Exiled East Timorese youths long to go home<\/p>\n
By Linawati Sidarto<\/p>\n
LISBON (JP): \"You can't imagine how happy we are to be
\nspeaking Indonesian again. It's been so long, and we miss it so
\nmuch!\" Nelson Miguel Soares Turquel de Jesus would probably not
\nhave uttered those words less than a year ago, but the referendum
\non Aug. 31, 1999 changed everything. Now that his homeland, East
\nTimor, is an independent nation, Nelson can allow himself to
\nexpress warm feelings towards the country which, prior to last
\nyear, was intensely loathed by many East Timorese.<\/p>\n
\"I, like most East Timorese, have nothing against the
\nIndonesian people. It's Soeharto's regime that we hate,\" said
\nNelson, 26, sharing a Gudang Garam kretek clove cigarette with
\nfellow Dili-native Americo Victor at a modest downtown Lisbon
\ncafe.<\/p>\n
\"These, by the way,\" Nelson pointed to the cigarette, \"are
\nvery hard to get here. If there were nobody else with us now,
\nwe'd be fighting over it,\" he laughed, brushing his waist-long
\ndreadlocks away from his chocolate face.<\/p>\n
Both men are among the estimated 2,000 East Timorese currently
\nresiding in Portugal, the former colonial ruler of the half-
\nisland, which had been much more than just a mere political
\n\"pebble in Indonesia's shoe,\" as former foreign minister Ali
\nAlatas once said.<\/p>\n
In the latter years of Indonesia's tempestuous 24-year rule of
\nEast Timor, scores of young East Timorese sought asylum in
\nforeign embassies in Jakarta, and were subsequently sent to
\nPortugal. Nelson was one of them: together with four others, he
\nwas in the first group of East Timorese to seek asylum at the
\nBritish Embassy in Jakarta in September 1995.<\/p>\n
A few months prior to that, Nelson had left Dili for Jakarta.<\/p>\n
\"The situation was getting dangerous. The Indonesian military
\nat that time was intensifying its search for people who had ties
\nwith the underground freedom movement.\" The movement, he added,
\nhad members in \"almost every district.\"<\/p>\n
Nelson and his four friends finally decided to seek asylum at
\nthe British Embassy after indications that Indonesian military
\nintelligence was closing in on their boarding house in Jakarta's
\nKramat Sentiong area.<\/p>\n
\"We wrote to Xanana (Gusmao) in Cipinang prison, asking him
\nwhether we should do it. He gave us his blessing,\" Nelson
\nrecalled.<\/p>\n
Under the guise of needing information about British
\nuniversities, the five managed to enter the compound. Once they
\nwere in, however, they were faced with the inevitable
\nconsequences of their actions.<\/p>\n
\"The embassy told us that the UK couldn't accept us, but that
\nPortugal would. Only then did it really hit us: we were going to
\nleave our home, our family, with no guarantees of when or whether
\nwe'd ever see them again,\" he said.<\/p>\n
\"It's very, very scary but what other choice did we have?\"
\nNelson said, adding that tentative suggestions of staying in
\neither Indonesia or East Timor were immediately dismissed \"by the
\nembassy and the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross),
\nwho said that we'd surely be arrested by the Indonesian
\nauthorities.\"<\/p>\n
Beyond the wall<\/p>\n
Possessing nothing but the clothes they had on, Nelson said it
\nwas a \"shock\" to him and his friends to arrive and start a new
\nlife in a country where everything was foreign to them.<\/p>\n
\"We didn't speak a word of Portuguese, and people here are so
\ndifferent from Asians, much more individualistic. Things that are
\ntaken for granted here are offensive to us, like men and women
\nmaking out in public,\" Nelson said, shaking his head.<\/p>\n
\"We were so sad and lonely during our first months here, we
\ncried almost every day. We pined for our home, our loved ones,\"
\nrecalled Nelson, whose favorite musician is Iwan Fals.<\/p>\n
One of the people in Nelson's group was Odilia Victor, who
\nshortly after her arrival managed to get her parents and brother,
\nwith the help of the ICRC, to also flee to Portugal, and that's
\nhow Americo came to live in exile.<\/p>\n
Americo agreed with Nelson that adjusting to life in Europe
\nhas been anything but easy, despite the fact that the Portuguese
\ngovernment took proper care of East Timorese exiles, providing
\nlanguage courses and a stipend enough for a modest life, \"for
\nwhich we are grateful.\"<\/p>\n
\"Portuguese is a very difficult language to learn, and
\nweakness in the language subsequently leads to difficulty in
\nschool and work,\" said Americo, 25, whose teenage memories
\ninclude ducking bullets at the infamous procession at Dili's
\nSanta Cruz cemetery in November 1991. During the procession the
\nIndonesian military is alleged to have killed up to 200 people,
\nalthough the official death count was around 50.<\/p>\n
In his five years in Portugal, mostly living in or around
\nLisbon, Nelson has remained busy, with activities ranging from
\nphotography and journalism classes to working as a mechanic. He
\nalso does whatever he can from so far away for East Timor's
\nfreedom movement, like participating in lobbies and campaigns.<\/p>\n
\"My goal is to go home, but I want to make sure I have skills
\nto offer my country. That's why I want to finish my photo-
\njournalism course first,\" he said.<\/p>\n
One activity has soothed the young men's bruised lives: Nelson
\nand Americo, who had played music together in Dili, picked up the
\nthread in Lisbon. Earlier this year their band made a CD called
\nLaloran Timor, sung in a combination of Portuguese and two ethnic
\nTimorese languages: Tetum and Mambai.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, events in East Timor continue to directly impact
\nits exiled sons, continents away: Nelson recalled how euphoria
\nover the referendum last August degenerated into horror as news
\nof death and destruction swiftly followed.<\/p>\n
\"I got word that my whole family was killed. I didn't hear
\nanything about or from them for four months. I was such a mess,
\nit was paralyzing,\" Nelson shuddered.<\/p>\n
Fate turned out to be less cruel. In January this year, one of
\nhis sisters managed to call Portugal, and told him that the
\nfamily was driven away by pro-integration militia to camps in
\nWest Timor, and had since returned to Dili.<\/p>\n
Americo said that friends of his were less fortunate, a number
\nof whom perished in the chaos following the referendum.<\/p>\n
Helping hand<\/p>\n
Luckily, people like Nelson and Americo don't struggle alone,
\nas scores of Portuguese-based NGOs concern themselves with the
\nfate of East Timor.<\/p>\n
One of them is Olho Vivo, which since May 1999 started
\norganizing courses for East Timorese, with subjects ranging from
\naccounting and information technology to photojournalism.<\/p>\n
The courses, held in a small, unassuming building on the
\noutskirts of Lisbon, are enthusiastically attended by around 40
\npeople.<\/p>\n
While the curriculum at Olho Vivo is concerned with issues
\nsuch as the environment and human rights, \"it has always made
\nEast Timor one of its main concerns since it started in the late
\n1980s,\" said Maria Filomena de Canossa Henrique, who the students
\nfondly call Lita.<\/p>\n
Lita, who volunteers 35 hours a week for Olho Vivo's Cursos
\nProfessional, understands the students: in December 1975, Lita's
\nmother managed to flee East Timor for Portugal with her infant
\ndaughter.<\/p>\n
\"My father stayed behind and fought with the guerrillas. I
\nonly met him again when I was eight years old, when he finally
\nescaped to Portugal,\" said Lita, a fourth-year law student in
\nLisbon.<\/p>\n
The courses are meant to give the East Timorese students
\npractical skills, particularly to those who want to return to
\ntheir home country.<\/p>\n
\"We know that it hasn't been easy for many exiles to acquire
\nthe skills they want, mainly because of the language barrier. But
\nmost of them are extremely motivated, and that's why they're
\nhere,\" explained Lita, sitting in her tiny office adorned by
\nposters of Xanana Gusmao and Connie Santana.<\/p>\n
One interesting course also offered by Olho Vivo is the
\ntheater class, \"in which the students are trained to express
\nthemselves. Like other Asians, East Timorese aren't as assertive
\nas Europeans, and they become even shier in a foreign
\nenvironment.\"<\/p>\n
During a break from their afternoon \"theater\" class, the 12
\nstudents, many having arrived in Portugal via various foreign
\nembassies in Jakarta, express their longing to return to East
\nTimor, even though most of them now have a modestly comfortable
\nlife in Portugal.<\/p>\n
\"We didn't come here to be comfortable. We had one purpose:
\nfight for our country, and now we can do that by going home and
\nhelping to rebuild it again,\" said Mau-Udi, one of the students.<\/p>\n
They agreed that much needs to be done in East Timor, not the
\nleast being to solve the country's current economic problems.<\/p>\n
\"However, I'm optimistic that one day my country will become
\nbeautiful again, and it's up to us East Timorese to make that
\nhappen,\" Nelson vowed, deeply inhaling the last of his kretek
\ncigarette.<\/p>",
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