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2013 Timor-Leste Update Conference

2013 Timor-Leste Update Follow Up - IPS - ANU

Amb. Abel Guterres and Agio Pereira (Minister of State and of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers) on left. Ruth Nuttall (ANU) at the podium.

The 2013 Timor-Leste Update was the first to be held at the ANU and brought together leading and emerging scholars and policy analysts working on Timor-Leste to reflect critically on the prospects and challenges for the nation over the next 5-10 years. The main objective of the Update was to contribute to Australia's knowledge of, and engagement with Timor-Leste, by providing a public forum to discuss recent developments in Timor-Leste. The Update also aimed to strengthen relationships between scholars, government agencies, civil society organisations and research institutions working on Timor-Leste and to help build the profile and capacity of East Timorese researchers and policy analysts.

The 2013 Timor-Leste Update was hosted by the State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Program at the ANU, with funding from the ANU’s Research School of Asia and the Pacific, and the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and it is hoped that the Timor-Leste Update will become a biennial event.

Click on the links below to access all the outputs and related material from the 2013 Timor-Leste Update:

• 2013 Timor-Leste Update - Podcast Series: Audio recordings of key sessions
• 2013 Timor-Leste Update - Participant Presentations
• 2013 Timor-Leste Update - Program
• Keynote Address - 'Peace and Prosperity', Agio Pereira, Timo-Leste Minister of State and of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers
• Video Interview  - Dr Lia Kent on the key aims of the 2013 Timor-Leste Update
• Press Coverage - 'Widening gulf a peril for the two East Timors', Sydney Morning Herald, 28 November 2013

Related Publications

• 'In Timor, a new house does not make a home', Joanne Wallis and Pyone Myat Thu.
• 'The Australian Seasonal Workers Program: Timor-Leste's case', SSGM In Brief 2013/13

Speakers included: Agio Pereira (Minister of State and of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers), Fidelis Magalhaes (Chief of Staff, Presidency of the Republic of Timor-Leste), Charles Scheiner (La’o Hamutuk); Meabh Cryan (Rede ba Rai); Ines Martins (La’o Hamutuk); Nelson Belo (Fundasaun Mahein); Catharina Maria; Jose Neves (Deputy, Anti-Corruption Commission Timor-Leste); Lurdes Bessa (Member of Parliament, Timor-Leste); Laura Soares Abrantes (Asia Pacific Support Collective Timor-Leste); Lia Kent (ANU);Sue Ingram (ANU); Michael Leach (Swinburne University), Gordon Peake (ANU) and more.

Panel on Sub-national development.

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Tapol: Urgent Appeal: release Biak prisoners

West Papuan political prisoner Yohanes Boseren, currently on trial in Biak, is suffering from mental health problems thought to be related to the heavy beating he suffered when he was arrested. Human rights lawyers are calling for his immediate release and for him to be given the medical treatment he urgently needs. See appeal here.

Also Don't forget to sign ETAN's petition to unconditionally free West Papuan political prisoners.

Read the West Papua Report 

Message from Dili to Australia - Stop Stealing and Occupying the Timor Sea

Activists in Dili send a message to Australia about its theft of Timor's resources.

The photo within the photo is from an East Timor and Indonesia Action Network
demon at the Australian Embassy in Washington, DC in 2004. The struggle continues!

Read from the statement of the Timor-Leste based Movement Against the Occupation of the Timor Sea:

Today, the Movement Against the Occupation of the Timor Sea asks the Government of Australia to:
1. Stop stealing and occupying the Timor Sea, but show your good will as a large nation which
follows democratic prniciples to accept a maritime boundary which follows international law
principles.
2. Australia should set an example as a sovereign nation which respects and recognizes the
rights of Timor-Leste’s people.
3. Australia should not promote or continue neocolonialism against Timor-Leste’s people, who
have suffered this for centuries. We will no longer be your slaves.
4. The Abbott government should apologize to the Maubere people, who have been hugely
discriminated against by Australia from the past to the present. If not, we will continue to
demonstrate at the Australian Embassy for the indefinite future.

Read the full statement here

Background from Lao Hamutuk is here and from ETAN here.

Mandela, Indonesia and the liberation of Timor Leste

Nelson Mandela took on Suharto in his own house. He demanded to meet with imprisoned East Timorese leader Xanana Gusmao during a 1997 visit to Jakarta. Mandela insisted that the meeting take place outside the prison.

From Mandela, Indonesia and the liberation of Timor Leste | The Jakarta Post:

"Unlike many, Mandela remains loyal to the principles of Bandung that included the right to self-determination. Indeed, contrary to leaders of Indonesia’s New Order, he threw his full weight behind the liberation of Timor Leste."

"The defining moments for Mandela and Xanana were at the expense, slowly but surely, of Soeharto."