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Horta agrees with transition period leading to referendum

Lusa - December 18, 1998

Helsinki – Nobel Peace Prize co-laureate Jose Ramos Horta said in Helsinki on Thursday he agreed with jailed East Timorese former guerrilla leader Xanana Gusmao's proposal for a transition period leading to a referendum on self-determination in his occupied home land.

"The question of time is not that important, the referendum can be held in three or 10 years from now, because this is a matter for negotiations within the efforts of the UN secretary-general," Ramos Horta said in the Finnish capital at the start of a two-day visit.

Gusmao proposed in a special interview with LUSA in the Cipinang prison in Jakarta earlier this week that East Timor be given a 10-year transition period leading to a referendum on self-determination. Gusmao also told LUSA that East Timor was not ready for immediate independence.

Ramos Horta also said he believed that the outcome of elections in Indonesia next year could change Jakarta's official position on the problem of East Timor. "We are going to win this war, if Indonesia likes it or not," Ramos Horta said, adding the current political situation was "totally favourable" to the East Timorese resistance movement.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner also said the Indonesian people were "tired of war in East Timor," because of which it was likely they would recognise East Timor's right of self-determination in a matter of months. Finland will hold the EU presidency in the second half of next year.

Ramos Horta, vice-president of the National Timorese Resistance Council (CNRT), had a 1 1/2 hour meeting with Finnish Foreign Minister Tarja Halonen about the situation in East Timor on Thursday Ramos Horta is scheduled to meet with human rights activists and government and opposition leaders during his two-day stay in Helsinki, including President Martti Ahtisaari.

[In a separate report on the same day, Lusa quoted the first vice-president of FRETILIN, Mari Alkatiri, as saying that he agreed that a transition period before independence was needed but considered that 10 years was "long" - James Balowski.]