ASIET meeting on East Timor
By Mike Byrne
BRISBANE — A public meeting at the Resistance Centre on March 17, organised by Green Left Weekly and Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET), discuss "Which way forward for an independent East Timor?".
Afonso Corte-Real from the East Timorese community, Mary Kenyan from the Corinda-Graceville Catholic parish and Dani Coulsen from Resistance spoke.
Corte-Real highlighted the fact that the Indonesian military is continuing to destabilise East Timor by arming, training and funding the pro-integration militias, who are carrying out brutal atrocities.
He called for the training of Indonesian troops and all military aid by Australia to be stopped immediately
Kenyan related the links made between her parish and the rural district of Letefoho, where a clean water project is being undertaken with funds raised in Catholic parishes around Australia.
Coulsen looked at the complicity of both Labor and Liberal governments, which have furnished aid and support to the Indonesian regime throughout its illegal occupation. Foreign minister Gareth Evans described the 1991 Dili massacre as an aberration shortly before signing the shameful Timor Gap Treaty, which allows Australian big business to steal East Timor's oil resources.
The possibility of Australian troops being sent to East Timor under the United Nations was discussed and parallels with previous disastrous efforts in Somalia, Cambodia and Bougainville were raised.