Poem: Timor

Poem: Timor

em = By John Tomlinson

Chorus:

Obrigado, thankyou, grazie

East Timor will be free

the people of this troubled world

will end their tyranny.

Don't look away

don't hide your eyes

or turn your faces to the wall

200,000 Timorese have died.

They all answered freedom's call.

We steal their oil

we compromise

and listen to Indonesian lies

while Timor dies.

The Generals of Jakarta

authorise the murder

Australian politicians

sanitise the slaughter.

We do it in the name of export trade

investment and of foreign aid

supplying guns and hand grenades

lethal weapons, Australian made.

Then strut the stage the whole world wide

pretending that right's on our side

and human rights our greatest pride,

rape and murder we try to hide.

Indonesian troops in Dili

barracks in Baucau

slaughtering willy nilly

Los Palos to Licasau.

While on the hill a rebel still

a gun held in his hand

asks each of us the question:

When will we understand

you can not hold a people down

freedom is not a passing whim,

that it is not ours to command

it's theirs — their battle hymn.

From GLW issue 177