The head of the prison asked me whether I would like to meet with Nelson Mandela. Shocked, I looked at him straight in the eye while the Kepala Kanwil explained that if I desired an audience with the President of South Africa, he would “do me the favour and help me out”.
Why are the world’s media so eager to report lies about violence committed by people from Timor-Leste, but so reluctant — in the past and still today — to report truthfully on those who commit violence against them?
These are not the practices of a nation which values democracy, freedom and morality. In addition, Australia’s leaders showed their disrespect for the Timor-Leste people – a small, poor people who generously helped Australia during the Second World War against Japan, at the cost of 40,000 Timorese people’s lives.
Movimentu Kontra Okupasaun Tasi Timor [Tetum] (Gerakan Menentang Pendudukan Laut Timor) mengadakan demonstrasi menentang spionasi yang dilakukan Australia dalam perundingan-perundingan mengenai minyak di Laut Timor.
Senator CROSSIN: I want to place on the record that Vikki Riley is a constituent of mine in the Northern Territory ... I understand the government will not be supporting this motion because of her involvement with West Papua, in that it is in conflict with our foreign policy.
This is just in from Timor Leste's Jornal Independente. Your comments and analysis are welcome - please log in and pass on your thoughts. New cabinet members of the 5th Constitutional Government of the República Democrática de Timor Leste.
The new Timorese Government is not an oligarchy. For Aristotle an oligarchia designated the rule of the few for the few, rule that was exercised not by the best, but by bad men unjustly. Aristotle differentiated an oligarchy from an aristocracy where government by the few is vested in the best individuals. In the case of Timor the people (civil society) decided the best individuals are those that formed the government led by Xanana. It may be an aristocracy but it is an elected one.
Indonesian Sukhoi SU-30 coming in to land at Darwin RAAF base These are the first pictures from Australian airspace of Indonesia’s front-line jet fighter, the Sukhoi SU-30, four of which landed at Darwin’s RAAF base earlier today to take part in Exercise Pitch Black 2012. […]
This was not a one off, it was not just an uprising by a few upset because they had been left out of government, Timor is not a failed state, it is an experiment for a failed global system. The problems of Timor are a symptom of a wider problem initiated by the UN, the World Bank and the IMF back in 1999, the painful process of structural adjustment, of primitive accumulation and the manufactured creation of a middle class, in order to make Timor another piece in the global Empire of a failed economic system.
