East Timor Ireland  Solidarity Campaign

Statement
to the United Nations Special Committee 
on the Situation with Regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on
the Granting of Independence to the Colonial Countries and Peoples

June 1998

Mr. Chairman,
I would like to express the appreciation of the East Timor Ireland
Solidarity Campaign  to this forum for allowing us a to make a  presentation.

It is not necessary for me to go into the details of the recent sad  and
tragic history of the East Timorese people. Coming from a  country such as
Ireland where we ourselves underwent a period of  colonisation that lasted
800 years we can speak from a truthful and  historical point of view. In
this year of 1998 we here in Ireland are commemorating the 200th
anniversary of the 1798 rebellion against  British rule. Indeed recently I
was reading about this very subject where the colonial power put down this
rebellion with the utmost brutality. What marked this rebellion from others
was the fact that it was the first time that Catholics, Protestants and
dissenters joined together to attempt to oust the colonialists from our
troubled land. 

I am also mindful of the fact that the colonial forces, as they do
everywhere, attempted to turn brother against brother, sister against
sister, father against son and mother against daughter. How history repeats
itself whether it be in Ireland or Indonesian occupied East Timor. How
tragic that we never seem to learn from history. I recall that during the
glorious struggle for independence in India, at Amritsar it was Indian
forces controlled by Britain, under the command of an Irishman, who shot
dead hundreds of their fellow country men and women. It has always been the
policy of colonial forces to divide and rule, whether in Kenya, India,
Brazil or indeed elsewhere.

There will be among us many who by inducement, threat, personal gain will
come before us and tell us of roads built, of schools built, of telephone
lines established. They will attempt to in some way legitimise the terrible
suffering that has been inflicted on our brothers and sisters in East
Timor. They will attempt to legitimise a callous disregard for
international law. They will tell us that the majority of Timorese are
reconciled to the integration of East timor into Indonesia. They have the
right to be heard but the duty to be challenged. However, at this point in
time we must hold out the hand of friendship to those who serve their
Indonesian overlords and indeed the Indonesian military itself. 

Many of you will have observed that over the last number of weeks seemingly
intractable problems have been solved in my country. Where once their was
fear there is now calm, where once there was suspicion there is now trust
and where once there was hatred the hand of friendship in now being extended. 
Indonesia is now at a crossroads. With this in mind The East Timor Ireland
Solidarity Campaign calls on the Indonesian government to become a New
Republic. A Republic of Indonesia like the Republic of Ireland which
respects the wishes of it's neighbors and it's own citizens. A Republic
which cherishes and holds dear the rule of law. A Republic that rather than
seeks confrontation seeks compromise. A Republic that listens to the voices
from all over this imperfect world of ours that calls for justice and
peace. A Republic that neither wants victor or vanquished. But a Republic
that before it can take its rightful place among the nations of the world
must send us clear and unequivocal signals that it heeds the voices calling
for violence to end. Voices that call for the Timorese to be part of the
solution and not left sitting while nations decide their future. 

Let us hope that the new Indonesian government will have the courage and
moral fibre to move the process along that allows a valid act of
self-determination in which the people of East Timor are free to choose
their own future. 

Thank you.
END