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.