East Timor’s president said he believed “external elements” were supporting the rebels who tried to assassinate him in the hopes that his country would be plunged into chaos and be declared a failed state.
Jose Ramos-Horta, 58, has been recuperating in the northern Australian city of Darwin since February, when mutinous soldiers shot him outside his home in East Timor’s capital, Dili. East Timorese Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao escaped an ambush on his motorcade the same day.
The motive for the attacks, which followed more than a year of political turmoil and violence, remained unclear.
In an interview with CNN on Monday, Ramos-Horta did not identify the outsiders he believed were trying to destabilize his country or elaborate on what he thought they had been doing to support such efforts.
“An investigation has been ongoing and there is increasing evidence pointing a finger at external elements that were supporting the renegade Alfredo Reinado,” Ramos-Horta said, referring to the rebel leader who was killed during the Feb. 11 attack. “These are elements interested in destabilizing East Timor, plunging it into an endless civil war so it could be declared a failed state.”
East Timor broke from decades of often-brutal Indonesian rule in 1999 in a UN-sponsored referendum. Three years later, it became Asia’s newest nation, but the euphoria quickly evaporated amid the challenges of governing a divided, impoverished people.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported yesterday that investigators found that Reinado was involved in 47 telephone calls to and from Australia in the hours before the February attacks. It said Timorese authorities have asked Australian agencies to provide the names of the telephone subscribers and to release any recorded conversations.
In the days following the attacks, a number of people were detained in Dili, including an Australian-Timorese woman who authorities said had hosted Reinado and his accomplices at her house the night before the attacks.
Reinado and another rebel were killed in a clash with Ramos-Horta’s guards during the attack. An unknown number of rebels escaped.
In his interview with CNN, Ramos-Horta said it was imperative that the assassination attempt be properly investigated.
“Our country will need to get to the bottom of these events to heal from them,” Ramos-Horta said.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner also said the attempt on his life had made him more resolved to help improve the lives of the impoverished Timorese.
“I would say that it has, primarily, reaffirmed my personal conviction and my ambition to lift people out of extreme poverty,” he said. “Today, I have no other goal or ambition. The recent events have only served to reaffirm my lifelong commitment to helping the poor.”
Ramos-Horta plans to return to East Timor tomorrow.
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