Associated Press

November 13, 1996

DILI, Indonesia (AP) -- Students supporting a Nobel peace leaureate marched through the streets of Dili on Wednesday, defending him from Indonesian criticism.

The roughly 1,000 students dispersed only when the speaker of the East Timor Parliament accepted their written demand that the government stop verbal attacks on Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo.

Belo and resistance leader Jose Ramos-Horta share this year's peace prize for their efforts to bring a peaceful settlement to the conflict in East Timor, a former Portuguese colony invaded by Indonesia in 1975.

About 2,000 members of the youth wing of Indonesia's ruling Golkar Party held an anti-Belo demonstration Tuesday in Jakarta, protesting an interview in which a German magazine quoted Belo as saying Indonesia had treated East Timor like "mangy dogs."

Wednesday's counterdemonstration in the capital of East Timor was mostly peaceful, with students marching under banners reading, "Long Live Belo."

A few students threw stones at the Parliament building, and demonstrators smashed the car windows of Speaker Antonio Fretas Parada before he came out to talk to them.

Police watched but took no action. On Tuesday, police in Dili dispersed hundreds of students demonstrating on campus to mark the fifth anniversary of a massacre of pro-independence demonstrators.

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