---------------------------------------------------------- Visit Indonesia Daily News Online HomePage: http://www.indo-news.com/ Please Visit Our Sponsor http://www.indo-news.com/cgi-bin/ads1 ---------------------------------------------------------- The Age [Melbourne] Saturday, August 28, 1999 Eager but fearful, Melbourne's East Timorese community prepares to vote By JOHN ELDER ``We don't want to have ties with Indonesia. There's too much bad blood. Too many bad things have happened. The most important thing is that we have our say, because we've never had it before,'' says Maria Braz, an exile from East Timor, and now a supervisor in the Victorian Department of Human Services. ``Whatever happens, even if it goes badly, at least the world will see what we really want.'' Ask Elizabeth Exposto or Maria Braz, Palmira Pires or Tino Mac: the first thing they say is how excited everybody is about Monday's autonomy ballot. Then they tell you how worried that any vote for independence might be violently taken away from them. But there is no doubt among the local East Timor community that every vote cast in Australia, and the vast majority of those cast in East Timor itself, will reject continuing ties with Indonesia. All four are members of a committed resistance to Indonesian occupation of their homeland. They came to Australia as political refugees after the Indonesian occupation of East Timor in December 1975. Many chose to settle here after first fleeing to Portugal because Australia was seen as a better and more visible base to campaign on behalf of their lost country. There are about 15,000 East Timorese living in Australia, about 8000 in Melbourne. The adult population has registered to vote in the ballot that will decide the territory's future: autonomy as a member of the Indonesian family or independence as a nation. Given that just under 450,000 people are having their say on Monday, the Australian Timorese consider the weight of their vote vital to the outcome. ``We've been hearing from a lot of people who just want to see the ballot form,'' says Palmira Pires, whose family home has long been a contact point for people wanting information on the situation in East Timor. ``I thought I'd see it happen in my lifetime, like when I was 40. But not now. I don't know if it's happening too quickly,'' says Elizabeth Exposto, who works as a researcher at the East Timor Human Rights Centre in Fitzroy. Tino Mac, who is studying computer engineering and works as a volunteer for the centre, says: ``Sometimes I think, is it happening, really? I always had doubts that I would see it. I'm very nervous about what might happen to the people, but the vote on Monday gives us a chance.'' For many East Timorese exiles, the country they want to liberate is one they can barely remember or have never seen. All have ambitions, of mixed intensity, of going back and helping the country start over. All started early with the cause. Elizabeth, for example, came to Australia when she was eight months old. ``I'm about the same age as the occupation.'' Palmira, a librarian with the Council for Adult Education who is doing a masters degree in information technology, has been a resistance veteran for most of her life. She came to Australia with her family when she was 11. That was in August 1975, during the two-week battle between rival political parties that is known in the lore as the civil war. In November that year, Fretilin declared independence, formally ending 273 years of Portugal rule. A month later the Indonesian army arrived. Palmira's father, Alfredo, had worked as an administrator for the Portugese Government. After a brief stay in Darwin, the family was settled in Melbourne and Alfredo found work at the Ford Factory in Broadmeadows, as did a lot of the Timorese. At home, Alfredo put his talent for organisation to work on behalf of his scattered and confused community. First, he founded the Timorese Association of Victoria and then began publishing a monthly newsletter. Much of the bulletin contained reports from the local newspapers that Palmira had translated from English into Portugese. She helped him with the printers and with mailing them out. ``We kept the bulletin going for 15 years,'' she says. When she was 17, her father urged Palmira to learn some of the traditional dances and songs so she could in turn pass them on to the following generation of Australian-Timorese, lest the knowledge was lost while the people waited to come out of exile. Later she became the coordinator for the East Timor Cultural Group that took the songs and dances to the broader community. ``The resistance movement became our culture. When we have independence it will change again.'' Meanwhile, her sister, Emilia, became involved in the political struggle full-time, and is now a member of the executive commission on the National Council of Timorese Resistance, which was established last year in Portugal and headed by Xanana Gusmao. Palmira's mother, Margarida, is back in East Timor as a social worker among people displaced by the recent militia violence. Her father, Alfredo, died last year, confident to the end that East Timor would one day be free. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Didistribusikan tgl. 27 Aug 1999 jam 21:43:09 GMT+1 oleh: Indonesia Daily News Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.Indo-News.com/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
