East Timorese President Jose Ramos Horta said yesterday he recently shook hands with the rebellious soldier who shot him last year, but had not yet named him to prosecutors.
Horta, who was in Bangkok for a peace seminar, told an audience that on Dec. 26 he shook hands with the man who shot him on Feb. 11, leaving him on the verge of death.
“He still hasn’t had the courage to tell the prosecutor ‘it was me,’ and I haven’t told the prosecutor because I hope that he will tell the court,” Horta said.
Horta, the 1996 Nobel peace laureate, was shot by a rebel soldier in Dili and lost 4 liters of blood before he was admitted to an Australian medical clinic for emergency treatment.
He spent 10 days in Darwin, Australia, in critical condition, but survived the assault and is now in good health, as is East Timor, he said.
“The immediate consequence is that the country stood back from our conflict and we entered a period of peace as never witnessed in our country,” said Horta of the unsuccessful assassination attempt.
Horta’s yet-unnamed assailant was one of 700 disgruntled East Timorese soldiers who rebelled against the government over lack of pay and other complaints early last year.
Shortly after the near-slaying, the rebels entered negotiations with the Dili government and surrendered in May. Leaders of the group are now awaiting trial.
“Since then I have met with them, including the gentleman who shot me,” Horta said. “I shook hands with him on Dec. 26, which was my birthday.”
Horta said he had no doubt about the culprit.
“I saw his face, his eyes, and I flashed back to Feb. 11, and that was the person,” he said.
Horta was only about 20m from his assailant when he was shot down with an AK-47.
The president said he had seen the assailant and quickly turned, avoiding being shot in the chest and perhaps saving his own life.
“I believe it was an irrational act on that morning,” he said of the attack. “I just hope that he will step forward and say: ‘yes, I did it,’ and say why he did it.”
Ironically, Horta was the chief proponent of opening negotiations with the rebellious soldiers to meet their demands. That process is now under way.
East Timor is one of the world’s newest countries. A former colony of Portugal, it was invaded and annexed by Indonesia in 1975.
A plebiscite calling for independence in 1999 led to a bloody crackdown by Indonesian soldiers that killed hundreds, prompting intervention by the UN.
East Timor gained its sovereignty in May 2002.
REBUILDING: A researcher said that it might seem counterintuitive to start talking about reconstruction amid the war with Russia, but it is ‘actually an urgent priority’ Italy is hosting the fourth annual conference on rebuilding Ukraine even as Russia escalates its war, inviting political and business leaders to Rome to promote public-private partnerships on defense, mining, energy and other projects as uncertainty grows about the US’ commitment to Kyiv’s defense. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy were opening the meeting yesterday, which gets under way as Russia accelerated its aerial and ground attacks against Ukraine with another night of pounding missile and drone attacks on Kyiv. Italian organizers said that 100 official delegations were attending, as were 40 international organizations and development banks. There are
The tale of a middle-aged Chinese man, or “uncle,” who disguised himself as a woman to secretly film and share videos of his hookups with more than 1,000 men shook China’s social media, spurring fears for public health, privacy and marital fidelity. The hashtag “red uncle” was the top trending item on China’s popular microblog Sina Weibo yesterday, drawing at least 200 million views as users expressed incredulity and shock. The online posts told of how the man in the eastern city of Nanjing had lured 1,691 heterosexual men into sexual encounters at his home that he then recorded and distributed online. The
TARIFF ACTION: The US embassy said that the ‘political persecution’ against former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro disrespects the democratic traditions of the nation The US and Brazil on Wednesday escalated their row over US President Donald Trump’s support for former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, with Washington slapping a 50 percent tariff on one of its main steel suppliers. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva threatened to reciprocate. Trump has criticized the prosecution of Bolsonaro, who is on trial for allegedly plotting to cling on to power after losing 2022 elections to Lula. Brasilia on Wednesday summoned Washington’s top envoy to the country to explain an embassy statement describing Bolsonaro as a victim of “political persecution” — echoing Trump’s description of the treatment of Bolsonaro as
CEREMONY EXPECTED: Abdullah Ocalan said he believes in the power of politics and social peace, not weapons, and called on the group to put that into practice The jailed leader of a Kurdish militant group yesterday renewed a call for his fighters to lay down their arms, days before a symbolic disarmament ceremony is expected to take place as a first concrete step in a peace process with the Turkish state. In a seven-minute video message broadcast on pro-Kurdish Medya Haber’s YouTube channel, Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), said that the peace initiative had reached a stage that required practical steps. “It should be considered natural for you to publicly ensure the disarmament of the relevant groups in a way that addresses the expectations
RSS