Global Courant
DILI – East Timor’s first democratically elected head of state, Mr Xanana Gusmao, returned to power on Saturday, eight years after stepping down as prime minister of Southeast Asia’s youngest democracy.
The 77-year-old independence icon was credited with uniting the country during his first two terms in office, following the bloody guerrilla struggle against Indonesian occupation.
Gusmao’s party, the opposition National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction (CNRT), won the May elections with a landslide victory, defeating the incumbent coalition led by the resistance movement that became the Fretilin political party.
Mr Gusmao was re-elected as prime minister after CNRT allied with the Democratic Party to gain a majority in parliament.
Mr. Gusmao, the son of teachers of Portuguese Timorese descent, grew up in what was then a Portuguese colony.
He joined the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin) in 1975 and fought for independence first from Portugal and then from Indonesia.
Born Jose Alexandre Gusmao, he took the codename Xanana, allegedly in connection with a popular doo-wop song.
He quickly rose through the ranks of the resistance and in 1981 became leader of Fretilin’s military wing, Falintil, and spent much of his life in the jungle with fellow fighters.
When he was captured by Indonesian forces in 1992, he continued to lead the fight from prison in Jakarta.
During his time in prison, he met his second wife through a correspondence. Australian aid worker Kirsty Sword initially taught Mr Gusmao English through letters, but she snuck into the prison to meet him in person.
Mr. Gusmao earned the nickname “poet warrior” during this time behind bars when he was known for painting and writing poetry.
“He was a great resistance leader, he’s great at uniting people,” Dr Damien Kingsbury, emeritus professor at Melbourne’s Deakin University, told AFP.
“He achieved the best result ever for CNRT in the last election, he is a formidable political personality.”
After East Timor voted for independence in a United Nations-backed referendum in 1999, the Indonesian authorities allowed Mr. Gusmao was released from prison and returned to his homeland, revered as a national hero.
But his country would not become independent for three years.
After the referendum, pro-Indonesian militias went on a murderous rampage, adding to the bloody toll of the occupation, which after more than two decades caused an estimated nearly 200,000 deaths.
