Clark helps celebrate birth of a nation

By AUDREY YOUNG

The Prime Minister will leave the Labour Party conference early today to lead a New Zealand delegation, including the parents of slain NZ soldier Private Leonard Manning, to East Timor's independence ceremony tomorrow.

At midnight tomorrow, watched by thousands of locals and visitors, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan will relinquish administration to a democratically elected Government headed by former guerrilla leader and President-elect Xanana Gusmao.

Helen Clark paid tribute to Mr Gusmao, describing him as "Timor's Mandela in terms of the ability to forgive and move on".

He had lived "an atrocious life as a fighter" before his capture and imprisonment.

"It's a miracle that he is alive today."

The UN has controlled the territory since the bloody aftermath of the independence referendum in 1999.

Under economic pressure from then-United States President Bill Clinton, Indonesia agreed to international intervention to stop the killing and burning rampage of anti-independence militia.

Mr Clinton will represent President George Bush in East Timor tomorrow.

Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri is said to be attending against the wishes of many internal critics.

Linda and Charlie Manning have visited East Timor before.

Their son was killed by armed militia in July 2000.

His killer was sentenced in a Jakarta court to six years' jail.

Helen Clark said the Mannings knew their son had been interested in East Timorese children and liked contact with the local people.

"I know they have been doing some fundraising to try to put something back into Timor, so it's really nice that they're coming."

Also attending will be Foreign Minister Phil Goff and his associate Matt Robson.

New Zealand has dispatched its last battalion of 621 Army personnel to the UN peacekeeping force.

By November it will have reduced its contribution to several dozen.



New Zealand has pledged $10 million in aid over four years, on top of $9 million in the past three years and $39 million spent on defence force deployment since 1999.

Former diplomat and foreign affairs commentator Terence O'Brien said New Zealand and Australia should take a bow for their role in the "nation-building" process.

East Timor was a bright story "in a world that has been battered by the Middle East and Palestine and Israel and Pakistan and Afghanistan".

"The US is, in a way, trying to make terrorism the world's No 1 agenda item. But New Zealand and Australia should not accept international terrorism is necessarily the world's No 1 agenda item.

"Here we're giving small proof that a small modern democracy like this one is able to play an effective part in trying to bolster stability in its corner of the world."

Feature: Indonesia and East Timor

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