Melbourne – Independent East Timor will be a western-style democracy with open institutions and a diversified economy driven by exports of coffee, oil, gas and tourism, the man likely to be its first leader has promised.

It will be dependent on international trade – not aid – and will provide incentives to encourage the growth of its private sector while offering selective intervention to ensure efficiency and equity. It will not harbour grudges for past injustices and will do its utmost to foster warm relations with Indonesia, resistance leader Xanana Gusmao told a fund-raising dinner here late Monday.

A renegotiation of the Timor Gap treaty by which Australia and Indonesia share oil and gas production off the coast of Timor was implied but not stated in a speech in which Gusmao outlined his blueprint for a dream fulfilled – the free Republic of Timor Loro Sa'e, as he called it.

Some business and trade union guests at the 160 dollar (105 US) a plate dinner said they were surprised by the grasp of up-to-date economics – complete with catchphrases – demonstrated by the diminutive figure speaking in halting, heavily accented English.

After all, he had just emerged from six years in prison or detention after 16 years fighting Indonesian soldiers in the jungles and mountains of East Timor. But he has also been a poet, artist, army corporal and civil servant in the Portuguese colonial administration.

With the help of the international community, Gusmao vowed, "a free and independent East Timor will soon be born from the ashes of our devastated and destroyed homeland."

But although it desperately needed aid and assistance in the short term, it would "not allow the shaping of a culture of dependency on international aid and assistance," he said.

"East Timor will engage in international trade through exports of coffee, oil and gas, and tourism as well as importing goods and services from overseas.

"Nevertheless, we will place emphasis on developing the agricultural sector together with small and medium industries as the engine of economic growth."

With the aim of attracting foreign investment, East Timor would also develop technical, economic, scientific and cultural cooperation on bilateral and multilateral levels and with different countries and international institutions.

Gusmao, president of East Timor's CNRT (National Council of Timorese Resistance), said his people who had returned to the homes from which they were driven by pro-Indonesian militia last month after an August ballot demanding independence, would require the tools and resources to rebuild the framework of a civil society.

"They will need to re-establish government and non-government organisations and institutions to take charge of physical, social and psychological repair, reconstruction, reconciliation and re-integration."

The CNRT, he said, would build an effective administration with a minimum number of people but it would deliver the basic services the country needs. It would give priority to building democratic institutions and an open and accountable economy.

"The democratic system that we are envisioning is the one that allows a genuine representation where all democratic elements, such as the press and non-government organisations, also have a substantial voice in the decision-making process," he said.

He promised it would also be diligent "in promoting total transparency within the apparatuses and organisations of power and, in the management and accountability of funds provided by international aid to civic and social organisations."

This would ensure that "from the first moment we can firmly combat corruption and all temptation to debase the objectives of sustainable development."