The president of Portugal, Jorge Sampaio, is due in East Timor on Saturday.

He will be the first Portuguese head of state to visit the country's former colony since Portugal pulled out in 1974.

Mr Sampaio is scheduled to meet East Timor's independence leader Xanana Gusmao and the Nobel laureate Bishop Carlos Belo during his three-day trip.

He will also meet the chief United Nations administrator overseeing East Timor's transition to independence Sergio Vieira de Mello.

Portugal is contributing seven hundred troops to the international peacekeeping force and has pledged fifty million dollars for the establishment and running of the territory's new civil service. On Wednesday, Mr Gusmao announced that Portuguese would be East Timor's official language.

He said that the East Timorese were indebted to their former colonial rulers.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service