Subject: AP: Timor is cause for Mass. high schoolers
Date: Sat, 01 May 1999 08:50:03 -0400
From: "John M. Miller" <fbp@igc.apc.org>Independence for East Timor is
cause for Mass. high schoolers
By Melissa B. Robinson, Associated Press, 04/27/99 21:15
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Dartmouth High School students - many looking ahead to college -
are a world away from East Timor's bloody struggle for independence from Indonesia.
But they all said they felt compelled to get involved when they learned of conditions
on the island, a former Portugese colony invaded by Indonesia in 1975 and later annexed.
''I just could not sit back and not do anything, seeing women and children just walking
down the street and being shot,'' said Sarah Tinay, 19, a senior who watched an East Timor
video presentation by a classmate, Jim Madden.
Madden learned about East Timor on a 1997 Catholic church retreat. Last fall, he and
Joseph Sousa, both 18-year-old seniors, started the only high school chapter of the East
Timor Action Network, a national group that supports independence for East Timor, in the
country.
''The human rights abuses in East Timor are just about as bad as they get,'' said
Madden at the National Press Club on Tuesday. Fifteen students urged Clinton
administration officials this week to pressure the Indonesian government into disarming
paramilitary groups on East Timor.
During two days here, the students met with members of Congress, officials of the State
Department and National Security Council, and East Timor activists.
Back home, they have prompted a dozen Massachusetts cities and towns to pass
resolutions in favor of independence and improved human rights in East Timor, where human
rights activists estimate over 200,000 have died since 1975.
''We hope it will be a pressing human rights concern, so at least people will become
aware,'' said Sousa.
Indonesia's military has long been accused of human rights abuses in its efforts to
wipe out pro-independence rebels on East Timor.
Earlier this year, Indonesia reversed its policy of sovereignty, saying it will let go
of the territory if its people reject a proposal for autonomy during United
Nations-sponsored balloting this summer.
The ensuing violence between supporters and opponents of independence threatens to
undermine the vote, planned for July. Separatists suspect Indonesia is trying to sabotage
the vote by arming civilian militias.
''This is not civil war,'' said Lynn Fredriksson of ETAN's Washington office. ''This is
death-squad terrorism.''
Human rights activists, Portugal's Foreign Minister Jaime Gama and U.N. Secretary
General Kofi Annan all have appealed for an end to the violence to ensure a proper ballot.
Members of Congress, including Democratic Reps. Jim McGovern and Barney Frank of
Massachusetts and Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, have strongly condemned human rights
abuses in East Timor.
They urged Secretary of State Madeleine Albright earlier this month to insist that
Indonesia disarm and disband the paramilitaries and allow international monitors, citing
beatings, killings and tortures of civilians at the hands of paramilitary groups,
shortages of food and medicine, and the displacement of more than 10,000 people.
Mahendra Siregar, first secretary of the Indonesian Embassy, stressed that Indonesia
has accepted autonomy or independence for East Timor and is struggling to institute
political reforms in the midst of an economic crisis. He blamed the escalating violence on
rival paramilitaries.
''Suggesting that there are no East Timorese who favor the Indonesia autonomy option is
a false assumption,'' he said.
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