BY RON POULSEN
SYDNEY, Australia - "We are not Indonesians, we are not Portuguese, the only way we can be accepted as a people, as a nation, is in an independent East Timor." With these words, Harold Moucho, a representative of the Revolutionary Front for the Independence of East Timor (FRETILIN), underlined the reality of the decades-long struggle of the East Timorese people against foreign oppression. He was addressing a 600-strong rally here November 12. Similar actions were held in other main cities around Australia marking the fourth anniversary of the Dili massacre.
The November 13 Sydney Morning Herald reported that "Indonesian police [were] systematically arresting and beating up young Timorese men in the run-up to the anniversary" in an attempt to forestall protests.
In Dili, the East Timorese capital, a wave of house-to- house beatings by police riot squads resulted in the "arrests of an estimated 150 to 400 young Timorese." In Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, about 20 students held a candlelight ceremony to commemorate the massacre. Security forces reportedly arrested four people after confiscating a banner and a FRETILIN flag.
Chanting "No blood for oil!" and "Indonesia out of East Timor!" the march wound through the main streets of Sydney. It marked the massacre of over 200 people in Dili when Indonesian troops opened fire on a funeral procession for Sebastiao Rangel at the Santa Cruz cemetery Nov. 11, 1991. Many of the survivors were then "disappeared" and murdered in cold blood. Rangel had been killed by Indonesian soldiers as he sought refuge in a church in Dili.
The November 12 march in Sydney was preceded by a mass in St. Mary's Catholic Cathedral where Bishop Cremin announced that he was adding his name to the list of Catholic organizations offering sanctuary to East Timorese refugees should they be threatened with deportation by the Australian government. It culminated in a rally at the steps of the Sydney Town Hall where traditional Timorese dancers performed.
"The Indonesian regime has admitted to 50 victims of the Dili massacre," said Milena Pires of the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT). "But as the Mothers of Santa Cruz [the organization of relatives of the disappeared] are demanding, where are those bodies?" She pledged that the East Timorese people would not rest until the last Indonesian troops have left East Timor and all the political prisoners, including Xanana Gusmao, the imprisoned leader of FRETILIN, are freed.
Twenty-year occupation
Moucho, of FRETILIN, pointed out that the Indonesian
invasion of East Timor and its military occupation in the
20 years since has resulted in "the extermination of one-
third of the Timorese population." This occupation has been
carried out with the "complicity of Australian
governments."
The current Labor government, he said, is "continuing to train and supply Indonesia's elite troops" engaged in repression in East Timor. "Australia is the only country to give de jure recognition of the Indonesian annexation of East Timor" in order to share with the Indonesian regime in exploiting "the massive oil and gas reserves in the Timor sea," he said.
At the same time, as Moucho said, newly arrived refugees from East Timor face "the trauma of possible deportation to either Indonesia or Portugal [the former colonial power in East Timor]" as Canberra tries to deny them asylum.
Jenny Munro, chairperson of the Aboriginal Metropolitan Land Council of Sydney, declared that the 1,300 East Timorese refugees are welcome in Australia. "Aboriginal people understand the oppression and genocide that your people face, because that is what has been perpetrated against us for over 200 years!" she said. "We too have lost our children defending our land."
One of the Timorese refugees, Nelson Lemos, answered Canberra's attempts to deny them asylum on the basis of supposed Portuguese nationality. "We are not Indonesians or Portuguese. We are proud to call ourselves East Timorese!"
Max Lane of Aksi-Indonesian Solidarity Action and Gil Scrine of the Australia-East Timor Association also spoke.
The action was somewhat larger than previous years, with a large number of Timorese immigrants and young people. One young woman, Christine Barton, who marched with a placard reading "Free East Timor and West Papua!" said that this was her first protest. Having found out about Indonesian repression after visiting West Papua as a tourist, she said, "I want to get more involved in helping make others aware." There have been recent revelations of Indonesian brutality to West Papuans around the U.S.-owned Freeport mine in what Jakarta calls Irian Jaya.
Hundreds of people also took part in actions across Australia December 7 to mark the 20th anniversary of the Indonesian invasion of East Timor on that date in 1975.
Ron Poulsen is a member of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and works at Streets Ice Cream in Sydney.