Thanks Arjen , i was able to finish the spring ws tutorial http://static.springframework.org/sp.../tutorial.html.

Here are the steps i did for those who have the same problem.
(“plugin … does not exist” error, maven could not download the files from the repo)

1. removed the ${HOME}/.m2/repository
2. edited my maven2 settings.xml, i added my proxy settings (wer using web proxy at the office)
3. executed "maven install" with error:
[ERROR] BUILD ERROR
[INFO] Failed to resolve artifact.
Missing:
----------
1) javax.activation:activation:jar:1.0.2

4. downloaded activation jar version 1.0.2 and manually installed it
5. executed "maven install" again and the command created a new maven project

I have a new question though: HOW could i IMPORT the genereated project to ECLIPSE IDE?