Timorese in exile sets the record right straight
Timorese in exile sets the record right straight
JAKARTA (JP): A senior East Timorese politician now living in exile in Lisbon gave details of Portuguese atrocities and of the Fretilin, an East Timorese political party, against its own people in the 1970s, during a debate in London on Wednesday.
Antara reported that Jose Mortius, who once headed the Kota Party in East Timor, said that the people who are trying to discredit Indonesia's policy in East Timor overlooked the sufferings East Timorese had to endure during Portuguese colonization.
Mortius was speaking during a debate organized by a British organization in support of East Timor independence. Seated on the podium were Ramos Horta, who from exile has been waging Fretilin's campaign for a separatist state, John Pilger, a British-based journalist who has written extensively on East Timor, John G. Taylor and Carmel Budiardjo.
"How can you lie and neglect the fact that East Timorese people were suffering under Portuguese colonization?" Mortius said as he rose from the stand after Horta repeatedly attacked Indonesian policy in East Timor.
Mortius, who said he waged a guerrilla war against Portuguese rule, said the Portuguese colonial administration "burned and murdered" over 3,000 East Timorese in 1956.
The Portuguese government should also bear the responsibility for the deaths of over 7,000 East Timorese during the 1974-76 civil war in East Timor, he said.
He said the number of casualties from the civil war would have been even larger had it not been for the help of Indonesia, recalling the time when he and his forces and around 40,000 refugees were being forced to the Indonesian border by the Fretilin.
Mortius also deplored the term annexation often used by critics of Indonesia in describing its policy in East Timor.
The integration of East Timor with Indonesia in 1976 came at the request of the East Timorese people, he said "I wouldn't describe that as annexation."
Horta, according to the Antara report, did not try to respond to Mortius' remarks. (emb)