East Timor Invites U2, Garth Brooks The Associated Press, Wed 21 Nov 2001

DILI, East Timor (AP) — Tiny East Timor has invited U2 and Garth Brooks to perform at independence celebrations next year.

Its acting foreign minister Jose Ramos-Horta said Wednesday he hoped they would take up the offer to witness the creation of the world's newest nation on May 20, 2002.

East Timor's people voted to split from Indonesia in 1999 and is now being administered by the United Nations.

Under a Security Council mandate, the world body has restored civilian government and has begun to rebuild the Southeast Asian country, which was all but devastated by withdrawing Indonesian militias and troops.

Ramos-Horta, a Nobel peace laureate, said his homeland wanted to shed its image as a trouble spot.

``We want to use the 30 days to promote East Timor as an island of peace,'' Ramos-Horta told journalists in the capital, Dili.

U.N. staff in East Timor said there was no confirmation so far about whether U2 or Brooks would come.

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