BACK DOOR Newsletter on East Timor

For links to up-to-date sites on East Timor go to: http://www.pcug.org.au/~wildwood/Links.htm
(East Timor info on the sites listed below is updated irregularly and may not be current)

NEW = Added to BACK DOOR Website since last Monday's Emailout

The Indonesia Human Rights Network  Updated Feb 15

East Timor Ireland Solidarity Campaign (ETISC)  Added June 14
. The East Timor Ireland Solidarity Campaign (ETISC) was founded in April 1992 by Tom Hyland, a former bus driver. One evening about a month prior to that Tom and a group of friends had been playing cards in his house when a neighbour arrived and asked to watch a programme called First Tuesday on ITV. The programme was about a country they never heard of called East Timor. They sat mesmerised as they watched Indonesian soldiers gunning down 270 peaceful unarmed East Timorese. This massacre had taken place on November 12th 1991 in the Santa Cruz cemetry in Dili.
. Tom and the others were so shocked by what they saw that they resolved to so something. So a converted room in Tom’s house in Ballyfermot, they set up ETISC to campaign to raise awareness in Ireland of the plight of East Timor. At first the group had very little but by borrowing typewriters and a computer from friends they started writing to politicians and the media. They also started giving talks in schools, colleges, clubs, trade unions,a nd to anyone who would listen.
. Every November 12th, ETISC held demonstrations at the British or Australian embassies because of the support these countries had given to Indonesia in terms of arms and diplomatic support. The biggest break for the campaign with then Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating’s visit to Ireland in September 1993. After Keating arrived, hundred of people demonstrated outside Dublin castle where he was meeting leaders from all political parties. The incident received huge coverage and was debated and discussed on radio, TV and all the newspapers. This helped bring the plight of East Timor to the people of Ireland.
. Since then the leading role of Ireland—which has campaigned actively on the issue of East Timor—in the EU and the UN—has been acknowledged including by the joint winners of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, Bishop Carlos Belo and Jose Ramos-Horta, East Timor’s foreign minister in exile. In a speech in Toronto in 1995, Dr. Horta declared: “In terms of its influence and in what it has achieved, no country has done more for East Timor than Ireland.”
. The group is based in Dublin and most of the people who work there are volunteers.
Contact: Room 16, (3rd floor), Dame House, 24-26 Dame Street, Dublin 2. Tel/Fax: 353-1-671 9207
Email: etisc@connect.ie
Jun 11 Visit to see Tom Hyland, East Timor Ireland Support Campaign: http://www.pcug.org.au/~wildwood/01junvisit.htm
Jun 10 Univ: "The Joy that freedom Brings": http://www.pcug.org.au/~wildwood/01junjoy.htm

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