ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, October 12, 1996 TAG: 9610140053
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: OSLO, NORWAY
SOURCE: Associated Press
The Nobel committee threw its prestige behind East Timor's independence movement Friday, awarding its 1996 Peace Prize to a Roman Catholic bishop and an exiled activist who have struggled to peacefully end two decades of Indonesian rule.
For the third time in recent years, the Norwegian awards committee used the lofty award to prod hard-line regimes in Asia into curbing human rights abuses. Indonesia, like China in 1989 and Burma in 1991, didn't appreciate the public slap.
Indonesia expressed ``regret'' at the decision to honor Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and said co-winner Jose Ramos-Horta ``had been clearly involved in inciting and manipulating the people of East Timor.''
But the awards committee left no doubt who it blamed for the widespread death, terror and persecution after the Indonesian army and navy invaded the former Portuguese colony of some 600,000 people in December 1975 and annexed it the next year.
``In the years that followed, it has been estimated that one-third of the population lost their lives due to starvation, epidemics, war and terror,'' said the awards citation. The United Nations has never recognized Indonesian control over East Timor, now one of the most backward areas in the region.
East Timor, which is 80 percent Roman Catholic, is between the Indonesian island of Java and the northwestern tip of Australia, about 450 miles from Darwin.
It is the only Christian area in Indonesia, and its people resent a steady, government-mandated influx of Muslims from Indonesia, which, with 190 million people, is the world's largest Muslim nation.
By winning, Bishop Belo, 48, and Ramos-Horta, a 51-year-old former guerrilla, receive a $1.12 million cash prize and international acclaim.
The Nobel committee honored the two men for ``their work toward a just and peaceful solution'' but by calling attention to a little publicized conflict, it also demanded that Indonesia change its policies.
``This is definitely also a criticism of the [Indonesian] government,'' said awards committee chairman Francis Sejersted after announcing the winners.
In 1989, the Nobel committee similarly enraged China by giving the peace prize to the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, which has been occupied nearly four decades. Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi won the 1991 prize, angering the military dictators holding her in house arrest.
``We didn't expect this, it just fell from the sky,'' said Luis Cardoso, representative of the Timorese resistance in Lisbon where much of the overseas exile movement is based.
``The international community recognized the two fundamental components - the religious one represented by Ximenes Belo, and the political part of the Timorese resistance personified by Ramos-Horta,'' added Cardoso.
Belo received word of his win with a whisper.
He was holding a Mass for about 2,000 people in the East Timor city of Dili when a church official came up and quietly told him he was the co-winner of the world's most famous peace award. Belo mentioned nothing to the churchgoers.
``I did not want to announce the news to the people congregated so as not to cause problems,'' he said.
From the day he was appointed acting bishop in 1983, Belo has worked for a peaceful settlement of the conflict and self-determination for his territory. He is quick to criticize those resorting to violence, whether Indonesian troops or young East Timorese wanting to seize independence.
Ramos-Horta has spent two decades acting as the exiled international spokesman for East Timor's independence movement, most often from his base in Sydney, Australia, where he teaches at the University of New South Wales.
``I hope that this award is not only a personal gain for me, that it will help the struggle of the people of East Timor,'' Ramos-Horta told the Australia Broadcasting Corp.
Ramos-Horta was foreign minister in East Timor's short-lived 1975 government, which lasted about a week until the Indonesian invasion. He was away in Australia at the time, which probably saved his life.
Amnesty International, the 1977 Nobel peace laureate, was delighted with the choice, but worried about what happens next for East Timor.
``There will be an outpouring, a celebration, on the ground. Our worry is that it will be met with repression,'' said Rory Mungoven of Amnesty in London.
Last year, dozens of people were injured in riots in Dili after protests over Indonesian Muslims getting most of the jobs in the local civil service.
From late 1975 until 1980, 100,000 to 200,000 Timor people were killed in resistance to Indonesian control.
In 1991, the Indonesian military was involved in a massacre during a highly charged funeral of a pro-democracy activist, with 100 to 200 people killed. A New Yorker magazine correspondent and an American radio reporter were beaten; the violence was taped by a Briton, bringing international condemnation.
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Map by AP. color.by CNB