Suai Media Space

In 2010 we are celebrating ten years of friendship between Suai and Port Phillip. See the Beginnings of the Friendship and History of Friendship that began in 2000 but is grounded in a relationship begun in WW2.

Events planned in Port Phillip in 2010 include a colourful Bookazine on the 10 year friendship to capture the dynamics and development in a decade since the Ballot and the great friendship that has ensued.

A Friends of Suai Exhibition at the Town Hall Gallery starts 26 May 2010 to reflect on Friendship. The exhibition, which will show the depth of the history of friendship between the two communities will include water colours painted in East Timor, artefacts and letters by George Milsom. Milsom who was in 2/2nd Independent Company in East Timor in WW2 is the father of local artist Liz Milsom.  An installation titled: ‘An Imagined Conversation: from Rocks to Social Networks’ is planned by Jen Hughes, local filmmaker and a selection of photographs by the youth of Suai from a 2009 workshop conducted by former St Kilda resident Richard Jones will be mounted.

In the pipeline too, is a Tour to parts of East Timor including Suai linked to International Rotary. The aim is to match skills with small projects where the visiting tourist can share with local people.

The gossip is Intrepid Tours will return to East Timor in 2010. We are also hoping that Australia’s Circus Oz will visit Suai in September 2010. Thanks to Paul Stewart of Dili Allstars fame for including Suai in the plan! We heard today that plans are on track for the Tour with a bit more fundraising to go.

Watch this Space for more news on celebrating 10 years of friendship.

Desleigh Kent a member of the Friends of Suai Committee has returned to Port Phillip after a trip to Suai with the English teachers with photographs of the Anniversary. The photographs show that as on the First Anniversary,  the remembrance ceremonies and prayers took place in the place where the massacre took place in Our Lady of Fatima Church, in front of that Church and under shade on the large grassy area in front of the unfinished cathedral.

The character and form of the remembrance symbols has changed over the years and the original circle of stones has been moved from the driveway in front of the Church to the side. The original Church that was rehabilitated after the massacre and the accompanying fire has been demolished and replaced with a new one.  Ergilio reported in a conversation on Skype that the people have stopped crying, and he is afraid that the story will be forgotten and justice is out of their reach. According to Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald article on the 7th September, The United Nation’s top human rights official Navanethem Pillay, says East Timor’s release of the Indonesian accused of crimes against humanity violates the country’s own constitution as well as UN Security Council resolutions rejecting impunity for genocide. Bere came across the border on a Visa issued by East Timor’s government, for his father’s funeral in August, in Cova Lima. When locals recognised him as one of the perpertrators of the atrocities in 1999 he was captured and handed over to the police, only to be released again on the orders of President Jose Ramos-Horta.

When approached by the local journalists in Suai for answers to why Martenus Bere was released Gusmao refused to answer them; a move that was very disappointing for the people who supported him and gave up their lives for Independence and democracy under his leadership.

According to the SMH Ms Pillay has asked the East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta for more information on the release of Bere. More -  http://www.smh.com.au/world/massacre-suspects-release-draws-warning-from-un-20090906-fcui.html

Port Phillip residents are providing home-stay for old friend Alberto de Jesus Barros from Suai who is currently in Australia on a 6-month scholarship studying English for Academic Purposes at Taylors College.

 Alberto was travelling to Melbourne as his family and community were preparing for the 10 year Commemoration of the Suai Massacre on 06 September 2009.in Suai. Within days of his arrival he found himself at his first photo shoot as Friends of Suai were preparing for the Commemoration in Port Phillip. Photo by Jason Sammon, Port Phillip Leader.

 Alberto has been connected to the friends of Suai for five years, during that time he has hosted many Port Phillip visitors in Suai, translating and showing them around the district.

 He and his wife Lenta have 3 children; Asten 5, Anie (Anya) 2 and Joni (Zoni) is 1 month 2 weeks and 3 days.

 Alberto graduated with a Bachelor Degree in Agricultural Economy from the Faculty of Agriculture and the Department of Social Economy, at National University of Timor Leste Dili, in 2003

 He worked with UN Peacekeepers between 2000 and 2005 as a Language Assistant.  

 Later he was employed at the Suai Community Centre supported by the City of Port Phillip between 2005 and 2009 as a community development worker and financial manager.

 In 2009 he took up a new position with the International NGO Peace Dividend Trust in Suai, Cova Lima, which is a non-profit organization dedicated to making peace and humanitarian operations more efficient, effective and equitable.

Excerpt from letter from Lau Haumutuk in June 2009

This year will mark the 10^th anniversary (30 August 2009) of the independence referendum of Timor-Leste. It was and will be a great moment for all who were involved in the Timorese cause for many years, to commemorate it with a great joy along with our fellow Timorese in Timor-Leste and elsewhere.

To celebrate the anniversary, we are organizing a number of activities, mainly in Dili, during August and early September 2009. We hope to recreate and strengthen the strong sense of solidarity among activists from around the world, including Timorese and people from other countries. Some of us live in Timor-Leste or visit regularly; others may not have been here for a decade, or perhaps never.

We will reflect on and strengthen the victories and friendships during the long struggle against Indonesian occupation that gave people here and around the world so much hope a decade ago. Learning from the past and building on our experiences, we also will explore how we can work with Timor-Leste’s people to address the challenges facing this ten-year-old nation, trying to overcome a legacy of trauma, repression, colonialism, poverty, impunity and underdevelopment in an increasingly interdependent world.

We invite you to join these events not as a guest or visitor, but, in the spirit of solidarity, as hosts and organizers, sharing ideas, responsibilities and collective work not only in August but in the years to come.

We hope that you will share your joy with us in Timor-Leste this August. Although we are not able to provide financial support for travel to Timor-Leste, we will try to make your stay here as comfortable, interesting and Timorese as possible.

Please send your feedback, ideas and suggestions to timorsolidarity@gmail.com.

We look forward to hearing that you are coming, and will keep you informed as developments progress. Check our website www.laohamutuk.org/solidarity/index.htm for the latest information.

A luta continua!

Charlie Scheiner, Abe Barreto Soares and Sisto dos Santos
On behalf of the organizing committee, including dozens of activists from Timor-Leste and around the world.

Greetings to all of you gathered today at the Suai Public Secondary School and to all teachers and learners in Suai.

On this very special day in the life of your community, the opening of the new library we send you good wishes and warm regards from Friends of Suai – a small group linked with the Port Phillip Council in Melbourne, Australia.

The funds necessary for refurbishing the library were raised by Friends of Suai and substantial contributions were made by the Rotary Club of Balwyn Victoria, and Tanya Esden who worked on the community water project in Suai as well the residents of Port Phillip.

Today is just a beginning and our hope is that gradually this new library room will be stocked with a wide variety of books, DVDs and CD’s in ALL the main working languages of Timor Leste.

Perhaps one day, the wider community of Suai, old and young will be able to share in this wealth.

BILL ARMSTRONG (Chairman)
FOR THE FRIENDS OF SUAI COMMITTEE

Exhibition Forum: Tetun
Click on the thumbnails to enlarge photos in galleries. Hover your cursor on right or left edge – near the top, to find Next and Back Buttons.

Few people have had the privilege of seeing tais, the beautiful hand-woven “hidden textiles” that are the work of the women of East Timor. I experienced the pleasure of seeing dozens of beautiful pieces being slipped out of their bright orange acrylic bags, and rolled off a huge bolster, on to the polished cedar table, in the old St Kilda Town Hall, last week. This thick-walled room, that buffered the heavy traffic sounds of St Kilda Road, was a long way from the ground where the tais were woven – where the loudest sounds are roosters crowing and perhaps a wooden mortar and pestle pounding sago palm bark into edible form.

Read the rest of this entry »

Naldo Rei was born in the jungle and born into the struggle for independence of East Timor.

Naldo Rei has suffered more adversity in his life than the Kennedy Family – (so much in the news at the moment with Ted Kennedy’s brain tumour) will ever know. Naldo Rei speaks for the “voiceless people” of his country, and one gets the feeling he is speaking for the voiceless rocks and trees, and the very land of the Timor he loves so much; because that sustained him through months and years of loneliness, torture and despair.  This memoir of courage and tragedy is written with poetic grace and humour. Very gently reminding us what was happening to him and his family while we were filling up at the bowser for another day at the beach in sunny Australia and sunny America. It may seem crass to compare the sad news in this way, but sometimes we need reminding why the Timorese are poor and why they continue to suffer. Naldo’s daily life from birth was spent in the daily grind of surviving in his own country abused by a brutal regime. He was born into the fall-out from the politically expedient policies of our Government and our ally the United States. Unless we understand this we cannot understand how Australian identity is viewed by some of our friends and neighbours. Read it, share it with a friend and buy it for a Timorese friend.

This post is a bit late but worth the wait. The East Timor Womens Association (ETWA), always comes up with creative and enjoyable events to raise funds and awareness to the role of women in East Timorese life beyond the apparently passive victims you see on current affairs television.

Women are primarily responsible for weaving tais, the traditional cloth of East Timor ( as many of you well know!). This event – ‘Heru ini Lafu’ means Weaving Life in Makalero, the language of the Iliomar region in the south-eastern highlands of East Timor. The event organised by ETWA was held in the Fitzroy Gallery in early December. I have chosen to feature the work of Annette Sax, Deborah Salvagnos, Alan Browne and Katheryn Philip .

I was especially thrilled to see the work of Annette Sax a Taungurung woman from the Franklin Mob. Her language group is part of the Kulin Nation. Pt Phillip is also situated on the land of the Kulin Nation.

In her artist’s statement Annette expresses the similarities between her own people and the Timorese: “The women in the Mate Restu Weaving collective do not have written records to follow. Our traditions are oral as well. It is the spiritual connection that inspires our craft. I have painted one of my Creation Stories. I have interpreted the story ‘ How women were first made’. I have used the symbols that represent land and water.” Annette explains the designs incorporate traditional and contemporary aspects of culture experienced in her daily family life. A culture that is “always changing and adapting”.

Alan Browne has taken the raw materials of the traditional Indonesian Batik and incorporated a small piece of cut tais on to it. Deborah Salvagnos explains her pieces ‘Light Works’. “The stories behind both the pictures and their accompanying cloth sheds ‘light’ on cloth sheds light on the intricate and beautiful lives held within them”.

‘Breaking Free from Poverty’ was conceived by Deborah Salvagnos and Katheryn Philip “with a view of hope and strength … a look towards the future and the ultimage goal of women regaining control over their lives …”

Neville Kitchen presented Ego Lemnos with a new Macon guitar. Ego lost his when he accidently left it in Flinders Street Railway station. The guitar was Ego’s ‘best friend’ and he was lost without it. He is in high demand as an entertainer and probably earns his living with it. So Deb appealed to who came up with the goods with great charity and grace.

The Australia-East Timor Association has a dinner every year that commemorates East Timor’s proclamation of the Independent Republic of East Timor on 28th November 1975.

This year some Timorese students celebrating the end of their degrees or participating in a leadership program at Victorian University attended and sang. Among them were Vidal, Ego Dulci, Ismenio, (not in photo) and Alex. Read the rest of this entry »