Word: fretilin
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Indonesia immediately decried the choice of Ramos-Horta. In 1975, at the age of 25, the former newsman became "foreign minister" of a government formed by the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor, or Fretilin, which slaughtered card-holding members of four other political parties following Portugal's withdrawal from its former colony. Indonesia's invasion the following month sent most Fretilin leaders into exile. Ramos-Horta advocates Fretilin's peace plan: a two-year pullback of Indonesian troops and an eventual U.N.-sponsored referendum on self-rule. "We, the East Timorese, are offering an olive branch to Indonesia...
...policy of importing non-Timorese migrants to the island. After the massacre of some 200 protesters in 1991, Belo loudly called for a commission of inquiry. He has said the Indonesian military had planned, but failed, to assassinate him twice, in 1989 and 1991. But he has also condemned Fretilin for the massacres it led in 1975, which he blames squarely on Gusmao...
Belo believes Fretilin's savagery is neither forgotten nor forgiven. While he still advocates a referendum, the bishop is not as confident as Ramos-Horta seems to be about its outcome. Many East Timorese, he says, may even choose union with Indonesia. He offers an alternative to a potentially violent referendum: East Timor as an Indonesian province with special autonomy...