Audio available at Pat-Walsh+QnA-Honouring-the-struggle-2024

2024: a year of big memories in Timor-Leste

• 50th anniversary of the Carnation revolution in Portugal, 25 April 1974 (flower children in the room will probably have the date tattooed on their biceps!). Pat involved.
• 25th anniversary of the 1999 referendum, the very overdue birth of the Carnation Revolution’s godchild, on 30 August 1999. Pat present;
• Pope Francis visit 9-11 September 2024, a personal triumph for President Horta who so associated himself with the Pope that I am now calling him Sua Santidade (His Holiness), no longer just His Excellency! Pat present.
• Lastly, where it deserves to be, the swearing in (or better the swearing at) of war criminal General Prabowo Subianto as Indonesia’s 8th president on 20 October 2024.
• Addenda: ASEAN and making more of PALM.

1. 50th anniversary of the Carnation revolution (CR), 25 April 1974:
Of existential significance for both East Timor and Portugal.
• For Timor, beginning of decolonization, 3 political parties quickly established for first time. Its democratic significance memorialised in streets either side of the Palacio Governo in Dili: Rua 25 de Abril and Rua 30 de Agusto respectively.
• For Portugal: end of empire, dictatorship, beginning of democracy, social justice.
CR = peaceful; led by disaffected military, supported by civil society, kicked off with music (Zeca Afonso’s Grandola, Vila Morena), celebrated with flowers (when restaurant worker, Celeste Caiero, offered soldiers carnations).

Comment
• The hope and history represented by Carnation Revolution did not rhyme in Timor-Leste. Proposals to government to highlight the event and build a memorial fell on deaf ears (bar a symposium by CNC which also had carnations painted on a wall in Rua 25 de Abril). President Horta worried a big event in Dili might spark old enmities between the political parties and celebrated in Portugal instead. 1975 civil war savage, as brutal if not more so than 1999.
• Celeste Caiero died 15 Nov 2024; her death seems not have been remarked in Timor. See Pat Walsh Facebook post 6.12.24.
• CR – revolution, anti-establishment, left-wing, anti-military, pro-democratic, Influence on Fretilin (Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor) – a factor in attitude of Suharto and brutally anti-left Orde Baru military regime towards Timor, though no excuse for its breach of UN Charter.
• Father of Zeca Afonso, Portugal’s Pete Seeger, was a judge in Timor. Did Zeca campaign for Timor?

2. 25th anniversary of referendum (‘popular consultation’), 30 August 1999.
1999 ballot. See The Day Hope and History Rhymed in East Timor. Anne Wigglesworth and Pat Walsh part of Australia’s delegation, led by Tim Fischer, newly retired deputy PM of Australia. See his Ballot and Bullets, 7 Days in East Timor.
Highlights:
• VIP guests included Antonio Guterres (Sec Gen UN), Richard Marles (Deputy PM Australia), Ian Martin (SRSG UNAMET 1999). (Ian launched Mayra Walsh’s Tetum translation of his book on the 99 referendum a day or two earlier. Indonesian version later in Jakarta).
• Five-star evening banquet replete with Portuguese wine, music by Ego Lemos et al. Speeches by President JRH and PM Xanana. Song by Patrick Burgess. Poetry reading by Pat Walsh (The Chosen One, on 6-inch nail used by voters).
• Public celebration at the Dili stadium.

Comment
Hope and history rhymed again thanks to well-organised events. Slightly off-key, however, was that Indonesia did not appear to be represented at a high level; and (2) it appeared that Fretilin leaders Mari Alkatiri and LuOlo who attended were not officially welcomed and left once formalities ended.

3. Pope Francis visit: 9-11 September.
Hope and history definitely rhymed. Pope has soft spot for periphery. First pope from Global South. Has first-hand experience of Timor-style colonialism, repression, war, human rights and decolonisation. First pope to take Francis as way of promoting Francis of Assisi-style care for the earth, the poor and peace.

Invited by President Horta. Helping was his appointment to judging panel for 2021 Zayed award for human fraternity, named Fratelli Tutti (joint statement by Pope Francis and Professor Ahmed Al-Tayeb of Cairo). President had it adopted by Parliament and included in Timor curriculum. January 2024, had 45 minutes with Pope on Myanmar. Two factors (1) to promote Timor-Leste; (2) to enhance unifying role of the church across TL’s divisions, a ‘glue’ first effected during the war of liberation, personified in Dom Martinho da Costa, Bishop Belo, Pope John Paul II’s visit 1989, and by Vatican support for self-determination and humanitarian role of church.

Main events – diplomatic reception; meetings with leaders, church personnel, youth. Mass at Taci-Tolu: over half million participants.

Selected messages to Timor:
• Youth: ‘hacer un lio’ make a noise, not be afraid to shake things up.
• Church: ‘hear the cry of the world… be a church that gets its hands dirty’. Clericalism ‘the worst thing that can happen to the Church… You are not superior… ministry is a service’. (As far as I know, did not use that moment to condemn the sexual abuse which clericalism has contributed to in East Timor. President Horta recently pardoned Richard Daschbach).
• General: build a society where no-one left behind, no-one feels excluded. Faith not an ideology instead should should infuse culture in practical ways such as jobs, fair wages, environmental care, non-violent resolution of conflict, making children – safety, health, education and futures – central. (Could have challenged governments and corporates to do more to help build the country whose cause they generally ignored during the occupation).
• Overall impression: positivity. Long view v scepticism and pessimism. As he has said elsewhere: ‘Don’t retire from life, keep dreaming. Be a witness of the beauty and novelty of life’.
• Departing words to President Horta as boarding plane: ‘Come with me to make sure I leave!… cuidar de estas pueblo maravilloso’. (Look after these beautiful people).

I asked Vatican
(a) Not to have Pope endorse Timor-Leste’s empty claims of reconciliation with Jakarta. He didn’t.
(b) To allow access to Vatican archives. Not possible yet.
(c) For Pope to visit Centro Nacional Chega! (CNC) as gesture of solidarity with war victims of human rights. Proposal made too late. Instead agreed he would meet three women victims at Taci Tolu. Didn’t happen. Possibly headed off by government for fear of offending Indonesia. Met with Papal Ambassador instead.
(d) Liaised with West Papuans and East Timorese to draw Pope’s attention to West Papua – PNG, Dili. Ditto – UN-SRSG.

4. Election of Prabowo Subianto as president of Indonesia.
Elected in February 2024. Took office 20 October. Hope and history seriously clashing, not that anyone much noticed.
See Pat Walsh pieces in Eureka St, Inside Indonesia, Pearls and Irritations.

Prabowo: 73, product of the militarised Orde Baru, former special forces general (Kopassus specialised in unconventional warfare), ex-son-in-law of Suharto, compromised Timor record during 4 tours of duty. Referenced some 20 times in CAVR truth commission report.
• 1976 in Timor as a young officer;
• 1978 as commander of unit that killed East Timor’s military leader, Nicolau Lobato;
• 1983 bypassed commanding officer to undermine peace process;
• 1983 accused of massacres in Kraras;
• 1986-7 developed an anti-Resistance strategy used to foster covert proxy war by pitting locals against locals; associated with stealing Timorese children; groomed a number of East Timor’s most violent offenders including Eurico Guterres;
• 1990s used Kopassus to train and direct militias and create ‘ninja’ gangs to terrorise Timorese;
• banned by Australia and three US presidents for human rights record in East Timor and Indonesia.
Arguably a war criminal guilty of breaching UN Charter (as participant in illegal invasion) and other violations of international law, but not indicted or proven judicially.

How explain his election:
• East Timor narrative suppressed or distorted in Indonesia akin to post-65 narrative;
• Young voters (majority) ignorant or think was civil war and Indonesia did nothing wrong in Timor;
• Timor-Leste: no choice but to allow Indonesian ignorance and distortions;
• Timor-Leste: Indonesia, not it, responsible for Indonesia’s past.

Comment
How will Indonesia face its past if victim not only remains silent but claims past is settled and best forgotten as often stated by PM Xanana Gusmao and President Ramos-Horta? Both leaders have repeatedly stated Timor-Leste and Indonesia are reconciled and that their ‘journey of reconciliation is a global model that other post-conflict societies should imitate’. ‘We are all very happy that Prabowo is President’, President Horta, Time (28.10.24).

However, reconciliation essentials – truth-telling, accountability, reparations and justice – have not been met by Indonesia; there has been no reconciliation process in practice – with, in or by Indonesia. The ‘journey’ entirely one way, Dili to Jakarta, with the former making concessions that are far from trivial:
• gives comfort to perpetrators;
• enhances impunity;
• disregards the damning findings of two truth commissions;
• degrades reconciliation; leaves the contaminated Suharto era narrative in place;
• obstructs future initiatives towards real reconciliation;
• belittles Timor-Leste and its victims;
• contributes to rehabilitation of Suharto.

Prabowo and Dili’s embarrassing, even demeaning, over-reach to him and Indonesia = example of Macquarie dictionary word of the year enshittification, chosen because it ‘captures what many of us feel is happening to the world’.

5. Timor-Leste membership of ASEAN in 2025.
• How can Timor-Leste ensure that the business investment it seeks from within ASEAN will benefit all Timorese?
• What does Timor-Leste have in common with the 10 ‘assorted political misfits’ that currently comprise ASEAN – two one-party states (Laos, Vietnam), a sultanate (Brunei), four countries run by the children or their rough equivalent of former dictators (Cambodia, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia), a military junta (Myanmar), and a soft authoritarian state (Singapore)? How can Timor-Leste ensure that this association does not compromise its values and that it can be a force for democratisation and human rights in the region?

6. PALM (Pacific Australia Labor Mobility)
Some 4000 plus young Timorese work in Australia under PALM scheme. Some at Australian Lamb Company in Colac where I spoke on 3 December.
How to value add beyond their employment and earning so that the experience adds skills and ideas useful back in Timor, i.e. combine work and education to maximise the return on their effort and initiative?