| Subject: East
Timor journalists vow to promote democracy
East Timor journalists vow to promote
democracy
DILI, East Timor, Dec 22 (AFP) - Young
East Timorese journalists vowed to promote democracy and fight censorship
as they formed the Timor Lorosae Journalists Association (TLJA) on
Wednesday.
"We realise that the press in Timor
Lorosae must place the highest priority on truth and justice and at the
same time fight any attempts at censorship," they said in a
declaration.
About 45 men and women lined up to sign
the document at the end of a five-day journalists' training seminar.
"There cannot be a democratic
country, democratic society without freedom of the press," Jose
Ramos-Horta, vice-president of the National Council of Timorese Resistance
(CNRT), said at the ceremony held in a local hotel.
Most of the association members have
recently returned to East Timor from Indonesia where they were studying
and worked on publications, said Virgilio da Silva, of Ispela, a media
research and discussion group formed just days ago in East Timor.
Ispela co-sponsored the training seminar
along with the Timor Aid aid group and the U.S. Agency for International
Development, which has committed to six months of further training, da
Silva said.
He said the young journalists plan to
train others and start a bi-weekly newspaper in the new year. Some members
of the TLJA formerly worked on Suara Timor Timur, the daily newspaper
under Indonesian rule.
They voted Otelio Ote, a former Suara
Timor Timur journalist, as co-ordinator of the TLJA. Ote is also a
correspondent for the Jakarta newspaper, Media Indonesia, and for the RCTI
television network.
The journalists stood as Ote read the
TLJA declaration in the Indonesian language and then da Silva read it in
English.
They pledged to "take into account
nation-building efforts aimed at reconciliation and unity" and agreed
to promote democratic principles.
"The press in Timor Lorosae will
respect all democratic laws in the new country of Timor Lorosae, but WILL
NOT bow to what is deemed injustice and repressive," the declaration
says.
"It must be an independent
media," da Silva told AFP.
He said the press will play a key role in
educating people to know their rights and their duties so they can
contribute to democratic society. He said East Timor cannot become like
other countries which fought for freedom only to be burdened by a new
authoritarian regime.
"The role of the media in Timor
Lorosae will be very important because the people have suffered for 24
years under repression," da Silva said.
Formerly a mechanical engineering student
in Indonesia, he was arrested after a demonstration in Jakarta that
followed the 1991 massacre by Indonesian troops at Santa Cruz Cemetery in
East Timor. Da Silva said he spent 30 months in an Indonesian prison.
Ramos-Horta told the gathering he has
already spoken with CNRT president Xanana Gusmao about dedicating a park
in honor of the six foreign journalists murdered by Indonesian troops in
East Timor in 1975 and also a Dutch correspondent and an Indonesian
journalist who were murdered this year.
He said they died "in the pursuit of
truth."
"It will be altogether eight
journalists and that is not a small number in such a small country,"
Ramos-Horta said.
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