East Timorese resistance leaders who have been in exile are returning to East Timor to help establish what is expected to become the newest nation in the year 2000.

Nobel Peace Co-Laureate Jose Ramos Horta returned to East Timor on December 1 following a 24-year exile. While disclaiming any interest in becoming a part of the newly-emerging nation's government, Ramos Horta's first full day back involved welcoming Portuguese Foreign Minister Jaime Gama to Dili, capital of East Timor.

Mr. Ramos Horta left Dili just a few days before the Indonesian invasion of East Timor on December 7, 1975. A tireless campaigner for the East Timorese's right to self-determination, he has kept the issue of East Timor alive in the international agenda. Among his supporters in the United States has been the Women's Division of the General Board of Global Ministries, which has helped to facilitate his diplomatic efforts with logistical and technological support at its UN office.

Acknowledging that the true heroes of East Timor "are those who stayed behind," especially those who were "tortured...raped...killed," Mr. Ramos Horta's address to the thousands who gathered to welcome him in Dili called for forgiveness and reconciliation. "With the same courage that we fought for independence, for freedom, we must also forgive...There can no longer be enemies within the East Timorese family. Too many lives have been lost," he said, according to a December 2 report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Upon his arrival in Dili, Mr. Ramos Horta met with Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, the spiritual leader of East Timor and co-winner of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, who expressed joy in welcoming the former exile back. In an interview with a Portuguese radio station, RDP Antena on December 1, Bishop Belo expressed his wish that Mr. Ramos Horta will be sharing with the young people of East Timor the experience he has amassed over the years in the world of diplomacy.

Bishop Belo also challenged East Timorese political leaders to sit down around a table and determine the concrete projects they want to propose to the people. The people, according to him, need homes, food, and medicines, and their children need schooling. As for the East Timorese who have supported integration with Indonesia, Bishop Belo told his interviewer that they need to go on a retreat for one year, then work the land to feed the people whom they have left without homes, without food and without medicines.

Prointegration militias backed by Indonesian security forces went on a violent rampage in East Timor last summer in the aftermath of a UN-sponsored vote on self-determination in which 78.5 per cent voted for independence from Indonesia. A UN multinational force mandated to restore order started being deployed in the territory last September 20. On October 20, the Indonesian People's Consultative Assembly voted to revoke the 1976 decree annexing East Timor to Indonesia. This act paved the way for the the UN administration of the territory, and the eventual independence of East Timor.

Constancio Pinto, an East Timorese exile in the United States and co-author of East Timor's Unfinished Struggle, Inside the Timorese Resistance also recently returned for his first visit to East Timor since 1992. In the summer of 1998, Mr. Pinto shared with participants of the Women's Division-sponsored Upper Atlantic Regional School of Christian Mission in Bristol, Rhode Island the story of his arrest, torture and escape into exile. His moving testimony moved many United Methodist Women members into advocacy for East Timor.

As a leader in the East Timorese resistance, Mr. Pinto helped to organize the November 12, 1991 demonstration at the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili which was violently attacked by the Indonesian military. Having already undergone arrest and torture, it became increasingly dangerous for him to remain in East Timor. Thus he escaped to Macau, from there traveled to Lisbon, Portugal and eventually came to the United States. Mr. Pinto who is currently a student at Columbia University in New York is the North American and UN Representative of the National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT). He had gone back to East Timor to participate in meetings to plan the future of East Timor.

The United Methodist Church through its 1996 General Conference Resolution on East Timor supports "the East Timorese, both within East Timor and in exile who are struggling to end the Indonesian occupation and attempting to achieve self-determination in their land."

December 14, 1999