Xanana Gusmão - Transition To Independence

Transition To Independence

On 30 August 1999, a referendum was held in East Timor and an overwhelming majority voted for independence. The Indonesian military commenced a campaign of terror as a result, with terrible consequences. Although the Indonesian government denied ordering this offensive, they were widely condemned for failing to prevent it. As a result of overwhelming diplomatic pressure from the United Nations, promoted by Portugal since the late 1970s and also by the United States and Australia in the 1990s, a UN-sanctioned, Australian-led international peace-keeping force (INTERFET) entered East Timor, and Gusmão was finally released. Upon his return to his native East Timor, he began a campaign of reconciliation and rebuilding.

Gusmão was appointed to a senior role in the UN administration that governed East Timor until 20 May 2002. During this time he continually campaigned for unity and peace within East Timor, and was generally regarded as the de facto leader of the emerging nation. Elections were held in late 2001 and Gusmão, endorsed by nine parties but not by Fretilin, ran as an independent and was comfortably elected leader. As a result he became the first President of East Timor when it became formally independent on 20 May 2002. Gusmão has published an autobiography with selected writings entitled To Resist Is to Win. He is the main narrator of the film A Hero's Journey/Where the Sun Rises, a 2006 documentary about him and East Timor. According to director Grace Phan, it's an "intimate insight into the personal transformation" of the man who helped shape and liberate East Timor.

Read more about this topic:  Xanana Gusmão

Famous quotes containing the words transition and/or independence:

    The god or hero of the sculptor is always represented in a transition from that which is representable to the senses, to that which is not.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    We commonly say that the rich man can speak the truth, can afford honesty, can afford independence of opinion and action;—and that is the theory of nobility. But it is the rich man in a true sense, that is to say, not the man of large income and large expenditure, but solely the man whose outlay is less than his income and is steadily kept so.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)