| Subject: We accepted the
risk, now we accept the cost, Gusmao says Also: East Timor leader promises western-style democracy
We accepted the risk, now we accept the cost, Gusmao says
MELBOURNE, Australia, Oct 11 (AFP) - The East Timorese
people were prepared to accept the risk of armed struggle against Indonesia and now accept
the high cost of their freedom, resistance leader Xanana Gusmao said Monday.
Gusmao also told reporters here that he hoped to return to
East Timor from Australia as soon as possible to set up an interim administration to work
with the United Nations during the transition to full independence.
"We know that we have a very, very difficult
future," he said.
"We know that we will start from zero to reconstruct
not only our contry but also ourselves as people, as human beings."
Speaking in halting English but carefully choosing his
words, the man who spent seven years in Indonesian prisons before his release last month,
said the East Timorese resistance movement had always known there would be violence
following the August 30 ballot.
But it had never anticipated how destructive and
devastating it would be.
"Before the ballot I believed that my people would
very easily forget and forgive everything in the past, but the last weeks caused a very
big trauma in my people," he said.
"It is why the year of 2000 will be a very very
difficult time, a very very difficult attempt to heal everything, not only the basic
infrastructure but essentially the spirit of our people, now traumatised by the
destruction and by the violence.
"We are aware of a very, very difficult task.
"We are aware of our destiny, our fate of being a
poor, small, defenceless people."
But he added: "We feel every reason to defend our
freedom, a right to live as a human being, as a people."
Asked if the cost of East Timorese freedom and independence
was too high in terms of death and destruction, he said the East Timorese had accepted the
risk and now accepted the cost.
Asked if the cost of East Timorese freedom and independence
was too high in terms of death and estruction, he said the East Timorese had accepted the
risk and now accepted the cost.
"We accepted the risk at the beginning of our
struggle, known that we fought alone against the indifference of the international
community, against economic interests, against everybody."
Gusmao will deliver a major speech later Monday to an
audience expected to top 10,000, including the vast majority of the estimated 8,000 East
Timorese exiles living here.
He is also being given a reception at the Victorian state
parliament and a welcome at the town hall.
---- East Timor leader promises western-style democracy
MELBOURNE, Australia, Oct 11 (AFP) - 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."
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