The Nation-Gusmao vows to support S

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Subject: The Nation-Gusmao vows to support Suu Kyi's party

The Nation June 4, 1999.
Gusmao vows to support Suu Kyi's party

JAKARTA -- East Timor's jailed resistance leader Xanana Gusmao has expressed
his strong sympathy and support for Burma's opposition movement, pledging a
''moral obligation'' to assist the Burmese people once his East Timorese
homeland is free from Indonesian military occupation.

He said Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who remained partly
under house arrest in Rangoon despite her release by the military junta in
July 1995, has been a strong inspiration for him and the whole Timorese
resistance movement.

Because they have lived under repression by the Indonesian occupation, the
East Timorese people could feel and share the suffering of the Burmese
people, said Gusmao, who was transferred from Cipinang jail in Jakarta where
he initially faced life imprisonment to house arrest three months ago.

Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese enclave in 1975 and annexed it in
1978. Human rights activists estimate that about 200,000 Timorese were
killed during the occupation by Indonesia, whose sovereignty over the island
has never been recognised by the United Nations.

''We know that nobody can feel happy if other brothers are still under
repression. It will be our responsibility, our moral obligation -- not an
act of gratitude -- that we wish to play a role as important and as big as
this small island can be,'' the 53-year-old political prisoner told The
Nation in an interview on Wednesday.

''When we are free from the Indonesian military dictatorship, we promise we
will pay all attention to helping the Burmese people. That is a moral
obligation and a solidarity with the Burmese people. We will try to help
Aung San Suu Kyi, whom we admire and who has inspired us,'' he said with
tears welling in his eyes as he emotionally and slowly described how the
Timorese could feel the Burmese people's suffering.

Gusmao said once the struggle for East Timor's independence was achieved,
its people will form ''a committee of solidarity'' with the Burmese to
assist them in their struggle for democracy and human rights.

Comparing the presence of international observers at the Indonesian general
elections on Monday and the United Nations-sanctioned referendum on the

future of East Timor in August, Gusmao said he would one day become an
international observer in Burma.

The jailed Timorese leader had written twice to the Burmese Nobel Peace
Prize winner, the first in 1993 while both were still under solitary
confinement. Gusmao recently sent his personal condolences to the Burmese
democratic leader on the death of her husband Dr Michael Aris in March.

The Burmese military government had refused to grant Aris' dying wish to
meet his wife in Rangoon.

Asked why he was so sympathetic to the Burmese cause, Gusmao said: ''It is a
question of feeling the same suffering as the Burmese people.

''Because we, the East Timorese, suffer very much, we can understand this
suffering of other people. As part of Asean and Asia, we are very grateful
for the solidarity of the brother peoples of Asia,'' he added.

Gusmao was captured in the Timorese capital of Dili in November 1992 and
sentenced to life imprisonment in April 1993. Former president Suharto, who
ordered the invasion of East Timor, reduced his jail term to 20 years in
August the same year.

Apart from Gusmao, other East Timorese resistance leaders including the 1997
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ramos Horta have been in touch with the Burmese
and ethnic opposition movements.

Ramos made a secret visit to Manerplaw on the Thai-Burmese border which was
then the headquarters of the Karen guerrilla group and other exiled Burmese
democratic forces.


BY YINDEE LERTCHAROENCHOK

The Nation