The Friendship Begins
Entrance Page for History
The two communities of Covalima Suai, East Timor and Port Phillip Melbourne, Victoria, Australia were connected in the name of friendship by the new Timorese leadership and local government leaders in in 1999. A community meeting held in the Port Melbourne Town Hall on December 12, 1999 led to the name ‘Friends of Suai’ after Timorese Melbourne resident, and CNRT representative, Abel Gutterres suggested Suai as the town the Port Phillip community should befriend to assist in its recovery.
A request from Xanana Gusmao to provide four wheel drive vehicles to assist people in Suai inspired the first campaign. Titled ‘Truckloads for East Timor’, the campaign, in February 2000 invited the Port Phillip community to donate material goods to the people of Suai.
Design Note: See what we donated.
The ‘Friends of Suai’ was launched in St Kilda’s Catani Gardens and continued during the annual St Kilda Festival in March 2000. At the Festival some of the major players to be seen in all stories about Australia’s relationship with East Timor became apparent. The truck for collecting gifts was set up alongside an Army recruiting van and I spotted an Indonesian spy observing us as I interviewed a representative of Green Left Weekly. This is when the stark difference between the people and the political realities of the day to day lives of the people in the two communities forming this relationship was revealed for all to see as.
Designer Note:
Place photos (Truck -Festival & FOS Truck, Xanana that link to 2000 Friends of Suai Page which has more about Friends of Suai ..
note to designer: place Self-portraits and xmas cards images as links to children’s portraits.
The Circle of Stones represents the beginning of the friendship between the two communities as it represents the bodies of those who died in Covalima in the Suai Church Massacre on September 5 and 6, 1999. It is because of the massacre and the accompanying scorched earth campaign that the Friendship with Port Phillip was begun.
Designer Note: Circle of Stones Images linking to the Circle of Stones Pages 1999
However, as I discovered, this new community friendship had deep roots in Port Phillip and the wider Australian community. Abel Guterres was a member of the largest Timorese community living in the diaspora in Melbourne. Shirley Shackleton, wife of Greg Shackleton who was killed by Indonesian military in Balibo in 1975, and subsequently became the victim of one of the biggest cover-ups in Australian history, was at that first meeting in the Port Melbourne Town Hall and Paul Stewart the brother of the other Australian journalist killed in Balibo sang at the launch of the Friends of Suai in March 2000 alongside other members of the Timorese community in the Dili Allstars.
(Design Note:Linking to History of Friendship Page)