Subject: SMH: Gusmao wants his fighters in peace
force
Date: Sat, 02 Oct 1999 09:08:36 -0400Sydney Morning Herald 28/09/99
Gusmao wants his fighters in peace force
By MARK RILEY, Herald Correspondent in New York
The East Timorese resistance leader, Mr Jose Xanana Gusmao, will urge the United
Nations this week to allow 3,000 of his Falintil fighters to join the Australian-led
forces and man the front line in East Timor.
In a move likely to raise strong objections from Indonesia, Mr Gusmao wants his
pro-independence guerillas to be added to the official peacekeeping effort and patrol the
dangerous border areas between East and West Timor once the territory reverts to UN
control.
Mr Gusmao is planning to tell the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, that his
fighters believe it is their duty to join the international effort and would ask to be
positioned where the possibility of armed conflict is greatest.
Mr Gusmao and his fellow resistance leader Mr Jose Ramos Horta raised the proposal in
private talks with the US Secretary of State, Dr Madeleine Albright, in New York on Sunday
night.
Mr Ramos Horta later told the Herald that up to 3,000 Falintil fighters were prepared
to put their lives on the line to protect the refugees returning from the border areas.
"We feel it is our responsibility to go into the highest risk areas where the
possibility of fatalities is the greatest," he said.
"The Australian Government and Interfet should be pleased that we are prepared to
go to the front line and that if there are fatalities it will be our soldiers and not
theirs."
Mr Gusmao will now ask Mr Annan in private discussions today to sanction the use of his
fighters once Indonesia formally accepts the outcome of the August 30 independence vote
and the territory officially falls under UN administration.
Mr Ramos Horta said: "We want to make it clear that we are prepared to leave the
final decision to the UN and Interfet on if and when Falintil should be integrated into
the peace-keeping effort."
He could guarantee that Falintil fighters would remain disciplined if they became part
of the peacekeeping effort and would not seek retribution for the militia's terror
campaign, he said.
"We now need to show the rest of the world that we are prepared to protect our own
people and our own country and that we do not expect Australia and the US to continue to
do it for us forever."
Meanwhile, Mr Gusmao said he would fly to Washington today to meet the Australian head
of the World Bank, Mr James Wolfensohn, to discuss a reconstruction plan for East Timor.
"I believe that East Timorese people, with the help of the international community -
especially the United States - can build a new country where love and democracy will be
our most important ideals," he said.
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