Jailed East Timor students request help

By Bernie Brian

DARWIN — Two students from the University of East Timor, currently imprisoned in Dili's Becora prison, have written to Northern Territory University students requesting help in their campaign for release. The letter, dated June 20, is addressed to the student union, the Student Supporters of East Timor and the Resistance Club. The two students, Jose Antonio Belo and Jose Gonco Pinto, were adopted as associate members of the student union in May.

In the letter, Belo and Pinto thank NTU students for their timely support, since they will probably be expelled from their own university. They write: "We never recognised ourselves as Indonesian citizens but we always said that we are the young nationalists fighting for freedom, justice and peace for East Timor. We never recognised the integration of East Timor into Indonesia."

The NTU students are particularly concerned by Belo and Pinto's revelations that they were both tortured by prison authorities in April and May. Student Supporters of East Timor and Resistance will be meeting with the NTU student union regarding further action to help Belo and Pinto, and the 64 other East Timorese political prisoners in Becora prison.

From GLW issue 202