Subject: CNN, Financial Times, NY Times reports on Ramos Horta shooting From: ETAN Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 22:44:58 -0500 To: east-timor@lists.riseup.net Financial Times East Timor president shot at home By John Aglionby in Jakarta Published: February 11 2008 01:43 | Last updated: February 11 2008 01:43 East Timor’s president, Jose Ramos Horta, was shot in the stomach in a pre-dawn attack on his home by fugitive members of the country’s armed forces, a presidential spokesman said Monday. Agusto Junior said the Nobel peace laureate, who was elected president last year, was undergoing surgery at an Australian military base in East Timor and would probably be evacuated to the nearby Australian city of Darwin for further treatment. ”He will survive, and this country will survive,” Jose Guterres, the deputy prime minister, told reporters. Mr Guterres said two cars drew up to Mr Horta’s house, two kilometres outside the capital Dili, before dawn and the occupants opened fire. Guards retaliated and the attackers fled. An army spokesman said Alfredo Reinado, an army major who has been on the run since leading a rebellion in March 2006, was killed in the incident. East Timor television reported that the house of Xanana Gusmao, the prime minister, was also attacked but that no one was hurt in that incident. Security forces deployed in large numbers around Dili on Monday morning but the city appeared peaceful. The opposition Fretilin party condemned the attack. Mari Alkatiri, prime minister until 2006 and still party secretary-general, said Fretilin was “shocked that this has happened”. ”This comes as a total surprise given the recent positive developments, as a result of the president’s tireless efforts to find a mechanism of national political consensus to find solutions to the critical issues that are faced by our country,” he said. The precise motivation for the attack is not yet clear. Last August, Mr Horta met Reinado, who was also wanted on murder charges in relation to the 2006 unrest, in a bid to get him to surrender. The talks failed and Reinado had threatened to incite new unrest. His 2006 rebellion triggered the implosion of the fledgling nation’s security forces and left the country on its knees. More than 1,500 Australian-led international forces were deployed to restore order after 37 people were killed and some 150,000 fled their homes. Thousands still remain in refugee camps. Calm was restored and relatively peaceful elections were held last year. These saw Mr Horta, who took over as prime minister during the crisis after Mr Alkatiri was forced to resign, swap jobs with Mr Gusmao, then president. East Timor became independent in 2002 after 24 years of brutal Indonesian occupation ended in 1999. The United Nations ran the former Portuguese colony for three years and then downsized its presence very rapidly, which analysts considered a significant contributing factor to the 2006 chaos. Mr Horta shared the Nobel peace prize in 1996 with Carlos Belo, then the Catholic bishop of Dili, in recognition of their efforts to end Indonesian occupation. === East Timor's Ramos-Horta wounded (CNN) -- East Timor President and Nobel laureate Jose Ramos-Horta was shot twice, while Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao escaped unhurt Monday in coordinated attacks blamed on rebel troops, officials said. East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta was on an official visit to Brazil last month. Ramos-Horta was shot twice in the back, and one of the bullets tore through his abdomen, Foreign Minister Zacarias da Costa said. But the wounds were not life-threatening, he added. "The doctors are trying to locate where the bullet is," da Costa said. Gusmao was convening an emergency meeting of the island's government in Dili, Deputy Prime Minister Jose Luis Gutteres told CNN. "The prime minister is in control of the situation," da Costa said, adding that the overall situation in the country was "stable" and calm. "We already are used to this idea of having some renegades outside," he said. "But I think the country is safe. We have the support of the Australian and New Zealand military here ... and I believe our own defenses are capable of handling those problems." Ramos-Horta was in surgery at an Australian military hospital in Dili and was to be flown to a military hospital in Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory. Killed in the attack were a bodyguard for the president and two attackers, da Costa said. One of them was rebel leader Maj. Alfredo Reinado, said Gutteres. Watch as he describes what's known about the attacks Reinado, the Australian-trained former head of East Timor's military police joined the revolt and became its leader. He was later captured but broke out of prison and returned to lead disaffected troops, said Damien Kingsbury, an analyst at Australia's Deakin University. Two small parties in Gusmao's government had supported the rebels, and the government had been trying to coax Reinado to give up peacefully, Kingsbury said. But a secondary plan had been developed to move against him by force if necessary, Kingsbury added, saying, "It's quite possible that he got wind of this plan and decided to act accordingly." In a message to its citizens in the country, the U.S. State Department said the attack on the president occurred at 7:30 a.m. The State Department said there were "unconfirmed reports of unrest" in the Lahane zone of Dili and Taibesse but no other reports of unrest in Dili. The U.S. State Department urged Americans "to use extreme caution and limit movements to the greatest extent possible." Ramos-Horta shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo in 1996 for their work toward a peaceful solution to the conflict in their country. Under the rule of the late Suharto, Indonesia occupied East Timor for a quarter century, during which more than 100,000 people were killed, according to human rights groups. East Timor gained independence in 2002. In March 2006 a strike by about 600 East Timorese soldiers against alleged discrimination in the military led to their dismissal. The soldiers set up armed camps in the countryside, prompting the dispatch of additional peacekeepers from Australia, Malaysia, Portugal and New Zealand. --- President of East Timor Wounded in Rebel Attack By SETH MYDANS and TIM JOHNSTON Published: February 11, 2008 President José Ramos-Horta of East Timor was shot and critically wounded at his home on Monday by renegade soldiers in an attack that threatened to intensify the continuing unrest that has destabilized the struggling young nation, according to reports from the capital, Dili. Mr. Ramos-Horta, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 for his efforts to free East Timor from Indonesian domination, was being evacuated to Australia for medical treatment for a gunshot wound to the stomach, a Timorese military spokesman said. The spokesman, Domingos da Camara, said the attack was carried out by the leader of a renegade military group, Alfredo Reinado. He said Mr. Reinado had been killed in an exchange of gunfire between the president’s guards and two cars that drove by his house early in the morning. But the involvement of Mr. Reinado could not be independently confirmed in telephone calls to Dili, the capital of East Timor. An attack on the home of Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão was reported by East Timor television. No one was hurt there, The Associated Press reported. East Timor won independence from Indonesia in a referendum in 1999 and became a self-governing nation in 2002 after a transition period under United Nations administration. But it has failed so far to stabilize its young democracy, and tensions mounted earlier this month as rebels loyal to Mr. Reinado fired on Australian troops who are part of a peacekeeping force. “We’re in for another period of instability because there has been more than one shooting this morning,” said Sophia Cason of the International Crisis Group in a telephone interview Monday morning. “There’s more than one group involved, and even if the president manages to pull through, the fact that there has been an assassination attempt against him will cause some instability,” she said. “There are people who are going to be very concerned and upset about what’s happening.” Mr. Reinado had led a revolt against the government since 2006, when factional fighting killed 37 people and drove 150,000 people from their homes. Many of those people remain in tents, saying they are afraid to return to their homes for fear of more violence. Mr. Ramos-Horta, 58, was elected president last May after serving as the country’s foreign minister. He succeeded the former guerrilla leader, Mr. Gusmão, who was later elected prime minister. Mr. Ramos-Horta had led an international campaign for independence from Indonesia, which occupied East Timor, a former Portuguese colony, for 24 years and had remained the international face of the world’s youngest nation. He received the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo. Last month the International Crisis Group warned that there was a risk of more unrest unless the police and the military were reformed. In November, Mr. Reinado threatened to use force against the government unless it met the demands of his group of hundreds of military deserters. “I will lead my soldiers down to Dili,” he said. “The situation and stability of this country will be worse.” Mr. Reinado’s revolt reflected divisions within the police and military and unresolved social and economic issues that have contributed to continuing poverty and instability in East Timor. “The problem is that a lot of the issues which led to the crisis in 2006 haven’t actually been dealt with,” Ms. Cason said. “There hasn’t been the reform of the military or the reform of the police that’s needed. “The other causes are high-level political disputes, massive unemployment which has led to an increased number of fights between street gangs: all of these issues are still here and none of them have really been dealt with.” etanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetan ETAN welcomes your financial support. For more info: http://etan.org/etan/donate.htm John M. Miller Internet: fbp@igc.org National Coordinator East Timor & Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) PO Box 21873, Brooklyn, NY 11202-1873 USA Phone: (718)596-7668 Fax: (718)222-4097 Mobile phone: (917)690-4391 Skype: john.m.miller Web site: http://www.etan.org Send a blank e-mail message to info@etan.org to find out how to learn more about East Timor on the Internet etanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetan [This message was distributed via the east-timor news list. For info on how to subscribe send a blank e-mail to info@etan.org. To support ETAN see http://etan.org/etan/donate.htm ]