Vergonhoso. Vale tudo na caça ao voto. Horta utiliza autoridade de PM em campanha eleitoral.

Agence France-Presse - April 17, 2007 11:11pm
Hunt for Reinado called off

From correspondents in Jakarta

The prime minister of East Timor today said he was calling off the hunt for a fugitive rebel leader blamed for last year's unrest to lure him back to the negotiating table.
“The military operation on Major Reinado has to be stopped to give a chance for the attorney general, Reinado's lawyers and the (East Timor) bishops to resume dialogues,” Jose Ramos Horta said.

“The president will meet parties involved today and tomorrow to stop the military operations,” he said.

Major Alfredo Reinado, a renegade soldier, has been on the run since crack Australian troops attacked his mountain hideout earlier last month in a failed bid to capture him.
His refusal to surrender cast a long shadow over impoverished East Timor's landmark presidential election this month, although he said he would not disrupt the poll.
Five of his armed supporters were killed during the raid on his hideout, which triggered rowdy protests.

Major Reinado has been a persistent problem for East Timor's Government and is said to have a band of armed followers and to enjoy support from disaffected youths and the backing of an ethnic group living in the nation's west.

The fugitive was criticised for his role in unrest last year that killed at least 37 people, displaced 150,000 and led to the dispatch of Australian-led international peacekeepers.

East Timor to halt hunt for army rebel - PM
By Tito Belo

Dili, April 17 (Reuters) - East Timor's government will resume talks with an army renegade accused of involvement in last year's bloody violence and halt a military operation to arrest him, Prime Minister Jose Ramos-Horta said on Tuesday.

Last August, Alfredo Reinado escaped from a prison where he had been held on charges of murder during an army rebellion in May.

Australian troops, dispatched to East Timor to restore order, launched a major manhunt to apprehend Reinado after government efforts to negotiate with him failed.

Five of Reinado's followers were killed during an operation to capture him last month.
Ramos-Horta told a news conference the government had decided to resume talks with Reinado because he did not disrupt the April 9 presidential elections.
"Government authorities have held discussions with Alfredo Reinado's lawyer in order to establish dialogue," he said, adding that talks would also take place on halting the military operation with international troops.

"We have received a letter from Alfredo Reinado's lawyer. We will give an opportunity to the church and his lawyers to persuade Reinado to come down and establish dialogue," he said.
The prime minister said that the government would guarantee the security of Reinado and his followers.

Ramos-Horta is one of eight candidates running in the presidential elections.
He is set to face the candidate of the Fretilin party, Francisco Guterres, in a run-off poll on May 8 after neither won an absolute majority in the first round ballot.

Some analysts said Ramos-Horta's popularity had been hurt because of his decision to arrest Reinado, who enjoys support from many in the impoverished country.
"I think if he reverses his decision to pursue Alfredo, he has the chance to win the second round," Joao Saldanha, director of the Timor Institute for Development Studies, said last week.
Ramos-Horta became prime minister after his predecessor, Mari Alkatiri, quit following last year's violence.

The violence, triggered by Alkatiri's sacking of 600 rebellious soldiers, killed more than 30 people and displaced more than 150,000 people.
The chaos led to the deployment of an international peacekeeping force.

East Timor voted in a 1999 referendum for independence from Indonesia, which annexed it after Portugal ended its colonial rule in 1975. The country became fully independent in 2002 after a period of U.N. administration.