timor. Indonesian generals are furious, now having to face the
Indonesian parlement and the people.

Once again, history has show, that there comes a time when repression 
by military rule must end. The generals in Rangoon refuse to face
reality, but their days are numbered.

ds

South China Morning Post - Saturday, December 18, 1999
  
EAST TIMOR
 
Gusmao plea as he accepts $4b in pledges
AGENCIES in Tokyo 

Independence leader Xanana Gusmao asked nations who yesterday pledged
more
than US$520 million (HK$4 billion) in aid to help rebuild East Timor to
let the territory's
people run their own affairs. 
"Our people who have suffered so much deserve not only financial
assistance. They
deserve assistance which is given with respect, consideration and love,"
Mr Gusmao
told a donors meeting in Tokyo. 
 
Nearly 200 delegates from more than 50 countries and international
agencies pledged
US$522 million over three years "to rebuild East Timor and to ensure its
smooth
transition to future independence". Mr Gusmao expressed gratitude for a
sum "beyond
our expectations". 
 
The donors pledged US$149 million for humanitarian relief. 
 
The remaining US$370 million would go to budget needs and
reconstruction. 
 
A sum of US$215 million would go into two trust funds - one,
administered by the World
Bank, for infrastructure, farming, health and education, the other, to
help re-establish
public administration, by East Timorese representatives and the UN
Transitional
Administration in East Timor. The remaining US$158 million has been
pledged "for
other reconstruction assistance". 
 
"The key to success is the self-help efforts by the East Timorese
themselves," said
Shozo Azuma, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs of Japan, which pledged
US$100
million. 
 
East Timorese voted overwhelmingly in a United Nations-run ballot in
August for
independence from Indonesia, which invaded the former Portuguese
territory in 1975
and annexed it the following year. 
 
After the vote, East Timor was ravaged by pro-Jakarta militiamen, backed
by
Indonesian troops, who went on a rampage, killing hundreds of people,
burning homes
and forcing 300,000 East Timorese to flee. 
 
Mr Gusmao - who is expected to be East Timor's first president - told
the meeting that
seeds and tools for farmers were among the basic needs. 

Four days after the overall commander of the pro-Jakarta militias, Joao
Tavares,
ordered them to disband, the head of one of the most feared groups said
his men
would not give up their fight. 
The Indonesian Government was abandoning its own supporters, Eurico
Guterres,
head of the Aitarak (Thorn) militia, said in Kupang, West Timor. 
 
"I will do my best [to see] that the militia won't be disbanded."