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East Timorese set up new organisation

Source
Agence France Presse - September 9, 1998 (abridged)

Dili – Five former political parties in the troubled territory of East Timor Wednesday announced the formation of a new national organisation and named jailed rebel leader Xanana Gusmao to head it.

A communique circulated here announced the establishment of the National Council of Resistance of the People of East Timor by the five parties that existed in the former Portuguese colony before Indonesia annexed it in 1976. The founders also "appointed Xanana Gusmao as chairman," the statement said.

The founding parties were the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin), the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT), the Timorese Popular Democratic Association (Apodeti), Sons of the Mountain Warriors (KOTA) and the Labour Party (Partido Trabalhista.)

The new council demanded an immediate referendum on self-determination, calling it the best solution that would lead to a just, peaceful and internationally acceptable settlement. The new council also "rejects the autonomy for East Timor as offered by the United Nations and Indonesia," the communique said. Gusmao too, in statements smuggled out of prison and in interviews, has insisted that Indonesia must allow self-determination through a referendum in East Timor. Jakarta has rejected the proposal, arguing that it could lead to civil war. "Xanana Gusmao holds the key to the problem of East Timor," the council said.

It demanded that Jakarta immediately release Gusmao and involve him in dialogue between various East Timorese factions here and abroad under the auspices of the UN secretary general.

Gusmao, in a paper read out at a conference organised by the New Zealand Asia institute of the University of Auckland this year, reiterated his calls for a referendum, a press release from the Darwin-based East Timor International Support Centre said.

"There can be no genuine solution to the East Timor problem without a referendum. We demand this right of ours – a right denied to us for 23 years and ignored by the world – and we demand it vigorously. We will not be put off with compromises such as autonomy, " Gusmao said in the paper. "Let us hold a referendum, in order to show the world and particularly the Indonesians, the strength of our unity and the intensity of our desire to be East Timorese," he added.

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