Atambua – East Timor independence hero Xanana Gusmao on Thursday urged East Timorese refugees in Indonesia's West Timor to come home now, saying he guaranteed their safety.

"I guarantee security in East Timor. Therefore I am asking all of you to immediately make a decision on returning to East Timor," he told a cheering crowd of some 10,000 East Timorese refugees at a football stadium here.

Gusmao, on a two-day visit to the border town, told the crowd they must experience the joy of independence along with their compatriots. "We have freedom and that freedom belongs to all of us," he said.

East Timor, which split from Indonesia in 1999, becomes independent on May 20. Gusmao is strong favourite to win a presidential election on April 14.

A UN-organised ballot in August 1999 produced an overwhelming vote for independence. But pro-Jakarta militias, organised and directed by senior Indonesian military officials, waged a bloody and hugely destructive campaign of intimidation before the vote and of revenge afterwards. They killed hundreds of people, torched towns and forced or led more than 250,000 people into West Timor after the vote.

The United Nations said last month that 198,000 have returned and there are thought to be fewer than 60,000 still in the squalid camps in West Timor. Many are former militia members or their families, or people who once served with the Indonesian administration or army in East Timor.

The former anti-Indonesia guerrilla chief warned the refugees that freedom alone would not bring success in East Timor. "Freedom does not mean things will immediately change for the better. That is why we have to work together," said Gusmao, who had spent six years in a Jakarta prison after being captured in Dili in 1992 but has campaigned for reconciliation.