East Timor has its first president. To no one's surprise, Mr. Xanana Gusmao won last week's election by a landslide. He will need every bit of that popularity as his country deals with the difficult times ahead. East Timor starts from scratch; it will need the help and patience of the world, and the forbearance of its neighbors as it grows into a mature and viable nation.
Mr. Gusmao's victory was a given. A legendary fighter for Timorese independence, the poet and former seminary student took up the cause in 1975 when Indonesia invaded East Timor after 400 years of Portuguese colonial rule. He became a guerrilla fighter for the armed wing of the proindependence party Fretilin, a Portuguese acronym for the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor.
Mr. Gusmao assumed command of the armed independence struggle in 1981 and quickly won recognition for tactical brilliance. After being captured in 1992, he continued the fight from jail, eventually becoming Indonesia's -- and one of the world's -- most famous political prisoners. He was released in 1999, a year after Indonesia's President Suharto was forced to leave office and just after the people of East Timor voted for independence in a referendum.