In December 2004, Daniel applied to
Australian Volunteers International (AVI), an organisation similar to
Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), for a placement in a
Majority World country. He was offered a position in
Papua New Guinea (PNG) as a Project Manager in
Western Province with an Australian non-governmental organisation (NGO). Samantha was being offered a position with the same organisation.
However, in early April while in attendance at our pre-departure briefing, AVI informed us that our positions no longer existed! The funding
(from the Ok Tedi Development Foundation) was 'redirected' by the provincial health department TO the provincial health department! The decision may or may not have been primarily political, but we suspect it was. Of course it would be better to have the program
(that we were going to work on) being run by locals for locals, but it seems the chances of this are rather slim. The money will probably not reach those who it is intended for. That said, we fervently hope it does.
In late March, the PNG Prime Minister
Sir Michael Somare, was asked to remove his
belt and shoes by security personnel at
Brisbane airport. This breach of protocol sparked a
furore in PNG and resulted in much anti-Australian sentiment. Then in May, the Australian Government was forced to withdraw
148 Australian Federal Police officers who had been working in Port Moresby as part of the $800 AUD million
Enhanced Cooperation Aid Program. The PNG High Court adjudicated the legislation granting them their powers and immunity was
unconsitutional. Diplomatic talks
continue.
AVI subsequently suggested a position in Timor-Leste as Communications Officer/Advisor with a local human rights focussed NGO. Samantha has been given a tentative promise of a position with a women's rights NGO which is yet to eventuate. In a country with over
300 NGO's for a population of just under one million something should be available!
In preparation for our two year move to Timor-Leste, we will both attend the
Conference on cooperating with Timor Leste being held in Melbourne from 17-18 June.
We depart for
Dili (the capital) via
Darwin on Tuesday 28 June 2005. In the meantime, we have been getting vaccinated
(Samantha needs 12 shots and Daniel a mere 6 thanks to a previous trip to China in 2002); reading up on Timor-Leste including teaching ourselves the three main languages:
Tetum,
Portuguese, and
Bahasa Indonesian; and stressing about packing up our rented home of 2.5 years in
Northcote.
Up until the turn of this century, Timor-Leste had been under colonial rule for 500 years. The Europeans were first attracted to Timor by the lucrative trade in
Timor sandalwood. The island nation was colonized by the Portuguese (becoming
Portuguese Timor) in the East during the 1500s and the Dutch in the West during the 1600s. However, the partioning of Timor was a slow process. The two powers initially clashed in the region in 1613. They first attempted to formalize their possessions on the island in 1859, but only reached a final settlement in 1916. As part of the worldwide decolonisation movement of the post WWII period, Portugal left (
effectively abandoned) Timor-Leste in 1975
(West Timor became a part of Indonesia in 1949 after the Dutch left). The East Timorese had decided to become an independent nation when in late 1975, Indonesia invaded and claimed the country as its twenty-seventh province through forcible integration. For the next 25 years, hundreds of thousands of people were killed and tortured as Indonesia tried to suppress the Timorese spirit (
it is estimated that one third of the population lost their lives during this time). Not one country came to their aid, and one of the worst offenders was Australia who did nothing, even in the face of horrendous human rights abuses. Finally in 1999 the East Timorese, with the aid of the
United Nations (UN), voted for independence and in 2002, a democratically elected government was sworn in. Their president is the resistance leader
Xanana Gusmao and the First Lady his second wife, the Australian born and raised
Kirsty Sword Gusmao (who incidentally, met Xanana while she was working for AVI!)
For those interested in finding out more about Timor-Leste, we recommend the following sites.
Resolving the crisis
June 2005
Tumbleweed in Timor Lorosae
Kelly Elizabeth