And in the shadows of Santa Cruz, she crossed her fingers behind her back…. As night fell she emerged with a box under her arm that held her pledge of allegiance and her uniform. And she laid it at the gates of the General’s embassy, and her whisper echoed into dawn as she disappeared: The truth will set my people free. – Propagandhi, lyric to “Mate ke Moris Ukun Rasik An”
In the late 1990s, East Timor’s international profile grew and grew. In Canada, solidarity activists rallied to try to make a “citizen’s arrest” of Indonesian president Suharto at the 1997 APEC summit, picking up on the example of Timorese activists who had put their country’s struggle at the centre of the 1994 APEC summit in Jakarta. Each year, a Canadian member of Parliamentarians for East Timor travelled to take part in international testimonies to the UN Decolonization Committee. Activists at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic church in Windsor, Ontario, twinned their parish with Suai in East Timor, welcomed Suai’s priest Father Hilario Madeira for a period in residence, and established an East Timor Hope Foundation to aid Suai. Canadian diplomats finally agreed that Canada had to take more positive steps, if only “to get ETAN off our backs.” In 1998, after lobbying by Timorese leaders, Secretary of State for Asia Pacific Raymond Chan finally put Ottawa on record supporting East Timor’s right to self-determination. That self-determination came after a referendum in 1999. The cost was high: Father Hilario of Suai was among those killed by pro-Indonesia militias. But East Timor’s independence was won.
Images: APEC 1997 protests at UBC (Elaine Briere); Bella Galhos presents media with photos of torture in East Timor outside the APEC summit (Elaine Briere); Dan Heap MP at the United Nations with José Luis Guterres of Fretilin and Charles Scheiner of ETAN/US; Hope Foundation leaflet; Father Hilario in Windsor (ETAN papers).
Canadian solidarity with East Timor 