Craig Skehan – Jostled by a media frenzy and a crowd of supporters, Mr Xanana Gusmao, the nationalist fighter almost certain to lead an independent East Timor, received a hero's welcome as he voted here yesterday.

The 53-year-old – imprisoned in 1992 for his guerilla action, but transferred to house arrest earlier this year – is expected to be freed in about a fortnight.

"Today the East Timorese people exercised their fundamental right to self-determination," he said as he cast his vote at a United Nations-supervised polling centre in the Indonesian capital. "Let us free our homeland, our beloved East Timor."

Further bloodshed would be intolerable, he said, calling on all youth supporting independence not to provoke violence or respond to nny provocations. "Reconciliation must be genuine and entered into with sincerity," he said.

In contrast to the cautious, conciliatory approach taken by Mr Gusmao, his fellow activist, Mr Manuel Carrascalao, said a free East Timor would support independence movements in the Indonesian provinces of West Papua and Aceh.

"It is not just Aceh and West Papua we will support but all parts of Indonesia that have suffered," he said outside the polling station set up for absentee East Timorese voters.

Mr Carrascalao is a member of the education and socialisation committee of Mr Gusmao's National Council for Timorese Resistance (CNRT), but the organisation has never formally spelt out its post-independence political position.

Any assistance for other independence movements could complicate delicate relations between East Timorese leaders and Jakarta during negotiations after an expected pro-independence vote. Mr Carrascalao, whose son was killed in an attack by anti-independence militia earlier this year, said all peoples were entitled to self-determination.

Among other voters in Jakarta was a 70-year-old honey merchant, in the city for a provincial produce exhibition. Boasting that his East Timorese honey was the best in Indonesia, Mr Salen Sagran said he had remained neutral on his country's future and would accept whichever option the majority chose.

But East Timor would have little choice other than to co-operate with Indonesia because of its geographical position, he said. "We have things Indonesians want, especially our honey and our coffee."