Subject: RT: Gusmao says has no ambitions to lead
East Timor
From: "John M. Miller" <fbp@igc.apc.org>Gusmao says has no ambitions to
lead East Timor 07:38 a.m. Feb 04, 1999 Eastern
By Richard Waddington
LISBON, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Jailed East Timor guerrilla chief Xanana Gusmao, soon to be
released into de facto house arrest, said on Thursday he had no ambitions to lead either
under self-government within Indonesia or as an independent state.
``I will just be an adviser,'' media reports in Lisbon quoted the charismatic
separatist leader as telling a news conference for Portuguese journalists in his Jakarta
jail.
Gusmao, who is serving a 20-year sentence for guerrilla activities against Indonesian
rule, also called for a general disarmament in the Pacific territory to avoid further
bloodshed.
``All Timorese must feel the responsibility for the need to avoid a new civil war.
Without arms there is no war,'' he said.
Gusmao will be moved to a house near Jakarta's Cipinang jail next week after Indonesia
bowed to mounting international pressure for him to let him out of prison to smooth
efforts to end a long-running dispute over the territory's future.
At least 50 people have died in clashes between pro-and anti-Jakarta groups in the
former Portuguese colony over the past six months.
Tensions have intensified in recent days after Jakarta, in a dramatic diplomatic
aboutturn, said that it would be ready to concede independence to the territory of 800,000
people if an offer of autonomy were rejected.
The autonomy offer is at the centre of negotiations between Portugal, which the United
Nations still regards as the administering power, and Indonesia over East Timor.
Portugal's Foreign Minister Jaime Gama is due to meet his Indonesian counterpart Ali
Alatas in New York at the weekend to discuss details of Indonesia's offer of independence
if autonomy is rejected.
Alatas said on Thursday that autonomy could include the right to hold elections and
even opt for a political system entirely different to that of Indonesia.
Gusmao, who heads the umbrella National Timor Resistance Council, said that his
guerrilla past ruled him out as a future leader of an autonomous or independent state.
``We are going to avoid a repetition of history in which every leader of a resistance
struggle has to be necessarily a leader of a country,'' he said.
Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975 and annexed it the following year saying that it
acted to contain a civil war that had erupted in the wake of Portugal's abrupt withdrawal.
``The problem now is to achieve an agreement under which we all put aside our arms,''
Gusmao said.
A small band of anti-Indonesian guerrillas is still active in the hills around the East
Timor capital Dili, but it is heavily out-gunned by the Indonesian army.
Resistance leaders and churchmen in the mainly Roman Catholic territory have accused
the Indonesian army of distributing weapons to civilian loyalists.
But the armed forces say that they have only handed out weapons to paramilitary units
helping to keep order.
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