East Timor, the world's youngest country, joins the United Nations

Friday, September 27th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

UNITED NATIONS (AP) _ An independent East Timor, the world's youngest country, formally joined the United Nations on Friday after centuries of Portuguese rule and years of often brutal Indonesian occupation.

Diplomats from around the world applauded, rather than formally voted, to accept the tiny Southeast Asian nation as its 191st member.

Xanana Gusmao, who was sworn in as the former Indonesian territory's first president, was welcomed at a ceremony in the General Assembly Hall by ambassadors and the U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Later, Gusmao, a 55-year-old poet and former guerrilla fighter who spent seven years in jail and under house arrest, is to join Annan at the hoisting the new member-nation's flag at the U.N. headquarters as its national anthem is played on a flute.

Under Annan, the United Nations took over the administration of East Timor in 1999 after its people voted overwhelmingly for independence from Indonesia in a U.N.-sponsored referendum.

The vote touched off a wave of violence by the Indonesian military and its militia supporters that destroyed much of East Timor.

East Timor's joy at joining the world body after centuries of brutal occupation, however, remains tempered by the challenges ahead: East Timor is among the world's poorest nations, and sovereignty will mean little unless living standards can be raised.

Its leaders have warned the country's fragile peace will only hold if the international community continues to provide assistance and not abandon the country.

More than 45 percent of East Timor's 850,000 people are desperately poor and more than 50 percent of the population was below 20 years, and in need of education and jobs.

The plebiscite that led to independence was followed by violence when Indonesia-backed militias slaughtered hundreds and burnt down large parts of the capital, Dili, before an international peacekeeping force restored order. Those scars still remain.

Gusmao, speaking to The Associated Press on Thursday, said he would not advise other regions to use armed struggles as their route to independence.

``I will tell them to try everything to achieve a peaceful solution. We tried, we didn't only fight,'' he said in an interview.

Separatists in Indonesia's westernmost Aceh province and other regions, including Papua province and the Maluku islands, are also struggling to follow in East Timor's footsteps.

Indonesia has given the rebels in Aceh until December to accept a proposal for autonomy. After that, it has said it will launch an offensive aimed at crushing them.

Gusmao said that armed resistance played a ``fundamental role'' in East Timor's independence struggle, but stressed that he would advise others in similar positions to ``use all their capacities to forge a peaceful solution.''