Ramos-Horta joins call to end turmoil

The Timorese resistance leader Jose Ramos-Horta is due in Auckland tomorrow to add his weight to demands to end the bloodshed in East Timor.

The Nobel Prize laureate has been invited by activists opposed to Indonesia's bloody rule in the former Portuguese colony.

Maire Leadbeater, of the East Timor Independence Committee, said her group would host Mr Ramos-Horta.

The Timorese leader has been in the United States lobbying Washington and the United Nations.

She believed Apec leaders and Foreign Ministers had no alternative but to meet the exiled Timorese leader.

Mr Ramos-Horta has been out of the strife-torn territory since Indonesia seized control in 1975.

Earlier this week, he spoke by phone to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Don McKinnon.

Mr Ramos-Horta had appealed for New Zealand's support in an international effort to end the carnage in Timor.