Kirsty Sword Gusmão

My whole day had been taken up with the petty problems of the rapazes [boys]. It was a tiny job really, this passing on of information between various parties, but it felt big and time-consuming enough to prevent me from articulating and recording my own thoughts and responses to the events unfolding around me.

[Olinda] wore the years of physical hardship and the pain of separation from her husband on her face. Nevertheless, as I handed her the envelope from Xanana, I noticed that her eyes gleamed with satisfaction, a tear threatening to escape down her bony cheeks. She had spent many years in the bush herself, having given birth to her son, Benvindo, in a guerrilla encampment in 1986. The food shortages and absence of medical attention led her and [her husband] Aluc to decide to place the infant in the care of Aluc’s father in Los Palos town. But the child was kidnapped en route by an Indonesian lieutenant-colonel who no doubt wished to use Aluc’s boy as a bargaining chip in the effort to force the Falintil to surrender. Olinda had not seen the boy since.

I talked to them about the struggle, about my guerrillas’ suffering, so that they could get from me, not the reminiscing of a ‘resuscitated father,’ but the sense of the ongoing demands of ‘a patria’—the homeland. I couldn’t carry you constantly in my thoughts, I told them. I couldn’t dedicate a place in my heart to you because my guerrillas also had forgotten everything and had suffered more than myself.

What would this development mean for my job, for my work for East Timor and for my prospects of being able to see Xanana again? To my surprise, the thought that caused me the greatest pang of grief and remorse was that of not being able to visit Indonesia again. Since my first trip to the country in the early eighties, hardly a year had gone by that I hadn’t travelled to a different part of Indonesia, renewing old friendships and making new ones, filling the holes in my understanding of the complex and diverse nation … The thought that this was the end of the road caused me to wince. I was assailed by a profound sense of loss.

Over the years of my involvement in the East Timor struggle it had occurred to me that in many ways, this deliberate uprooting of the youth and the denial of their right to education was an even more insidious aspect of the Indonesian campaign of genocide than the murder and rape. More insidious because it was subtle, its effects enduring, and it robbed almost an entire generation of the opportunity and the means to contribute meaningfully to the life of the pátria, that almost mythical sovereign ‘homeland,’ which they knew only through the speeches and exhortations of their leaders.

Almost half East Timor’s population were young people. I found it disturbing to see so many unemployed youths on the street, with no chance of an education or of participating in reconstruction projects that required skills they didn’t have. Even recreational activities beyond the occasional soccer or volleyball match were denied them. I decided to set up a reading room. I wanted it to be a place people felt comfortable to visit, not daunted by, so a library wasn’t the answer. I wanted to create a place that would promote a love of reading and foster pride in the culture and fighting spirit of the people of my new home.

My whole day had been taken up with the petty problems of the rapazes [boys]. It was a tiny job really, this passing on of information between various parties, but it felt big and time-consuming enough to prevent me from articulating and recording my own thoughts and responses to the events unfolding around me.

[Olinda] wore the years of physical hardship and the pain of separation from her husband on her face. Nevertheless, as I handed her the envelope from Xanana, I noticed that her eyes gleamed with satisfaction, a tear threatening to escape down her bony cheeks. She had spent many years in the bush herself, having given birth to her son, Benvindo, in a guerrilla encampment in 1986. The food shortages and absence of medical attention led her and [her husband] Aluc to decide to place the infant in the care of Aluc’s father in Los Palos town. But the child was kidnapped en route by an Indonesian lieutenant-colonel who no doubt wished to use Aluc’s boy as a bargaining chip in the effort to force the Falintil to surrender. Olinda had not seen the boy since.

I talked to them about the struggle, about my guerrillas’ suffering, so that they could get from me, not the reminiscing of a ‘resuscitated father,’ but the sense of the ongoing demands of ‘a patria’—the homeland. I couldn’t carry you constantly in my thoughts, I told them. I couldn’t dedicate a place in my heart to you because my guerrillas also had forgotten everything and had suffered more than myself.

What would this development mean for my job, for my work for East Timor and for my prospects of being able to see Xanana again? To my surprise, the thought that caused me the greatest pang of grief and remorse was that of not being able to visit Indonesia again. Since my first trip to the country in the early eighties, hardly a year had gone by that I hadn’t travelled to a different part of Indonesia, renewing old friendships and making new ones, filling the holes in my understanding of the complex and diverse nation … The thought that this was the end of the road caused me to wince. I was assailed by a profound sense of loss.

Over the years of my involvement in the East Timor struggle it had occurred to me that in many ways, this deliberate uprooting of the youth and the denial of their right to education was an even more insidious aspect of the Indonesian campaign of genocide than the murder and rape. More insidious because it was subtle, its effects enduring, and it robbed almost an entire generation of the opportunity and the means to contribute meaningfully to the life of the pátria, that almost mythical sovereign ‘homeland,’ which they knew only through the speeches and exhortations of their leaders.

Almost half East Timor’s population were young people. I found it disturbing to see so many unemployed youths on the street, with no chance of an education or of participating in reconstruction projects that required skills they didn’t have. Even recreational activities beyond the occasional soccer or volleyball match were denied them. I decided to set up a reading room. I wanted it to be a place people felt comfortable to visit, not daunted by, so a library wasn’t the answer. I wanted to create a place that would promote a love of reading and foster pride in the culture and fighting spirit of the people of my new home.