---------------------------------------------------------- FREE for JOIN Indonesia Daily News Online via EMAIL: go to: http://www.indo-news.com/subscribe.html - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - FREE - Please Visit Our Sponsor http://www.indo-news.com/cgi-bin/ads1 ---------------------------------------------------------- ANTARA, Aug 10 1999 E Timor: RI Independence Day To Be Celebrated As Usual Dili, August 9 (ANTARA)-Despite ongoing preparations for the August 30 direct ballot on East Timor's political future, the 54th anniversary of Indonesia's Independence Proclamation Day will be celebrated in the province as usual, Governor Abilio Osorio Soares said here Monday. Independence Day celebrations this year (August 17) will take place as usual and we have always marked the day on a great scale, he told ANTARA. Meanwhile, an East Timorese youth leader, Franquelino da Costa Freitas, said this year's Independence Day celebrations in East Timor would have a special significance. "This is a right momentum to arouse the East Timorese people to see the facts of life that have prevailed during the tiem they have been integrated into Indonesia," he said. Lino, who is also chairman of the Youths Pioneering Rural Development organisation said the East Timorese people could not deny the fact that for a period of 23 years of integration into Indonesia, the East Timorese people had always lived in freedom. In addition, the East Timorese people were now enjoying far greater welfare than when their land was still a Portuguese colony. "This commemoration will arouse the awareness to maintain integration into Indonesia by accepting the wide-ranging autonomy package offered by Indonesia," he said. He noted that until a realization was growing among school and university students that the best choice for East Timor's political future was accepting wide-ranging autonomy. "This would be a compromise between the pro-integration groups. Parents in general do not want the civil to happen again and now youths are beginning to show awareness about the preferability of wide-ranging autonomy," he said. (U.DLI-02/DLI-01/14:25/INT-AJM-17:30/NN01/19:23/tb02) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Didistribusikan tgl. 16 Aug 1999 jam 06:33:09 GMT+1 oleh: Indonesia Daily News Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.Indo-News.com/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
