Talk:Xanana Gusmão
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At some stage he married an an Australian aid worker, Kirsty Sword IIRC. Anyone know what happened to his first wife? --Robert Merkel
- Don't know, sorry, but I've just added a Kirsty Sword Gusmão entry. Tale 13:18, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
Is Gusmao of ethnic Portuguese descent? Just curious...--fredericknoronha 21:35, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
[edit] He is a Mestiço
Xanana Gusmao is a Mestiço which is a hybrid of Portugese and Malay/Papuan. But he is a Timorese. 68.144.126.226 23:24, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Name Change
I didn't notice that it mentioned when or how his name was changed. For the record, Xanana contributed to local (Dili?) newspapers. In his words, "There was this popular song at the time that went 'sha na na na'." He chose this as his penname, but changed the spelling from Shanana to Xanana (Don't quote me but that might have been because of Portugese spelling of 'sh'). Someone must have recognized his writing, because one day when he was walking someone behind him called, "Hey, Shanana!" and he turned around. After that the name simply stuck. I am unsure exactly when he began using it officially. Wyrmfire 03:23, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Gusmao is not currently a representative of FRETILIN
The box to the right of the article listed his party affiliation as FRETILIN, but FRETILIN re-elected Alkatiri less than two weeks ago. Also, this article from a mainstream Australian news source describes Gusmao as an opponent of FRETILIN. It says he is allied with the Democratic Party (East Timor). Here's a quote:
"The talks came after pressure from the UN, Australia and the US for East Timor's rival political factions - Fretilin and the Democratic Party supported by Mr Gusmao - to settle their differences."
Another article from the same mainstream Australian source says that Gusmao left FRETILIN as long ago as the 1980's: "...during the 1980s Gusmao distanced himself from Marxism and eventually left Fretilin..."
Can someone please settle this confusion? It should of course be possible to provide conclusive proof of Gusmao's party affiliation. It might help if we had a link somewhere to the official FRETILIN website, but I can't find it right now. I saw it yesterday and it had an english part to it but I can't find it anymore.
- I removed FRETILIN party affiliation from the Infobox for Gusmao. I can find no evidence that Gusmao is presently a part of FRETILIN and abundant evidence that he is not. In fact in the present political environment it seems like intentional misinformation to say that he represents FRETILIN. He was endorsed by nine political parties when he won the Presidency but FRETILIN was not one of them. Here are some quotes I found:
- "...simmering tensions between the former jungle warrior [Gusmao] and Fretilin. Gusmao led Fretilin's military wing in the 24-year independence battle but has since distanced himself from the party..." - Agence France Presse, 2002, posted on ETAN website
- "Gusmao, who abandoned Fretilin´s leadership in 1987 to assume a supra-partisan resistance role, underlined past differences with the party, including its decision not to form a “government of national unity” after its overwhelming victory in last August´s constitutent assembly elections... Fretilin won 55 of the assembly´s 88 seats." - LUSA (Portugese News Agency), 2002 (links here)
- "I was a member of the Central Committee of Fretilin until '87, and I already explained to some people and I already told Fretilin also that as a member of Central Committee of Fretilin until '87, I will respond also for the political mistakes. If people don't like to say crimes, but political mistakes that Fretilin did." - Xanana Gusmao, 2000, (links here)
- There's plenty more info out there (here's just one easy search you could do).
