HIS hair has turned all white. After all, he is no longer young. This coming June, Xanana Gusmao, President of the Democratic Republic of Timor Leste, will turn 60. He still stands erect but his waist has thickened. He is still a heavy smoker. Yet what has not changed about him is his dream: to be a vegetable farmer on the outskirts of the capital city of Dili.

Indeed, from the start, Xanana had always refused to be a president. I just wanted to