East Timor’s top rebel gives up
Paul Toohey; 26/4/08
Rebel lieutenant Gastao Salsinha last night surrendered after two years on the run and put himself in the personal control of East Timor’s most senior army officer, Brigadier Tuar Matan Ruak. Salsinha’s capitulation will hopefully bring to an end two years of stand-offs, negotiations and violence that has torn the country apart. Salsinha, who allegedly led the attack on Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao on February 11 while Alfredo Reinado launched the raid on President Jose Ramos Horta’s compound, spent yesterday sitting in a house in Ermera, in the west of East Timor, with a Catholic Church priest acting as his mediator as armed forces surrounded the position. Negotiators had gone to a house near the town of Gleno, atSalsinha’s suggestion, to collect him.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23600893-2703,00.html