TIMOR TODAY - Wednesday 26/10/99

TIMOR TODAY - Wednesday 26/10/99

See….http://www.easttimor.com/ for full text and photos…

PHOTOS

a) East Timorese pro-independence leader Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao, Oct. 23, 1999. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

b) Brazilian military police escort a group of suspected pro-Jakarta militias across a airport in Dili for a military flight to Suai, southern East Timor, Wednesday, Oct. 13, 1999. The international peacekeeping force for East Timor (INTERFET) is mandated to disarm pro-Jakarta militias and after questioning some are flown to locations near the border with West Timor and released. (AP Photo/Jason Reed , Pool)

c) INTERFET (International Force in East Timor) commander Maj. Gen. Peter Cosgrove, Oct. 14, 1999. (AP Photo/Rob Elliott, Pool)

NEWS

1) Gusmao willing to go to Jakarta for talks: report 27/10/99 (AFP) East Timorese independence leader Xanana Gusmao is willing to go to Jakarta to discuss various problems that need to be settled with Indonesian authorities, a report said here Tuesday.

2) Indonesia hands over East Timor: president's letter 26/10/99 (AFP) Jakarta - Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid said on Tuesday he had sent a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan officially handing East Timor over to United Nations control.

3) Admit errors, Australia told 27/10/99 Australian Financial Review Indonesia's new President, Mr Abdurrahman Wahid, has signalled that relations with Australia will remain chilly, although a private initiative will seek to begin a rapprochement next year.

4) Hungry E. Timorese Farmers Forgo Coffee Crop for Corn 27/10/99 Washington Post ERMERA, East Timor-In a country where most people grow just enough rice and corn to slake their hunger, Jose Madeira Ximenes never consumed any of his crop.

5) Refugees begin task of putting territory back together again. 27/10/99 Christian Science Monitor Returning refugees say they are delighted to be back in their soon-to-be-independent homeland, but they are stunned at the task ahead.

6) Indonesia New Foreign Minister A US-Educated Moderate 27/10/99 Associated Press Indonesia's new foreign minister, who will serve as the primary voice of the fourth most-populous nation to the outside world, is a close confidant of President Abdurrahman Wahid who has studied and taught in the United States.

7) Muslim Transmigrants Adopt a New Country 27/10/99 (IPS) DILI, Oct 26 (IPS) - While the bulk of Indonesian transmigrants have left East Timor for home, a small group of Muslim traders and their families still remain holed up in a mosque in the heart of the capital Dili-almost totally devastated by pro-Indonesia militias.

EDITORIAL 8) Great expectations 24/10/99 South China Morning Post East Timor independence leader Xanana Gusmao declared yesterday after his emotional return to the territory: "I am not a saviour. I can't solve all the problems." That is true enough. But many of the territory's people will inevitably look to him as something of a miracle-worker after their suffering this autumn.

9) Picking up the pieces 26/10/99 Straits Times Singapore AS THE winds of change blow across Indonesia's new political landscape, the long-suffering East Timorese set free by Jakarta last week are taking their first critical steps towards nationhood. Resistance leader Xanana Gusmao, now back in his devastated homeland, has talked about a "policy of reconciliation" between the freedom fighters and the pro-Indonesia East Timorese. He was not thinking of retribution, he said. This is important. East Timorese have suffered long enough. His priority now must be the reconstruction of a territory laid to waste by the pro-Indonesia militias after the independence vote last August.

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