tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32941622939899342612024-03-14T08:04:16.691+11:00Sara NinerResearch and writing about the people and politics of Timor-Leste by Dr. Sara Niner.Dr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-19156521046734198762019-01-04T12:14:00.004+11:002019-01-04T12:14:48.488+11:00<!-- .entry-header --><span style="color: #ff6600; font-family: Calibri;"><h1 class="entry-title">
Baseline Study: 2013 Research Study—Young Gender Equitable Men?</h1>
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<a href="http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/files/2014/12/Final-Report-Cover.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Final Report Cover" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-953" height="300" sizes="(max-width: 210px) 100vw, 210px" src="http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/files/2014/12/Final-Report-Cover-210x300.jpg" srcset="http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/files/2014/12/Final-Report-Cover-210x300.jpg 210w, http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/files/2014/12/Final-Report-Cover.jpg 448w" width="210" /></a><a href="http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/baseline-study-2013-research-study-young-gender-equitable-men/"><em>In 2013 Dr Niner undertook a Baseline Study into gender perceptions and masculinity with young men in Timor-Leste</em></a><br />
Research Study by Monash University staff and UNTL (National Uni Timor-Leste) staff<br />
<ul>
<li>survey of 500 young men using GEM Scale in rural and urban TL informed by focus groups and qualitative interviews</li>
<li>how young East Timorese men think about the roles of men and women in contemporary Timorese society and what they expect in their intimate or spousal relationships.</li>
<li>Informants described significant changes to gender roles and relationships in the emerging nation and continuing pressure for further change.</li>
<li>More gender equitable principles are promoted by the local women’s movement and international agencies and have been introduced into the new nation’s government policies.</li>
<li>While broadly accepted publicly these new values are often superficially held and families and communities find it difficult to implement these new concepts at the household and community level. Many local people interviewed presented the new values as foreign to local culture and as a result of ‘globalisation’.</li>
</ul>
<strong>Key Findings of 2013 Survey</strong><br />
<ol>
<li>new ideas about gender equality introduced nationally—most young men accepted general statements about gender equity;</li>
<li>Given specific details: young men still expect power and control over women within their families;</li>
<li>Declining gender equitable attitudes with age, education, environment;<a href="http://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/csmm/pdf/A%20Niner%20Seminar.pdf">“</a> Young men’s perceptions of gender relations and gendered violence in Timor-Leste”</li>
<li>The dominant form of masculinity that was expressed was tough, aggressive, virile and heterosexual.</li>
<li>Great variation and confusion about level of physical abuse tolerated but generally acceptance of physical abuse toward women if they do no fulfil traditional roles;</li>
<li>Persistent blaming of women for the violence perpetrated against them by men;</li>
</ol>
<strong>Recommendations:</strong> culturally appropriate programs which clearly define domestic and other violence against women and positively influence men’s attitudes to gender equality and intimate partner relations in schools and other arenas as a priority.<br />
<a href="http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/files/2014/12/2013-PyD-Final-Report-Young-Men-English.pdf">For more information please see full report.</a></div>
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<h2>
<span style="color: #ff9900;">Masculinity and links to gender inequality and violence in Timor-Leste & Indonesia (2014) (</span><span style="color: #ffcc00;"><a href="http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/anthropology/masculinity-and-links-to-gender-inequality-and-violence-in-timor-leste-indonesia/" style="color: #ffcc00;">Monash Asia Institute Seminar Series jointly organized with the Anthropology Program, School of Social Sciences</a></span>)</h2>
Internationally, it has been shown that there is a strong link between various gender related norms, including notions of masculinity in a society, and gendered violence. Understanding this is key to programs of prevention. A panel of academics and practitioners will explore cultural elements of gender and masculinity that contribute to violence. These ideas and concepts will be explored particularly in relation to the work of men in prevention programs such as the <em>Asosiasaun Mane Kontra Violensia</em> (AMKV) or Association for Men Against Violence in Timor and the <em>Gerakan Laki-Laki Baru </em>(LLB) or New Men’s Movement in Indonesia<br />
<strong><a href="https://soundcloud.com/sniner/masculinity-and-links-to-gender-inequality-and-violence-in-timor-leste-and-indonesia" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Click here to listen to the audio of the Seminar</a></strong> or go to <a href="https://soundcloud.com/sniner/masculinity-and-links-to-gender-inequality-and-violence-in-timor-leste-and-indonesia" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://soundcloud.com/sniner/masculinity-and-links-to-gender-inequality-and-violence-in-timor-leste-and-indonesia</a><br />
<a href="http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/files/2014/11/2014-10-07-Masculinity-Seminar.jpg"><img alt="2014 10 07 Masculinity Seminar" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-916" height="224" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" src="http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/files/2014/11/2014-10-07-Masculinity-Seminar-300x224.jpg" srcset="http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/files/2014/11/2014-10-07-Masculinity-Seminar-300x224.jpg 300w, http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/files/2014/11/2014-10-07-Masculinity-Seminar.jpg 640w" width="300" /></a><em>Photo: Monash Asia Institute-Anthropology Public Seminar (Oct 2014) Right to Left: Visiting-Scholar Mario Araujo, Mira Fonseca, Dr. Sara Niner, Rachmad Hidayat, Sri Wiyanti Eddyono</em><br />
<strong>Panel includes:</strong><br />
<strong>Marito de Araujo, Visiting Academic, Timor-Leste:</strong> Marito is a founding member of the CSO ‘Association for Men Against Violence in Timor-Leste’, and is a long-term social activist. He has worked for Oxfam CAA Australia as an advocacy officer and programme co-ordinator. He currently teaches at the <em>Universidade da Paz</em> (UNPAZ) in Timor and also works as a gender consultant to government and international and local organisations.<br />
<strong> Sri Wiyanti Eddyono (Iyik),</strong> <strong>PhD candidate, Monash University</strong>. Iyik’s research is on women’s empowerment in poor, urban communities in Indonesia. She is also coordinator of the Indonesia research team of the UNRISD project: “When and Why do States Respond to Women’s Claims: Understanding Gender-Egalitarian Policy Change in Asia, a comparative study on India, Indonesia, and China”.<br />
<strong>Rachmad Hidayat, PhD candidate, Monash University</strong>. Rachmad’s current research focusses on Muslim masculinities in Australia. His Master thesis was titled “Islam, Masculinity and Domestic Violence in Java”. Rachmad is a member and volunteer of <em>Gerakan Laki-Laki Baru</em> (LLB), a national movement in Indonesia addressing masculinities and domestic violence.<br />
<strong>Panel Convenor:</strong><br />
<strong>Dr. Sara Niner</strong> is an interdisciplinary researcher and lecturer in Anthropology at Monash. She has undertaken research with <a href="http://pydasia.org/timor-leste-taking-the-lead-in-investigating-gender-attitudes-and-behaviors/">young men in Timor-Leste about their attitudes to gender roles</a>, relationships and violence, which informed a gender-based violence prevention campaign. This seminar continues this research in the field of masculinity in the post-conflict environment of Timor-Leste.<br />
<h2>
<span style="color: #ff6600; font-family: Calibri;">SEMINAR “Masculinities in Indonesia and East Timor” (2017)</span></h2>
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<strong>Presenters</strong><br clear="none" /> Hani Yulindrasari (The University of Melbourne)<br clear="none" /><span>Noor Huda Ismail (Monash University)<br clear="none" /> Benjamin Hegarty (The Australian National University)<br clear="none" /> Dr Sara Niner (Monash University)</span></div>
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<a href="http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/files/2015/01/2017-masc-seminar-speakers.jpg"><img alt="" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-1118" height="155" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" src="http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/files/2015/01/2017-masc-seminar-speakers-300x155.jpg" srcset="http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/files/2015/01/2017-masc-seminar-speakers-300x155.jpg 300w, http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/files/2015/01/2017-masc-seminar-speakers.jpg 728w" width="300" /></a></div>
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<span>Professor Ariel Heryanto (Monash University) discusses masculinity with members of a new generation of scholars who are completing separate research projects on the topic: Hani Yulindrasari (The University of Melbourne), Noor Huda Ismail (Monash University), Benjamin Hegarty (The Australian National University), and Sara Niner (Monash University). Julian Millie (Monash University) will offer concluding comments.</span></div>
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More information on speakers <a href="http://genderinstitute.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/docs/Masculinities.pdf">HERE</a></div>
<h3 class="entry-content">
<span style="color: #993300;">Watch recording of Seminar <a href="https://vimeo.com/218168284">HERE</a></span></h3>
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<strong></strong> </div>
Dr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-50204892829651623002019-01-04T11:54:00.000+11:002019-01-04T11:54:21.422+11:00<h1 class="entry-title">
Publications</h1>
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On-line Articles </h3>
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<ul>
<li>2017 Women’s empowerment and microfinance: key challenges, lessons and a way forward <em>Development Policy Blog </em><a href="http://devpolicy.org/womens-empowerment-and-microfinance-20171108/?utm_source=oxfam-monash-partnership-page-carousel&utm_medium=Web-banner&utm_campaign=women’s-empowerment-and-microfinance:">View Article</a></li>
<li><a href="http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/files/2012/03/Berta-and-Micato.jpg"></a>2017 ‘Women and power in Timor’s elections’ <em>New Mandala</em> <a href="http://www.newmandala.org/women-power-timors-elections/">View Article</a></li>
<li>2016 ‘‘What a piece of work is a man!: Xanana Gusmao at 70’ <em>New Mandala</em> <a href="http://www.newmandala.org/what-a-piece-of-work-is-a-man-xanana-gusmao-turns-70/">View Article</a></li>
<li>2016 ‘Xanana Gusmao: of Paintballs and Power’ <em>The Inside Story</em> <a href="http://insidestory.org.au/of-paintballs-and-power">View Article </a></li>
<li>
2012 ‘East Timor: New President, same problems for women’ <em>The Conversation</em> <a href="http://theconversation.edu.au/east-timor-new-president-same-problems-for-women-6587">View article</a></li>
<li>2012 Jen Hughes and Sara Niner, ‘Review: Surviving and resisting in Timor-Leste’ <em>Inside Indonesia </em><a href="http://www.insideindonesia.org/stories/review-surviving-and-resisting-in-timor-leste-03031499">View article</a></li>
<li>2011 ‘Gender Dimension in Post-Conflict Timor-Leste’, <em>Asian Currents</em> (March) <a href="http://asaa.asn.au/publications/ac/2011/asian-currents-11-03.pdf">View article</a></li>
<li>2009 ‘Timor-Leste – A king’s granddaughter helps re-weave a nation’, <em>Craft Unbound</em> <a href="http://www.craftunbound.net/medium/textiles/timor-leste-a-kings-granddaughter-helps-re-weave-a-nation">View Article</a></li>
<li>2008 ‘Reinado a product of Timorese trauma’, <em>Eureka Street.com.au</em>, Vol 18, No 4 <a href="http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=5664">View article</a></li>
<li>2008 ‘Major Alfredo Alves Reinado: Cycles of Torture, Pain and Violence in East Timor’, <em>Z-Net</em> <a href="http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/16583">View article</a></li>
<li>2004 ‘Guerrilla to President: Xanana Gusmão’, <em>Eureka Street</em>, Melbourne <a href="http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=835">View article</a></li>
<li>2003 ‘Strong Cloth: The Textiles of East Timor’, <em>Craft Culture</em>, Melbourne</li>
<li>2002 ‘<em>Maun Bo’t</em>: Profile of a President’, <em>Meanjin</em>, Melbourne <a href="http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/files/2012/03/2002-Niner-Xanana-Meanjin-Article.pdf">View Meanjin Article</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<h2>
Books</h2>
<div align="left">
Sara Niner (ed.) (2016) <em>Women and the politics of gender in post-conflict Timor-Leste</em>, Women in Asia Series’, London: Routledge Publishing <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Women-and-the-Politics-of-Gender-in-Post-Conflict-Timor-Leste-Between/Niner/p/book/9781138999121">View Publisher’s Book page</a></div>
<div align="left">
Sara Niner (2011) <i>Xanana: </i><i>Líder da luta pela independência de Timor-Leste</i>, Don Quixote Publishing: Lisbon <a href="http://www.dquixote.pt/noticias/detalhes.php?id=684#">View Portuguese Publishing details </a></div>
<div align="left">
Sara Niner (2009) <em>Xanana: Leader of the Struggle for Independent Timor-Leste</em><i>, </i>Australian Scholarly Publishing: Melbourne <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OwzZDGVUGEll1XXkRwAl-yCFfIXEZi9c/view">View Book</a> or Read <a href="http://saraniner.blogspot.com.au/2010/01/terry-bracks-speech-at-melbourne-launch.html">Launch Speech</a> or <a href="http://journals.publishing.monash.edu/ojs/index.php/ha/article/view/ha100046/76">Read Review</a></div>
<div align="left">
Sara Niner (ed.) (2000) <em>To Resist is to Win: the Autobiography of Xanana Gusmão with selected letters and speeches</em><em>,</em><i> </i>Aurora/David Lovell Publishing: Melbourne <a href="http://www.davidlovellpublishing.com/title.php?isbn=1863550712">See Book</a></div>
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Book Chapters</h2>
Sara Niner (in press) ‘Conflict and peace-building in East Timor’, Steven Ratuva (Ed), <em>Global Handbook on Ethnicity,</em> Springer-Nature and Palgrave-Macmillan.<br />
Sara Niner (2018) ‘<em>Mane feto completo malu: </em>gender relations in contemporary Timor-Leste’, Andrew McWilliam and Michael Leach (Ed.s) <em>The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Timor-Leste</em>, Oxford: Routledge.<br />
Sara Niner (2016) ‘Living between Heaven and Earth: Understanding <em>jender</em> in Timor-Leste’, <em>Women and the politics of gender in Post-Conflict Timor-Leste, </em>Women in Asia Series, Oxford: Routledge.<br />
Sara Niner (2016) ‘Establishing a Research Agenda for Gender Studies in Timor Leste’, <em>Women and the politics of gender in Post-Conflict Timor-Leste, </em>Women in Asia Series, Oxford: Routledge.<br />
Sara Niner (2016), ’Effects and Affects: women in the post-conflict moment in TL—an application of Spike Peterson’s “Gendering Insecurities, Informalization and War Economies”’, <em>The Palgrave Handbook on Gender and Development: Critical engagements in feminist theory and practice</em>, Wendy Harcourt (Ed), Palgrave Publishing <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781137382726">http://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781137382726</a><br />
Sara Niner (2013) ‘Bisoi—a veteran of Timor-Leste’s independence movement’, <i>Women in Southeast Asian Nationalist Movements</i>, Eds Sue Blackburn and Helen Ting, NUS Press: Singapore, pp. 226—249 <a href="http://www.nus.edu.sg/nuspress/subjects/history/978-9971-69-674-0.html">See Book</a><br />
Sara Niner (2012) ‘Between Earth and Heaven: The politics of gender’, The Politics of Timor-Leste: Democratic Consolidation after Intervention, Editors M. Leach and D. Kingsbury, Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, pp. 239—258 <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100516420">See Book</a> <br />
<div align="left">
Sara Niner (2011) ‘Women in the post-conflict moment in Timor-Leste’, <i>Security, development and nation-building in Timor-Leste: Cross-sectoral perspectives</i><i>,</i> Editors Vandra Harris and Andrew Goldsmith,<i> </i>Routledge Publishing, pp. 41—58 <a href="http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415601245/">See Book</a></div>
<div align="left">
Sara Niner (2008) ‘Women’s handcrafts production in East Timor: change for the better?’’, <em>Democratic Governance in Timor-Leste: Reconciling the Local and the National</em>, edited by David Mearns, Charles Darwin University Press, pp. 240—249 <a href="http://cdupress.cdu.edu.au/orders/cdu_press.find?book=democratic-governanc">See Book</a></div>
<div align="left">
Sara Niner (2007) ‘Martyrs, Heroes and Warriors: The Leadership of Timor-Leste’, D Kingsbury and M Leach (eds) <em>East Timor: Beyond Independence</em>, Monash Asia Institute Press, pp. 113-130 <a href="http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/files/2012/03/2007-Martyrs-Heroes-Warriors.pdf">2007 Martyrs Heroes Warriors</a></div>
<div align="left">
Sara Niner (2000) ‘A Long Journey of Resistance: The Origins and Struggle of CNRT’, Ed., Tanter, Selden and Shalom, <em>Bitter Flowers, Sweet Flowers: East Timor, Indonesia and the World Community,</em> Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, USA, pp. 15-29</div>
<h2>
Refereed Academic Articles</h2>
Sara Niner and Hannah Loney (under review) ‘The Women’s Movement in Timor-Leste and Potential for Social Change’, <em>Development and Change</em><br />
Sara L. Niner (2017). Reflection on the special gender stream: 2017 Timor-Leste Studies Association Conference. <em>Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies</em>, 10(2) <a href="https://aseas.univie.ac.at/index.php/aseas/article/view/1876">View Article</a><br />
Wigglesworth, A., Niner, S., Arunachalam, D., Boavida dos Santos, A. and Tilman, M. (2015) ‘Attitudes and perception of young men towards gender equality and violence in Timor-Leste ‘, <em>Journal of International Women’s Studies, </em>16: 2 <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/352057498/Gender-Equality-and-Violence-in-Timor-Leste">View Article</a><br />
<div align="left">
Sara L. Niner, Renata Kokanovic, Denise Cuthbert and Violet Cho (2014) “‘Here nobody holds your heart’: metaphoric and embodied emotions of birth and displacement among Karen women in Australia”, <em>Medical Anthropology Quarterly. </em><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/maq.12070/abstract"><em>View on-line publication</em></a> 05 March 2014<br clear="none" />Sara L. Niner, Denise Cuthbert and Yarina Ahmad (2014) “Good mothers, bad mothers: motherhood, modernity and politics in representations of child abuse in Malaysia’s English-language newspapers”,<em> Feminist Media Studies 14(6). </em><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14680777.2013.854822#.Uq5sIPVyF8E">View online publication: 06 Dec 2013</a></div>
<div align="left">
Sara L. Niner, Denise Cuthbert and Yarina Ahmad (2013) ‘The “social tsunami”: media coverage of child abuse in Malaysia’s English-language newspapers in 2010’ <i>Media, Culture and Society, </i>35(4): 433—451 <a href="http://mcs.sagepub.com/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Journal home page</a></div>
<div align="left">
Sara L. Niner, Renata Kokanovic and Denise Cuthbert (2013) ‘Displaced mothers: birth and resettlement—gratitude and complaint’, <i>Medical Anthropology: Cross Cultural Studies in Health and Illness</i> 32(6): 535-551. <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/er58aR7szDUTuc5JjcrD/full">See Article</a></div>
<div align="left">
Sara Niner (2012) ‘<i>Barlake:</i> an exploration of marriage practices and issues of women’s status in Timor-Leste<i>’, Local-Global: Identity, Security, Community</i>, Globalism Research Centre, RMIT: Melbourne <a href="http://www.timor-leste.org/local-global/">See Journal</a></div>
<div align="left">
Sara Niner (2011) ‘<i>Hakat klot</i>, Narrow steps: negotiating gender in post-conflict Timor-Leste’, <i>International Feminist Journal of Politics</i>, York University, Canada, Volume 13(3): 413—435 <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14616742.2011.587371">See Article</a></div>
<div align="left">
Sara Niner (2009) ‘Sacred Cloth and Development in Timor-Leste’ <i>Asia-Pacific Social Science Review</i> (APSSR) Volume 9(2): 1-17 <a href="http://www.philjol.info/philjol/index.php/APSSR/article/view/1458">See Article</a></div>
<div align="left">
Catherine Lang, Denny Meyer, Sarah Niner et al (2009) ‘The Impact of Gender and Pedagogical Factors on Female Pass Rates’, <em>Communications of the Association for Information Systems</em>: Volume 25, Article 28. <a href="http://aisel.aisnet.org/cais/vol25/iss1/28">See Article</a></div>
<div align="left">
Sara Niner, Jane Pirkis, Karolina Krysinska, Jo Robinson et al (2009) ‘Research priorities in suicide prevention: A qualitative study of stakeholders’ views’, <em>Australian e-Journal for the Advancement of Mental Health</em>, Volume 8 (1)</div>
<div align="left">
Jo Robinson, Jane Pirkis, Karolina Krysinska, Sara Niner et al (2008) ‘Research Priorities in Suicide Prevention in Australia’ <em>Crisis: the Journal of Crisis Prevention and Suicide Prevention</em> Volume 29(4)</div>
<div align="left">
Sara Niner (2005) ‘President Xanana Gusmão: A transforming leadership’, P Thomas and H Hill (eds), <em>Development Bulletin</em> <em>No. 68: Cooperating with Timor-Leste,</em> ANU, Canberra, pp. 39—41 <a href="http://devnet.anu.edu.au/db%2068-pdfs/08%20Niner%2068.pdf">See Article</a></div>
<div align="left">
Sara Niner (2000) ‘A Long Journey of Resistance: The Origins of the National Council of Timorese Resistance’, <em>The Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars</em>, Vol 32(1-2):11—17 Cornell University, USA <a href="http://criticalasianstudies.org/bcas/back-issues.html?page=32">See Journal</a></div>
<h3 align="left">
Research Reports</h3>
<ul>
<li>Sara Niner, Kathryn Cornwell and Cristina Benevides (2015) <strong>‘Gender Analysis of Oxfam Savings and Loans Groups in Timor-Leste: Research Report’</strong>, Melbourne: Oxfam Download Report: <a href="http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/files/2012/03/MONASH-Timor-Leste-Report-Final.pdf">MONASH Timor Leste Report Final</a></li>
<li>Dr Sara Niner, Dr Ann Wigglesworth, Mr. Abel Boavida dos Santos, Mr. Mateus Tilman, Associate Professor Dharmalingam Arunachalam. 2013. <b>Perceptions of gender and masculinities of youth in Timor-Leste Baseline Study– Joint Communication Campaign for the Prevention of Gender Based Violence Timor-Leste </b> <a href="http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/files/2014/12/2013-PyD-Final-Report-Young-Men-English.pdf">2013 PyD Final Report Young Men English</a> or <a href="http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/files/2012/03/2013-Paz-y-Desarrollo-Relatoriu-Esbosu.pdf">2013 PyD Tetun Relatoriu Esbosu</a></li>
<li>Jacqui True, Sara Niner, Swati Parashar and Nicola George. 2013. <strong>Women’s political participation in Asia-Pacific.</strong> Report for United Nations Department of Political Affairs. New York: Social Science Research Council Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum. <a href="http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/jacqui-true/new-report-on-womens-political-participation-in-asia-pacific-published/">View Description of Report</a> or <a href="http://www.ssrc.org/pages/cppf-working-papers-on-women-in-politics/">download report</a> or here <a href="http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/files/2012/03/CPPF_WomenInPolitics_03_True.pdf">CPPF_WomenInPolitics_03_True</a></li>
<li>Kokanovic, R., Niner, S., Cho, V. and Cuthbert, D. (2012) <strong>Pilot Study on perinatal depression (PD) in refugee communities</strong>. Research report beyond blue. Melbourne. <a href="http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/files/2012/03/2012-06-beyondblue-Refugee-Mothers-Report-Web-Edit.pdf">2012 06 beyondblue Refugee Mothers Report Web Edit</a></li>
<li>Niner, S. (2009) <strong>International Commencing Student Study</strong> Swinburne University</li>
<li>Niner, S. (2009) ‘Gender and Society in Timor Leste’, Science Application International Corporation (SAIC)</li>
<li>Palmer, L., Niner S., and Kent L. (2006) <strong>Proceedings of Exploring the Tensions of Nation Building in Timor-Leste Forum</strong>, SAGES Working Papers, University of Melbourne. Proceedings here <a href="http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/files/2012/03/2007-Tensions-Nation-Building-Proceedings.pdf">2007 Tensions Nation Building Proceedings</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>
Encyclopedia Entries</h3>
2016 ‘Internet and Social Media Usage in Timor-Leste’, Entry for ‘Online around the World: A Geographic Encyclopaedia of the Internet, Social Media, and Mobile Apps’ <em>ABC-CLIO Encyclopedias </em>(with Emanuel Braz)<br />
Dr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-21832511850837813852019-01-04T11:49:00.000+11:002019-01-04T11:49:40.973+11:00<h1 class="entry-title">
Dr Sara Niner </h1>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Dr. Sara Niner is an interdisciplinary researcher and lecturer in Anthropology with the </span><a href="http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/social-sciences/" title="SoSS"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">School of Social Sciences</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> at Monash University. Before becoming an academic she spent many years working with the East Timorese diaspora in Australia followed by many years working and researching in Timor-Leste.</span></div>
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<li><div class="entry-content">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">She is an expert in the field of gender and international development with a particular interest in those issues in the post-conflict environment of Timor-Leste and is widely published in this field. As a regional gender expert, Dr Niner has often worked and reported on gender issues in S. E. Asia for local and international development agencies. She is currently undertaking research through the </span><a href="http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/oxfam/research/"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Oxfam Monash Partnership</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> of Oxfam partnered Savings and Loans Schemes in Timor-Leste. Further work on the links between gender inequity, empowerment and the economy is also being developed with a network of researchers focussed on the Asia Pacific.</span></div>
</li>
<li><div class="entry-content">
<a href="http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/files/2016/02/Crocs-motif.jpg" rel="attachment wp-att-1045"></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">She recently convened a public seminar </span><a href="http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/crocodiles-in-the-timor-sea/"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Crocodiles in the Timor Sea: development implications</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> where her </span><a href="https://vimeo.com/155913942"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">presentation</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> reported on recent research which uncovered little know details about the culture of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs in their negotiations over the maritime resources in the Timor Sea.</span></div>
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<li><div align="left" class="entry-content">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">As part of an ongoing program of research into the politics of gender in Timor-Leste she is undertaking <strong><a href="http://profiles.arts.monash.edu.au/sara-niner/masculinities-research/">new research into Masculinities in Timor-Leste</a></strong> building on a 2013 study into </span><a href="http://pydasia.org/timor-leste-taking-the-lead-in-investigating-gender-attitudes-and-behaviors/"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">young men in Timor-Leste and their attitudes to gender roles</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">, relationships and violence which informed a gender-based violence prevention campaign.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A new book <em>W</em><em>omen and the politics of gender in Post-Conflict Timor-Leste</em>, Women in Asia Series, has just been published with Routledge in the UK </span><a href="https://www.routledge.com/Women-and-the-Politics-of-Gender-in-Post-Conflict-Timor-Leste-Between/Niner/p/book/9781138999121" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><span style="color: #ff9900; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><u>More info here</u></span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> and launched in London in December 2016 </span></div>
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<li><div class="entry-content">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">She is also the editor of <em>To <a href="http://www.davidlovellpublishing.com/title.php?isbn=1863550712">Resist is to<b> </b>Win: the Autobiography of Xanana Gusmão with selected letters and speeches</a></em> (Aurora Books, Melbourne, 2000) and author of <em><a href="https://monash.figshare.com/articles/Xanana_Leader_of_the_Struggle_for_Independent_Timor_Leste/2003199">Xanana: Leader of the Struggle for Independent Timor-Leste</a></em> (Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2009) which was translated into Portuguese as <i>Xanana: </i><i>Líder da luta pela independência de Timor-Leste</i> (Don Quixote Publishing: Lisbon 2011). To commemorate Gusmao’s 70th birthday she also published ‘‘</span><a href="http://www.newmandala.org/what-a-piece-of-work-is-a-man-xanana-gusmao-turns-70/"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">What a piece of work is a man!: Xanana Gusmao at 70’</span></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">, and </span><a href="http://insidestory.org.au/of-paintballs-and-power"><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Xanana Gusmao:</span></u></a><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> of paintballs and power.</span></div>
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<h3 class="entry-content">
Recent Blogs</h3>
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<li><div class="entry-content">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;">2018 <strong>Why microfinance as aid isn’t enough to empower women</strong>, <em>The Conversation </em></span><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-microfinance-as-aid-isnt-enough-to-empower-women-96632#comment_1619589"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">View article here</span></a></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">2018 <strong>It’s time for women to lead in Timor-Leste</strong>. <em>La Croix International </em> </span><a href="https://international.la-croix.com/news/it-s-time-for-women-to-lead-in-timor-leste/7603"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">View article here</span></a></li>
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Dr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-3042547419513906922014-12-23T16:05:00.003+11:002014-12-23T16:05:52.209+11:00new chapter in The Palgrave Handbook on Gender and Development: Critical engagements in feminist theory and practice Very happy Spike Peterson has this to say about my new chapter in The Palgrave Handbook on Gender and Development: Critical engagements in feminist theory and practice : <br /> "Sara Niner’s years of field work and engagement with the historical struggles and current politics of Timor-Leste provide a rich case study of gender within and beyond militarized conflicts. She notes that this small nation is both marginalized and underdeveloped, yet embedded in and affected by the global <span class="text_exposed_show">order because of its location and oil resources. The case study of Timor’s long colonial history and decades of violent occupation by Indonesian forces – with the complicity of Western powers – substantiates in many respects the analytical critiques foregrounded by myself, Khalid and Turcotte. Extensive, painful details demonstrate the practice and resilience of gender-dichotomized affect, experience, violence and valorization, for example, (re)privileging (militarized) masculinity, devaluing women’s contributions, and denying female combatants recognition or welfare. Niner also notes the complexity of constructively addressing emotionally invested memories, resentments and commitments that typically attend decades of conflict and continue into post-conflict politics."</span>Dr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-11801419996571945052013-12-16T15:03:00.000+11:002013-12-16T15:03:00.777+11:00Archival photo of Xanana and Mauk Moruk<br />
<h3>
This is an archival photo widely circulated and printed from 1983--the time of the Peace Talks with the Indonesian military. </h3>
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MSiTvlKwg0k/Uq53-uUkcdI/AAAAAAAAAYg/1CQuW4JCszw/s1600/05358_002_079.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MSiTvlKwg0k/Uq53-uUkcdI/AAAAAAAAAYg/1CQuW4JCszw/s1600/05358_002_079.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MSiTvlKwg0k/Uq53-uUkcdI/AAAAAAAAAYg/1CQuW4JCszw/s1600/05358_002_079.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" height="432" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MSiTvlKwg0k/Uq53-uUkcdI/AAAAAAAAAYg/1CQuW4JCszw/s640/05358_002_079.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Legend: Xanana Gusmao with members of the Resistance Command, talking to guerillas about the ceasefire. Left to Right: Ologari Aswain, Mauk Moruk, Bere Lalai Laka, Mau Hudo, Kilik, Lere Anan Timur, Ma'Huno, and at the front of the image with tape reocorder, Salvador Monteiro, at Gattot, Bibileu, Viqueque, Central-Nakroma Region</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</a><br />
This photo is on file at the Resitance Museum in Dili (no. 05358.002.079) and my translation of their caption is above.<br />
<br />Dr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-32595115412372136862013-12-16T13:43:00.000+11:002013-12-16T13:43:00.142+11:00The new reaction: Xanana and Paulino 'Mauk Moruk' Gama
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<h2 style="margin: 10pt 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc437316861"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc436643188"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc436642904"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc436048696"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc435874971"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc435871717"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc18832702"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc16581004"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc437775614"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc57017938"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc55981454"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc27895771"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc25311077"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc25311031"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc19677994"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc19677964"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677994;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311031;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311077;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc27895771;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc55981454;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc57017938;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775614;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581004;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc18832702;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">The
new reaction: Xanana and Paulino ‘Mauk Moruk’ Gama <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a></h2>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677964;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677994;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311031;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311077;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc27895771;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc55981454;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc57017938;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775614;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581004;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc18832702;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">This
background explains the original conflict within the independence movement between
Xanana and Mauk Moruk or Paulino Gama that took place in in 1984-5 during the
Indonesian occupation, after which Gama came under the control of the
Indonesian military. He has lived in exile ever since, mostly in Holland. He returned
to Timor-Leste recently and established a Revolutionary Council calling for a
new government in TL. His recent actions have created a national dialogue on
these historical events. Gama’s motivations appear to be recognition of his
historical role and ideological position and translating that into a modern
power-base in contemporary Timorese politics although he appears to
have been gained little traction.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677964;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677994;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311031;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311077;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc27895771;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc55981454;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc57017938;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775614;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581004;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc18832702;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span class="a"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: SimHei; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677964;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677994;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311031;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311077;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc27895771;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc55981454;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc57017938;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775614;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581004;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc18832702;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">This is an
excerpt from Chapter 3 of my 2004 PhD Thesis ‘Our Brother, Maun Bo’t:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Biography of Xanana Gusmão, Leader of the
East Timorese Struggle’ (</span></i></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="https://monash.academia.edu/SaraNiner/2004-PhD-Thesis:-Xanana"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677964;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677994;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311031;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311077;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc27895771;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc55981454;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc57017938;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775614;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581004;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc18832702;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: SimHei; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">https://monash.academia.edu/SaraNiner/2004-PhD-Thesis:-Xanana</span></i></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677964;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677994;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311031;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311077;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc27895771;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc55981454;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc57017938;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775614;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581004;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc18832702;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677964;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677994;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311031;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311077;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc27895771;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc55981454;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc57017938;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775614;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581004;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc18832702;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">) and book </span><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">"XANANA: Leader of the Struggle for
Independent Timor-Leste (</span></i></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="https://monash.academia.edu/SaraNiner/Books"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677964;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677994;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311031;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311077;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc27895771;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc55981454;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc57017938;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775614;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581004;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc18832702;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><i><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: SimHei; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Book Antiqua;">https://monash.academia.edu/SaraNiner/Books</span></span></i></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677964;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677994;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311031;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311077;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc27895771;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc55981454;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc57017938;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775614;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581004;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc18832702;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><i>).
Chapter 2 explains further the history of this conflict within the independence
movement.</i></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677964;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677994;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311031;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311077;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc27895771;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc55981454;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc57017938;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775614;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581004;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc18832702;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<h3 style="margin: 10pt 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677964;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677994;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311031;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311077;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc27895771;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc55981454;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc57017938;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775614;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581004;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc18832702;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;">The
“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hudi Laran</i> Reaction” and “Radical
Remodelling” (Mid-end 1984)</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775614;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581004;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc18832702;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></h3>
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc18832702;"></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581004;"></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775614;"></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">There was little doubt the planned national
uprising had ended in disaster and the resistance was in an even worse position
than ever. Civilian morale had plummeted and many felt the same lack of hope
they had after President Lobato’s death in 1978.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[1]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">
Xanana must have been haunted by accusations of a lack of judgement leading to
the crushing civilian reprisals. Along with his rethinking of political
ideology during the ceasefire, these pressures gave him pause to think
intensely about the future of the resistance. A conviction began to harden that
a political solution rather than a military one was the answer and, for that,
the entire political direction of the struggle needed to be changed. After
being able to pull off the March 1981 re-organisation, his leadership underwent
its second great test.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">Xanana made the point that his consultations
concerning pluralism during the ceasefire were cut short by Murdani’s ultimatum
in May 1983.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[2]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">
The unrelenting Indonesian military pressure since that time had allowed no
time to overcome any differences over the ceasefire and the disastrous
uprising, leading to further discord within Falintil. Although much of the
following events are little documented, it is known that an internal coup was
attempted by Chief-of-Staff of Falintil, Commander Kilik, supported by his
Deputy and Chief of the Red Brigades, Mauk-Moruk<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>(Paulino Gama), and others.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="layout-grid-mode: line;"> </span></span>Both men, known to be loyal to
original Fretilin policies and fierce military commanders and fighters, had had
little to do with the uprising in the East. They had been reporting
‘successful’ military operations in the Central Zone direct back to DFSE in
Lisbon, suggesting Kilik was bypassing Xanana’s Command and liaising directly
with Fretilin externally.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="layout-grid-mode: line;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 11pt; layout-grid-mode: line; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[3]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">In May 1984 Xanana was staying at a camp on
Mt. Matebian and was in communication with resistance groups throughout the
territory (Key E; Map 3.1).</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[4]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoQuote" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt 28.8pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua; font-size: x-small;">I was receiving many, many messages from
soldiers and commanders telling me that they were inactive …while in other
places they [ABRI] were scared. In the Centre East Falintil was very inactive,
while in Ainaro and Same they tried to attack the enemy. I thought something
must be wrong. Many companies during 1984 were just talking and talking.
Falur’s people had been requesting operations but nothing ever eventuated. One
platoon returned to their village frustrated because they had no leadership. It
made other companies in the area frustrated because they kept hearing about
attacks in other areas that captured weapons and killed enemy soldiers. In my
messages, one year after Kraras, I kept warning them, trying to inspire them to
do something, to engage in combat, to make some plans, but I had no effect.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[5]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">Kilik, Moruk and Olo Gari, based in the
Centre East, were not usually inactive. Xanana was aware of a problem.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">In the middle of 1984 Xanana released his
message for the year, a long contemplative piece titled, ‘What is National
Unity?’ addressed directly to the DFSE. To them he signed off only as Commander
in Chief of Falintil.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[6]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> It
opened with a reference to the lack of political unity amongst the East
Timorese apparent since April 1974. Although the message still promoted
Fretilin, it called for an enlargement of the Front. He offered nationalists
two choices, either join Fretilin, “a liberation movement gathering together
all nationalists without discrimination on grounds of colour, sex, age,
political belief or religious faith or social conditions”, or the establishment
of something new, “a common platform for national independence”, which could
include other nationalists. He acknowledged for the first time that there were
Timorese, “unwilling to belong to a Movement or Party”. He declared what was
important was that everyone be moved by a common feeling—that of national
identity and that this should underlay the “deep meaning of National Unity as
defined by Fretilin”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoQuote" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt 14.45pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">Fretilin therefore wants to give other
political groups the possibility of participating in a mutually compatible way,
in the struggle… we need to add to the Armed Front other fronts of resistance,
in the political and diplomatic fields. Fretilin therefore calls for National Unity…
Fretilin calls for struggle on all fronts. It is in that sense we call for the
“enlargement of the front”—for the formation of one and only powerful
resistance front against Indonesian occupation, that unites all nationalist
movements for a total attack on the various fields of struggle: the armed,
political and diplomatic.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">He even advocated a provisional government
be established. The message also included information some guerrillas were no
doubt highly sensitive to, that of the internal arrests and “suffering” caused
by Fretilin during the 1975 civil war and the first three years of the
occupation. Although he named Alaríco Fernandes as a criminal and recognised
these events as ‘sectarian errors that must eventually be dealt with’, he
advocated an understanding of the ‘concrete conditions in which they occurred’.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">Xanana wrote, “Fretilin in the past had an
extremist policy indeed; but from what it has learnt, a new political opening
will allow the participation of other nationalist movements.” He promised that
Fretilin would guarantee freedom of expression and opposed use of force. His
approach to ‘integrationists’ and ‘collaborators’ had also softened.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[7]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> He
wrote that, “Fretilin has learnt from its mistakes. Today we have in our ranks
the Secret Resistance, composed of Integrationist, ex-Apodeti and also many who
have collaborated with the enemy”, declaring that even Mário Carrascalão would
be welcomed! Xanana had obviously been in contact with such people during the
ceasefire period and had embraced a new philosophy of reconciliation that was
anathema to the old Fretilin hierarchy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">Another significant departure was an
insistence that political negotiation and diplomatic representation be on an
equal footing with the armed struggle. While addressing these issues Xanana had
been avidly listening to Radio Australia, following news of an unwelcome change
in Australian policy on Timor.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[8]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> He
mentioned the importance of regional stability and respecting Indonesian and
Australian interests, finally talking the language of international diplomacy.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[9]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;">The reality of the situation must have
allowed for little true consultation on these fundamental issues. For some the
changes were too sudden, the new policies too sweeping </span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">and many resisted the changes he insisted
on. However, Xanana, as was his style, looked not to these obstacles but
forward, sure of his vision for the new resistance, dragging those in the
resistance behind him</span>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">At the time the message was released in the
middle of 1984, Xanana made the difficult journey across the cordon and headed
south, arriving at Liaruca once again, in June (Key F; Map 3.1). He went to
assess the problems reported from the Central Zone and co-ordinate the
commanders there. He invited Central Committee members and commanders to a meeting
and sent out Taur Matan Ruak to bring them. He received messages informing him
that “Mauk Moruk and the other members were meeting, north of Barique” in an
area called, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hudi Laran</i>, ‘Banana Tree
Forest’ (Key G; Map 3.1).<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoQuote" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt 14.45pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua; font-size: x-small;">They knew that I was coming to reprimand
them and so they refused to send a courier to collect me. Around June and July
we waited and waited for them to come. Matan Ruak came to me in Liaruka and
told me about their mistakes and errors, the incapacity of their command,
strategy and planning, and that they had dispersed refusing to talk to me. Mauk
Moruk had gone to Same and Kilik to Fata Balu. I found out later that they had
called me a revolutionary traitor at the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hudi
Laran</i> meeting because of my discussions about pluralism with them during
the ceasefire, but they were only saying this about me to avoid my criticism of
their military strategies, so they condemned me in a political way. They said
that although they considered me a nationalist who could be accepted as part of
the resistance, I was changing the fundamental ideology, which I was. They
considered themselves the true revolutionaries, the inheritors of our
predecessors. They dispersed to persuade other companies in the southwest of
their opinion saying that I was changing things and maybe I had been corrupted
during the ceasefire conversations. Mauk Moruk-Paulino Gama was trying to
persuade the military commander, and Lere, the Political Commissar, a member of
the Central Committee in Ainaro-Same.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[10]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;">Later Xanana explained more about this time,
citing a lack of commitment to duty amongst these leaders. He explained that an
organization cannot be measured by its structure but its individual agents and
their level of responsibility and commitment.</span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[11]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">
Xanana accused many of being complacent and unresponsive to the new
requirements of the struggle, self-satisfied with their positions and unwilling
to develop the organization. He decided to shake-up the Command. Growing tired
of waiting for a response he called a ‘Reorganisation Meeting’ in Liaruca in
September 1984.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoQuote" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt 14.45pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua; font-size: x-small;">I was in contact with the company commanders
in the Centre East and many other political cadres and I felt that we could not
wait for much longer because we needed to start preparing the forces for
action. In September I held a meeting on the south coast between the Dilor
River and the Luka River. I called on Kilik, Moruk, all company commanders and
political cadres from the Centre East to come to this meeting. Matan Ruak met
some who said they would come but they did not turn up. Kilik said, ‘Yes,’ but
never came either and instead went to Same to meet Mauk Moruk, trying to
persuade the commanders there that I was a traitor.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[12]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">Xanana emphasised the lack of military will
of Kilik and Moruk, but his view of them is not reflected elsewhere. Kilik and
Moruk were well-known as a fierce Commanders and it maybe that it was
opposition to Xanana’s leadership and political reforms that led to the
military stalemate.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">On 4 September, a resolution was passed at
Liaruca to restructure the military command completely, along with the “radical
remodelling” of CRRN and the Fretilin Central Committee. Kilik and Mauk Moruk
along with three others were expelled from the Fretilin Central Committee
because they attempted “to stir up the forces who renounced them as the Central
Committee of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hudi Laran</i>”.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[13]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"> As
Commander-in-Chief Xanana also declared himself Falintil’s Chief of Staff</span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn14;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[14]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span>He
believed that the pressing “situation of war” dictated this.</span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn15;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[15]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">
The restructure removed both the rebel’s political and military authority.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn16;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[16]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">Xanana
described the actual “reaction” or coup attempt.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoQuote" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt 14.45pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua; font-size: x-small;">The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hudi
Laran</i> Group started to complain and cause problems, telling people loudly
that, ‘Xanana is a traitor…’ The reaction started to become obvious and in that
way it became known as ‘The Reaction of 1984’ lead by Mauk and Kilik. It
concluded when Kilik committed suicide because their actions and political
accusations were not accepted. He shot himself because of psychological
problems. He was the sort of man who could keep revenge repressed, who could
not recognize his errors and mistakes.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn17" name="_ftnref17" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn17;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[17]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">António Campos stated he was part of the
mixed platoon of representatives from all three military regions, which Xanana
sent to disarm the rebels. Campos said Kilik disappeared and Moruk discovered,
“he had no support…. [and] managed to escape with four guns and then finally
surrendered to the Indonesians.”</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn18" name="_ftnref18" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn18;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[18]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">
Other guerrilla commanders reported that Kilik was killed in a battle with
Indonesian forces.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn19" name="_ftnref19" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn19;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[19]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">
This purge of hardliners by Xanana can be seen as the beginning of his
longer-term split with Fretilin.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc16581005"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc437775615"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc437694892"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc437692637"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc25311034"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc19677967"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311034;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437692637;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437694892;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775615;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581005;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">Xanana
established a firmer grip on command. He <span style="layout-grid-mode: line;">had
begun to reject the Marxist ideologies of the previous era and became set on a
path of non-partisan inclusion of all political beliefs in a primarily
nationalist resistance structure.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn20" name="_ftnref20" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn20;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677967;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311034;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437692637;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437694892;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775615;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581005;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="layout-grid-mode: line;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 11pt; layout-grid-mode: line; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[20]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677967;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311034;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437692637;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437694892;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775615;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581005;"><span style="layout-grid-mode: line;"> A</span>lthough he <span style="layout-grid-mode: line;">dated their </span>“diminishing revolutionary opinions” as early as 1982</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677967;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311034;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437692637;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437694892;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775615;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581005;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">,</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn21" name="_ftnref21" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn21;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677967;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311034;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437692637;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437694892;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775615;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581005;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[21]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677967;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311034;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437692637;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437694892;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775615;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581005;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> he </span>wrote that by 1984 they
were politically obligated to change their ideology, although it was difficult
to change and the declaration of the Marxist party proved to be an enduring
position.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn22" name="_ftnref22" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn22;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677967;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311034;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437692637;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437694892;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775615;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581005;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[22]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677967;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311034;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437692637;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437694892;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775615;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581005;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoQuote" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt 14.45pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677967;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311034;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437692637;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437694892;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775615;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581005;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua; font-size: x-small;">I myself created a Marxist-Leninist party,
transforming the Fretilin movement into a party [in 1981], but very soon I
realised that the ideology did not serve us. So we changed our previous
thinking and enabled Fretilin to regain its former nationalist character… If
you ask me what my political philosophy is, [it is] only the liberation of my
country.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn23" name="_ftnref23" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn23;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677967;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311034;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437692637;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437694892;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775615;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581005;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[23]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677967;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311034;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437692637;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437694892;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775615;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581005;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677967;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311034;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437692637;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437694892;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775615;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581005;">He had given up the rhetoric of revolution,
of which he was never truly convinced, in favour of his own vision of the
nationalist liberation of the Homeland and the People, who would then be free
to choose their own political beliefs.</span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437692637;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437694892;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775615;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581005;"><span style="layout-grid-mode: line;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc16581005;"></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437775615;"></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437694892;"></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437692637;"></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc437316861;"></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436643188;"></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436642904;"></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc436048696;"></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435874971;"></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc435871717;"></span>
<br />
<h3 style="margin: 10pt 0cm 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc57017939"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc55981455"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc27895772"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc25311078"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc25311036"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc19677995"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="_Toc19677969"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc19677995;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311036;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc25311078;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc27895772;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc55981455;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc57017939;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">A Miracle (1984)</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></h3>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">Amongst the harsh decisions and actions required of a
guerrilla Commander in the midst of a bloody war there was a more spiritual
side to Xanana’s leadership emerging. Sometime in 1984, a major transformation
occurred to his spiritual beliefs. Not since his epiphany in a mountain hut
just after the invasion had the power and strength of the Timorese sacred world
touched him so deeply. He had always protested this world was slavish Timorese
superstition, h<span style="layout-grid-mode: line;">owever, in 1984, he
witnessed a “miracle” after a battle.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoQuote" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt 14.45pt;">
<span style="layout-grid-mode: line;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">I saw men with clothes
and rucksacks with bullet holes but the men had not even been grazed. The
bullets had passed through their bodies without hurting a single life cell of
their being. And I saw other such things. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoQuote" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt 14.45pt;">
<span style="layout-grid-mode: line;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">I realized my mistake and
started to defend the use of talismans. I conducted a study of the talismans of
which there were many kinds. In essence a woman’s presence is in opposition to
the talisman, taking all supernatural power, and the capacity to armour the
body against bullets. For that reason the basic rule is the prohibition of
contact with women….<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoQuote" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt 14.45pt;">
<span style="layout-grid-mode: line;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua; font-size: x-small;">Amazing things happen
that are difficult to believe! As you can see these events ‘affected’ me into
believing the total opposite. Fundamentally I just let myself embrace these
beliefs for practical considerations. I did not have the capacity to guarantee
that my men were not exterminated and we all needed that ‘protection’ to
continue our existence, to carry on the armed resistance.</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn24" name="_ftnref24" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn24;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 10pt; layout-grid-mode: line; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[24]</span></span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">Xanana explained that it was only during <span style="layout-grid-mode: line;">war that he came into contact with the
mythological thought of the Timorese and he grew to understand how it sustained
them.</span><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn25" name="_ftnref25" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn25;" title=""><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: small;">[25]</span></span></span></span></a></span><span style="layout-grid-mode: line;"> Their mythology and culture was part of their
identity, which manifested itself in a modern political sense as the basis of
their nationalism.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn26" name="_ftnref26" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn26;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 11pt; layout-grid-mode: line; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[26]</span></span></span></span></span></a>
</span>With this new perspective Xanana enhanced the Timorese nationalist term,
Maubere, with a greater cultural and spiritual depth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">After ten years living in the mountains the only thing that
made sense was the belief system that radiated from them. Xanana became
profoundly connected with the sacred ancestral land of Timor, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lulik rai</i>. He had come to believe that,
“what links the people with the land, the elements of earth, stone, of water
and air, is the reason they could fight on, the reason they could give their
lives for their country.”</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftn27" name="_ftnref27" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn27;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[27]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">
<span style="layout-grid-mode: line;">Faced with </span>the most fundamental
issues of life and death and survival as a people Xanana opened his heart up to
a belief system able to sustain him spiritually and mentally.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">The new Portuguese solidarity group, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="layout-grid-mode: line;">Comissão
dos Direitos para o Povo Maubere</span></i><span style="layout-grid-mode: line;">
(Commission for the Rights of the Maubere People or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">CDPM</i>)</span> organised a solidarity conference in Lisbon on the
first anniversary of the ceasefire, 23 March 1984. Mari Alkatiri and Abílio
Araújo spoke and all present agreed to support Fretilin’s 1983 Peace Plan.
Alkatiri informed the conference of the intense fighting in the Central and
Western Zones (‘Fretilin outlines East Timor situation’, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">East Timor News</i>, Sydney No. 81-82, Autumn 1984 edition, p. 3; Jill
Jolliffe, 1984c, ‘Fighting raging in Timor: Fretilin’, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Age</i>, 26 March 1984, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">East
Timor News, </i>Sydney No. 81-82, Autumn 1984 edition, p. 7). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span></span></span><span lang="PT" style="mso-ansi-language: PT;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> Pinto and Jardine, 1997, p. 94<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[2]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span lang="PT" style="mso-ansi-language: PT;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> Gusmão, 1999b<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[3]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> They
must have resisted Xanana’s push for Fretilin to become a broader, more
pluralist movement with a new inclusive ideology. Xanana said he wrote to DFSE
to consider these issues many, possibly three or four times, in 1984 (Gusmão,
1999b). Few of these messages survive.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"><span style="layout-grid-mode: line;">T</span>he origins
of the dispute between Xanana and Kilik appear to go back to problems political
leader Commissar Sera Key (Juvenal Inacio) faced as Kilik’s Commander in 1978,
in which Xanana intervened. Xanana also accused Kilik of lack of responsibility
when he retreated to look after his family after the fall of Matebian. One can
assume the two men had little respect for one another.<span style="layout-grid-mode: line;"> Xanana had last been in conflict with Kilik and Olo Gari just prior to
the March 1981 Conference when they accused him of having fled the East in fear
of Indonesian military operations and </span>demanded different military
tactics<span style="layout-grid-mode: line;"> (</span>Gusmão, 1994a, p. 67). As
previously stated (p, 105) during the 1981 Reorganisation Kilik became the
Chief of Staff of Falintil, with Mau Huno as his Deputy. Mauk Moruk was also
appointed as Deputy and the First Commander of the Red or Shock Brigades.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">This unsuccessful coup has often been portrayed as
political struggle between Xanana and Mauk Moruk who was dissatisfied with Xanana’s
openness to negotiated ceasefire. Horta commented, “Paulino Gama was a Fretilin
hard-liner, an ideologue. He opposed the dialogue and believed in a military
solution so later he defected” (Ramos Horta Interview, 1998). However,
additional comments written by Xanana in the column of my notes on this section
read, “Kilik… the real brains…” (Gusmão, 1999b).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[4]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> He
explained, “I was located in Matebian receiving information from Ainaro, Same
and everywhere. I had a permanent link with Ainaro, which usually took three
months to return a message. To other places it might only take two or three
weeks depending on the military situation” (Gusmão, 1999b).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn5" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[5]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> Gusmão,
1999b<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn6" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[6]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> Gusmão,
1984a. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">East Timor News</i> noted that
this message had been received before radio contact began but was now being
published in full because they believed it was a very important message but had
not published it before because of the sensitive information it included.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn7" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[7]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> Although
a large chunk of the message was addressed to Mário Carrascalão as
representative of the collaborators attacking their weakness and selfishness
and calling them back to the nationalist movement.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn8" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[8]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> Gusmão,
1999b. At the 1984 ALP Conference Hawke and Hayden had forced a reversal of
party policy of self-determination for East Timor (see Footnote 392 above). In
August 1985, Hawke recognized Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor on behalf
of his Labour Government. Two months later the Australian and Indonesian
Governments began discussions for joint explorations in the Timor Gap. Combined
with the recent conniving of the Morrison delegation to Timor, the blatant
self-interest of the Australian Government bred bitterness and cynicism.
Australian foreign policy in regard to East Timor was to feature prominently in
Xanana’s declarations and he did not mince his words in a 1986 message in a
classic example of his mordant style. “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="layout-grid-mode: line;">Senhor</span></i><span style="layout-grid-mode: line;"> Bob Hawke… stated that Indonesia should arrange an opportunity to
legitimise the annexation by the ‘will of the population’. This was a clear
indication of the policy of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Senhor</i>
Bob Hawke trying to save the honour of Australia while at the same time killing
our People. As we have said, Australia is attempting to try and tidy away the
problem of East Timor with honour, not only as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Senhor</i> Bob Hawke has the honour of participating in the plot and in
the genocide practiced by Jakarta, but also because he will secure the honour
of guaranteeing the exploration of oil and natural gas (that are ours)! <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Senhor</i> Bob Hawke’s hands are stained
with the blood of the East Timorese, a people who since his declarations in
August last year have felt an increase in the murderous repression of the
occupiers, whose vandalism is such that they will even castrate and rip out
their hearts of the dead. We are certain that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Senhor</i> Bob Hawke will argue at the next Australian Labour Party
Conference that all this is a lie, and that [Indonesian Foreign Minister]
Mochtar had assured him that human rights in East Timor are more respected than
in Australia itself. For this reason Bob Hawke will not be sorry, even for a
moment, for being responsible for this extremely important step in foreign
policy and that the ALP should continue to pursue a pragmatic policy to
maintain the already ‘solid’ relations with Jakarta, never forgetting to emphasis
the extremely important fact of the current negotiations concerning the oil
explorations of the Timor Gap” (</span>Gusmão, 1986a).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">Perhaps though the Labour government’s most cynical
act was then to appoint Bill Morrison as Ambassador to Indonesia (Dunn, 1996,
p. 347-8). Beginning a new phase of an enmity that could trace its roots back
to the Second World War, Portugal condemned Australia’s actions and withdrew
its ambassador (Ramos Horta, 1987, p. 80-1; 83). Xanana grew ever more bitter
about Australian foreign policy when an agreement was signed in September 1988
between Australia and Indonesia establishing a ‘zone of co-operation’ in the
Timor Sea. The new Indonesian and Australian Foreign Ministers Gareth Evans and
Ali Alatas became personal friends in a new era of bi-lateral relations, sealed
and photographed when they drank champagne and signed the treaty in a plane
flying over the oil and gas fields. Australia had already received $31 million
from the sales of oil company permits (Taylor, 1999, p. 170-71). In February
1991, Portugal began proceedings against Australia in the International Court
of Justice over the treaty.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn9" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[9]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> Gusmão,
1984a<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn10" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[10]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> Gusmão,
1999b<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn11" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[11]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> “An
agent’s capacity can be measured by his reaction to the development of
activities of the resistance, and measuring his level of responsibility, the
spirit of determination and dynamism, the spirit of initiative and of
sacrifice, factors which mark the spirit of struggle of a guerrilla soldier.
Because some <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">companheiros</i> were
satisfied with their “posts”, judging that their position had “already been
developed” and were self-satisfied and had left it up to the “virtue” of
“better cadres”, we needed to proceed, in 1984, with a radical remodelling of
the structure of the Resistance with reflection on our Party Organisation…
People should not treat their positions as if they have some kind of immunity
from making errors and accepting criticism” (Gusmão, 1988c).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn12" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[12]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> He
continued, “Many people who defected around Kraras complained that they had
joined Falintil to fight but that is not what had happened. They asked me to
restructure and to give them the opportunity to prove their capacity and follow
the example of their brothers in the East. Kilik was Chief-of-Staff and Mauk
Moruk was Vice-Chief of Staff, as well as First Commander of a Brigade composed
of four full well-armed Companies….” Xanana described the role of the Brigade
was to “assist smaller guerrilla groups, and help prepare them for action.” He
discovered that the Brigade was negligent in carrying out this function and the
guerrilla groups had received no such help. They complained to Xanana and
unassisted, “were preparing military targets, planning the actions”. He was
told Kilik, Moruk and Olo Gari maintained their Companies for their own safety carried
out no operations (Gusmão, 1999b).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn13" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[13]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">
Commander Lere, whom Moruk had tried to co-opt, made the choice to follow
Xanana, but was reassigned from political to military duties. Xanana believed
Lere would make a better Commander than Political Commissar removing him from
the Fretilin Central Committee too and appointing him the “Commander of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hudi Laran</i>” with his own Company of
guerrillas (Gusmão, 1999b). Lere became a loyal lieutenant to Xanana and by
1988 Xanana praised Lere for exercising, “much responsibility and clarity, in
the functions of the Commander of Unity” (Gusmão, 1988c, Section III, No. 3,
part C). In 1999 Xanana believed the reassignment of Lere was the right
decision as, “Today he is the Vice-Chief of Staff, in Iliomar” (Gusmão, 1999b).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn14" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn14;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[14]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> Gusmão,
1988c (Section III, No. 3, part B). Xanana appointed no replacement Chief of
Staff, only various Regional Commanders below him (Gusmão, 1985d).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn15" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn15;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[15]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> Within
CRRN, he wrote, “there were various ‘bureaus’ that were not productive… because
of certain members of the CC”. He portrayed these members making petty comments
and shamefully shirking their responsibility (Gusmão, 1988c, Section III, No.
3, part B).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn16" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn16;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[16]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> He
demoted Kilik from Chief-of-Staff to a simple commander, assigning him one
company. He transferred the responsibility for strategic planning and
co-ordination to other commanders, who were, he wrote “so happy with the new
prospective of action, to be able to do what they wanted to do so far away from
their brothers in the East” (Gusmão, 1999b).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn17" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref17" name="_ftn17" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn17;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[17]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> Gusmão,
1999b<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn18" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref18" name="_ftn18" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn18;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[18]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">
Diplomatically António Campos put the restructure of the leadership down to the
harsh attacks of the Indonesians, remembering the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">coup d’etât</i> as a response to the restructure, but, he says, “the
support for Xanana was… so great, was so amazing, that finally the attempt just
melted away like ice” (António Campos Interview, 1998).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn19" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref19" name="_ftn19" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn19;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[19]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> Mauk
Moruk explained that after, “…differences with my fellow resistance comrades
over the correct strategy to be adopted for the liberation of our homeland, I
decided to go down from the mountains and rejoin my people in the areas under
Indonesian control. I thus surrendered to the Indonesians, and, as a political
prisoner, I was deported to Jakarta on 2 February 1985 where I was detained in
the isolation ward of Psychiatry Department of Jakarta Army Hospital where I
stayed until 9 September 1989. I was then cared for by several national and
international humanitarian and human rights organizations, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">inter alia</i> the ICRC and JRS, before arriving in Lisbon as a refugee
on 1 October 1990” (Paulino Gama, 1995, ‘A Fretilin Commander Remembers’, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Timor at the Crossroads</i>, p. 103).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-family: Book Antiqua; font-size: x-small;">Gama has suffered serious trauma from the horrific
murder of his wife and children and his long stay in the Indonesian hospital
where they apparently tried to poison him. <span style="layout-grid-mode: line;">After
initially working with Horta and the international resistance in Lisbon he
withdrew and went to live in Amsterdam. On 13 July 1994 Gama made a
pro-integration statement to the UN and became aligned with the Indonesians</span>
(José Ramos Horta Interview, 1998; Jolliffe, 2001, p. 155). Gama has gone on to
make accusations that Xanana took part in executions and massacres perpetrated
by Fretilin, and more specifically that Xanana ordered the death of Kilik on 24
September 1984 although few take his accusations seriously (</span><a href="http://www.solidamor.org/berita/2001/07/12072001-1.shtml"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: SimHei; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Book Antiqua; font-size: x-small;">http://www.solidamor.org/berita/2001/07/12072001-1.shtml</span></span></i></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">).
These allegations persist.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn20" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref20" name="_ftn20" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn20;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[20]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> José
Ramos Horta Interview, 1998. Xanana felt they were on their way to change <span style="layout-grid-mode: line;">their political thinking by removing communist
and revolutionary notions and replacing them with pure nationalist ones.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“… because of our growing perception of the
consequences of our ideological problems of the process of Liberation of Our
Nation we were on our way to a persistent change in the line of our political
orientation. We placed the war of Resistance to Indonesian military occupation
in a more national and nationalist context… We re-established the capacity of
Fretilin as a Movement not necessarily communist, and immediately abandoned the
tendency to re-place our intentions and actions with revolutionary calculations
or party politics” (Gusmão, 1988c—Section IV; Part 1).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"><span style="layout-grid-mode: line;">Agio Pereira
believed that Xanana came to realize years later it was a mistake to have
resurrected Sahe’s plans to develop the resistance movement along pure
Marxist-Leninist principles. Agio believed these were not ideas Xanana formed
himself but that he knew, “it was of critical importance to have a head, a
centre of command” rather than the diversity of opinions existing in a front.…
they undid it afterwards … and then Xanana evolved as the leader. Xanana had
this reverse transformation from Marxist-Maoist back to Marxist… Xanana had a
reversal and freed himself from the party system. [Xanana turned to] what I
would call, in the context of East Timor, Maubere Marxism. It was popular in
the sense it is national, for the people, by the people, not popular as an
instrument to conquer power, that is the political difference in it” (Agio
Pereira </span>Interview, 1998<span style="layout-grid-mode: line;">).</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn21" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref21" name="_ftn21" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn21;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[21]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> Gusmão,
1987a, p. 132. Horta thought the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">PM-LF</i>
had lasted for only a year in Timor (Horta Interview, 1998) while<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Agio Pereira believed that
Marxist-Leninist revolutionary concepts were prevalent up until 1984-85 </span>with<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> Xanana and others “freeing
themselves gradually” from these beliefs. Agio felt Xanana’s priorities at the
time were hardly political ideology but “survival as a resistance” (</span><span style="layout-grid-mode: line;">Agio Pereira </span>Interview,<span style="layout-grid-mode: line;"> </span>1998).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn22" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref22" name="_ftn22" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn22;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[22]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> Xanana
believed the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">PM-LF</i> did not have the
capacity, “to change into a nationalist movement with the capacity to guide the
process of liberation of the Motherland. He said they were already thinking
about ‘dumping’ the heavy ‘cargo’ of such an ideology, “because of our incapacity
to carry it all on our shoulders!” (Gusmão, 1987a, p. 130).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn23" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref23" name="_ftn23" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn23;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[23]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> Gusmão,
1990c, p. 11<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">Xanana wrote that by 1985 the Fretilin Central
Committee leadership was made up of Abílio Araújo as President (also called
Secretary-General); Mari Alkatiri as Vice-President and Ramos Horta as
Secretary of External Relations and himself, “still suffering from ambiguity…
only inscribed as Commander of Falintil” (Gusmão, 1988—Section IV, Part 1). He
was, as ever, uncomfortable with having his political authority prescribed by
others.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn24" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref24" name="_ftn24" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn24;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[24]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> Gusmão,
1999a<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn25" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref25" name="_ftn25" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn25;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[25]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> Horta
believed that through Xanana’s work as a labourer in Dili and the years in the
mountains he became closer to the people, unlike other leaders, such as
himself, who had developed no such attachment. He declared Xanana acquired a
“profound sensitivity towards the culture and the beliefs” (Ramos Horta
Interview, 1998). Conversely Mari Alkatiri believed Xanana, “was always
spiritual, even before” (Mari Alkatiri Interview, 1998). Agio Pereira tied <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Xanana’s understanding and closeness
to the Timorese people and their view of the world to the decline in Fretilin’s
political “apparatus</span>“. “<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Xanana
started to be closer with the people and the soldiers in a very genuine
Timorese way, in a Maubere way. One of the words that became almost sacred in
the mountains is the ‘brotherhood’, in the sense that people call each other
brother and sisters and everybody is part of the family. That to me was very
important and Xanana was the motivation force to make it acceptable and
understood world-wide and he echoed that through the language. He is very
attached to the Mauberes that died in the mountains, he sees them as his
family. For him they never died because they are still alive as plants and
trees, it’s in his poetry. The person may die but their soul goes back in to
the earth, they fertilise the environment, so you continue to be part of the
system although physically you disappear. And what is left of you is the purity
of you, like the purity reflected in a beautiful flower in the mountains. It is
a great way to think to keep going as well. It is not just a religion or
philosophy, it is real, it is what makes all these people sacrifice their whole
lives, their families, their wives, husbands, sisters, brothers” (</span>Agio
Pereira Interview,<span style="layout-grid-mode: line;"> </span>1998).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn26" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref26" name="_ftn26" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn26;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[26]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"> Gusmão,
1999a<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn27" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 6pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3294162293989934261#_ftnref27" name="_ftn27" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn27;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua","serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="color: blue;">[27]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;">
Cristalis, 2002, p. 121<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Dr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-45760611206284519182012-03-09T15:24:00.000+11:002012-03-09T15:24:27.083+11:00Opinion Piece for Timorese Women on International Womens Day 2012<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:UseFELayout/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-outline-level: 1;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The war is over, but women in Timor-Leste are still fighting </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">A well-documented gender inequity, favouring men, is evident in post-conflict Timor-Leste (East Timor). As has happened in many post-war societies – ours included – there is now pressure for women to conform to ‘traditional’ cultural norms. What is ‘traditional’ in Timor is difficult to define due to the country’s turbulent history, and rather a contrived ‘retraditionalisation’ may be occurring, the aim of which is simply to reassert men’s dominance.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The impact of conflict and violence has been profound for the new nation and its people. Part of this impact is the dominance of a male elite, for the most part the ex-resistance political and military leadership from the Indonesia occupation (1975-1999), some of whom we know well in Australia, and who were largely responsible for outbreaks of national violence (including the national crisis of 2006 and the attempted assassination of President Horta in 2008). Such ongoing conflict, and an aggressive political culture, favours a type of strong, militarised masculinity that marginalises women, placing them in less visible ‘traditional’ roles, and has a negative effect on their status and political participation.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-outline-level: 1;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The role of indigenous customs</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">In Timor-Leste indigenous customary practices are still very important and part of a wider, complex social system that has sustained life in the island’s challenging environment for many thousands of years. One such set of practices relating to marriage is known as barlake (often crudely translated into English as “dowry” or “brideprice”). Since the 1960s, barlake has been blamed for the subjugation of women and, more recently, cited as a major cause of high levels of domestic violence in the country.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Arguments surrounding barlake are part of a much wider debate about the roles of women in post-war Timor. Feminist criticisms of traditional marriages in the country focus on the way they maintain the control of women by men. However, barlake remains a cornerstone of Timorese indigenous culture and much recent commentary has failed to address the full range of spiritual, cultural and practical elements that fulfil the needs of those who reproduce the practice of barlake. Unless the problem is analysed holistically, adequate solutions will remain elusive.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-outline-level: 1;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The contradictory effects of the war</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">There are few surviving women who served the armed wing of the nationalist movement of Timor-Leste as combatants in the guerrilla army Falintil. Female combatants were discriminated against throughout the war and only following protests were they (partially) recognised as war veterans. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The women who fought accepted that the struggle for women’s rights was not possible during the fight for independence. However, the struggle for independence created a pool of highly skilled and motivated women who no longer accepted the status quo and today work toward equity for women. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Only now, with the war over, can women create and develop a separate identity alongside other international women’s movements. Yet this process is fraught. Separating the recently concluded struggle for independence and the modern women’s movement fighting for women’s rights is still difficult today. Such a separation would necessitate voicing opposition to the men – the leaders, the fathers, uncles, brothers and husbands – alongside whom women fought the war, and with whom they formed families and communities during the worst of times and now struggle to rebuild their country. Such a separation and shift in thinking may well be impossible for the generation who suffered together during such a long and bitter conflict.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">In the contested world of modern Timorese history the crucial and unique role of women in the resistance has not yet been fully acknowledged and this affects women’s full and active participation in society today. This is significant because the way in which a post-war society treats its female veterans is a powerful indicator of the future status of women.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-outline-level: 1;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">The case for optimism</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">There are, however, reasons to be optimistic about gender equity in Timor-Leste. We know that women are profoundly important within indigenous spirituality and ritual, that women can be powerful within their own domestic sphere and elite women are very privileged. The women’s movement in Timor is stocked with robust women who know how to fight and not give up and young women and men who are much less accepting of traditional patriarchy. Nevertheless, improvements for most – including the poorest – must be made through an engagement with indigenous or ‘traditional’ society. Understanding how women’s respect, status and power is upheld in these systems, and how it can be strengthened, is crucial. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Deep-seated cultural change and transformation must be part of a fairer deal for women, especially a reversal of the more destructive gender dynamics played out in both national and domestic level violence. </span><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">Gender equity cannot simply be reduced to a modern political struggle for women’s rights or a task of administrative or legal reform, but must also engage, chart and monitor the deeper currents of gender dynamics. </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-language: HE;">As in most places in the world demobilization has failed to deal with the deep imprinting of violent masculinities in former combatants and the effects of militarism on society and this needs much more attention in Timor.</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #231f20; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;"> </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Government could also assist by both working with customary law authorities and developing educational programs in schools and tertiary institutions. Along with well-resourced community-driven development programs gender equity must be accurately described and equity promoted in local terms amongst Timor’s citizens.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">[This was supposed to appear in today's age but they cut it!}</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div>Dr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-68441517037332553202011-10-11T14:53:00.000+11:002011-10-11T14:53:03.108+11:00Portugese version of Xanana Biography available: Dom Quixote com biografia política de Xanana Gusmão<a href="http://diariodigital.sapo.pt/news.asp?section_id=4&id_news=533587">Link for book at Diario Digital</a><br />
<br />
Dom Quixote com biografia política de Xanana Gusmão<br />
<br />
A Dom Quixote vai lançar em Outubro a primeira biografia de Xanana Gusmão, obra escrita pela australiana, Sarah Niner, consultora das Nações Unidas para as questões timorenses. «Xanana – Uma Biografia Política» retrata a vida desde a infância na distante colónia portuguesa até à sua posição actual como primeiro-ministro de Timor-Leste.<br />
<br />
«Xanana – Uma Biografia Política», de Sarah Niner<br />
<br />
«Vinte e quatro anos de guerra com a Indonésia transformaram um Xanana anónimo e apolítico num duro comandante de guerrilha e, por fim, na principal figura unificadora do nacionalismo de Timor-Leste. A grande maioria dos pormenores desta luta manteve-se desconhecida até agora.<br />
Em 1999, aquando do seu regresso à pátria após anos de prisão na Indonésia, Xanana foi confrontado com a árdua tarefa de liderar uma população traumatizada com a violência e destruição da ocupação indonésia.<br />
´Em tempos de crise, na ausência de regras formais, muitas vezes emerge e impera a liderança carismática, e Xanana encaixa neste molde. Para líderes como ele, a personalidade é a fonte do poder e está associada ao mote: «tempos excepcionais, poderes excepcionais, povos excepcionais e visões excepcionais...», escreve a investigadora e professora na Monash University, na Austrália. Desde 1991 que Sarah Niner faz trabalho de solidariedade junto da comunidade timorense de Melbourne. Em 2000 passou a fazer consultoria em questões timorenses para a ONU e o governo de Timor-Leste»Dr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-48447558186244953042011-05-30T21:36:00.003+10:002011-05-30T21:39:36.263+10:00BACKSTORY: Domestic violence a legacy of Timor conflictIt's a topic that can be tough to talk about and very often it isn't talked about domestic violence and sexual violence and we're looking the situation in East Timor.<br />
<br />
Presenter: Liam Cochrane<br />
Speakers: Dr Sara Niner, Monash University; Mira Martins da Silva, the Director of the non-government organisation, PRADET; Margaret Gibbons, a doctor with Fatin Hakmatek, which provides care for victims of domestic violence, sexual assult, child abuse and abandonment.<br />
<br />
GO TO<br />
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/connectasia/stories/201105/s3230646.htmDr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-43819828788548481972011-05-23T11:36:00.002+10:002011-05-23T11:36:37.784+10:00Xanana watching footage of his 1992 capture<link href="file:///D:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5Csniner%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link><style>
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<a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/about/id/601141/n/Capturing-Xanana">Xanana watching footage of his 1992 capture</a><br />
<br />
Interesting Dateline segment on Xanana watching and commenting on footage of his 1992 capture in Dili. Xanana was very calm sitting on the big leather lounges in his office, looking almost confounded by his younger self and that man’s composed, even friendly, resistance to the entreaties of the Indonesia generals to tell his men to lay down their arms and call the whole resistance struggle off (which he did under much greater pressure in the months to follow). His responses were muted and it was interesting to wonder how this would play out in his very close relations with the Indonesian political elite today, some of whom like the Indonesian President are ex-military. <o:p></o:p><br />
The reaction to the footage was also recorded of the Timorese policeman Augusto Pereira whose house Xanana was hiding in and who was jailed and tortured for 6 years after Xanana's capture. Most of his family too was jailed and they had never reunited after their imprisonment. His reactions could not have been more different to Xanana's, he detailed the horrific torture he received and unlike other torture survivors Xanana has valorized (those in his movie ‘A Heroes Journey’ for instance) for forgiving their torturers and moving on with their lives, he seemed stuck in those terrifying moments of his past and his life defined by them. <o:p></o:p>Dr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-30545854053166769022011-02-04T17:13:00.000+11:002011-02-04T17:13:18.664+11:00Unpublished Photo of Xanana Capture 1992<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_eOKAJQBo6co/TUuQEKefXGI/AAAAAAAAAH0/X9jVC9-I9oc/s1600/1992+Xanana+Capture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_eOKAJQBo6co/TUuQEKefXGI/AAAAAAAAAH0/X9jVC9-I9oc/s320/1992+Xanana+Capture.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">1992 Xanana Capture Dili</span></b></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>I believe this photo is unpublished and records Xanana's 6.00am capture in Dili on 20 November 1992. It looks like it is in one of the internal rooms of the Araujo family home in Lahane (up behind the market) where Xanana had been hiding. This photo was apparently fished out the ashes of a military building in Dili in September 1999 and has finally made its way to me. It is clearly a highly posed shot, especially considering Xanana is smiling directly into the camera (a coded message to the viewer perhaps). Xanana has recorded that that he knew they were coming to arrest him and had already decided not to resist. I am trying to identify the Indonesians in the photo and wonder if anyone can help me. Some background follows which explains who I think might be in the photo.<br />
<br />
<br />
Kopassus Major Mahidin Simbolon, backed up by 30 or so troops, arrested Xanana (he was later promoted to Colonel, skipping the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, for his actions here). Brigadier Theo Syafei (local operational commander in East Timor) has also taken credit for the arrest and in 2005 relayed a discussion over whether they should execute Xanana before revealing they had captured him. Syafei took Xanana to his home and phoned Armed Forces (ABRI) Commander Try Sutrisno and asked him if he should kill Xanana. Sutrisno replied, "Wait, I 'll get back to you later" but didn't. Syafei took Xanana to the Officer's Mess and later that afternoon Sutrisno arrived in Dili and questioned Xanana.<br />
<br />
Xanana records that he suggested to Sutrisno and his contingent (of 20 Generals Xanana says) they hold a dialogue with the representatives of the people of East Timor. Questioning where these people were Xanana boasts he dared them to carry out a referendum and find out. <br />
<br />
Read all about it in the full biography available from Australian Scholarly Publishing.Dr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-69087411647803892702010-11-05T14:12:00.001+11:002011-01-10T16:09:52.663+11:00Family Anthropology: Field Work in Tutuala with Lian Nain<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="231" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_eOKAJQBo6co/TNN1fafuj7I/AAAAAAAAAF8/JGg-M6uKkKo/s320/Lian+Nain+Rafael+Guimaraes++Antonio+Fonseca+Chefe+de+Suco+Ginger+and+Sara+Nine.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">L-R Lian Nain Rafael Guimaraes, Chefe de Suco Antonio Fonseca, Ginger and Sara Niner, Tutuala Sept 2010</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_eOKAJQBo6co/TNN1fafuj7I/AAAAAAAAAF8/JGg-M6uKkKo/s1600/Lian+Nain+Rafael+Guimaraes++Antonio+Fonseca+Chefe+de+Suco+Ginger+and+Sara+Nine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
</a></div>Dr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-11558314042284911852010-10-08T15:22:00.001+11:002011-01-10T11:38:48.564+11:00Danilo Henriques Speech at 'XANANA' Dili Launch 2010<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_eOKAJQBo6co/TSpU7efcZBI/AAAAAAAAAGQ/VkZIrvgZRmo/s1600/2.1+Hiding+Hole.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="209" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_eOKAJQBo6co/TSpU7efcZBI/AAAAAAAAAGQ/VkZIrvgZRmo/s320/2.1+Hiding+Hole.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><m:smallfrac m:val="off"> <m:dispdef> <m:lmargin m:val="0"> <m:rmargin m:val="0"> <m:defjc m:val="centerGroup"> <m:wrapindent m:val="1440"> <m:intlim m:val="subSup"> <m:narylim m:val="undOvr"> </m:narylim></m:intlim> </m:wrapindent> </m:defjc></m:rmargin></m:lmargin></m:dispdef></m:smallfrac><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Bonoite no Kalan kmanek. Ohin kalan ita mai atu hasoru malu no rekonyese esforsu ida bot katak hau nia maluk ida, Sara Niner, realiza ona atu hakerek historia ida importante tebetebes kona ba ita nia rai no ita nia ema nia historia. Historia kona ba ema ida, mane ida, nebe ita hotu konyese no ita hotu hanoin ita konyese: ohin loron, ita nia Primeiru Ministru, Sr. Xanana Gusmao.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;"> Tanba Sara ema ida husi rai seluk, no ema ida ne’ebe koalia liafuan ingles, hau husu ita bot sira nia permisaun atu koalia iha liafuan ingles.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Good evening, and welcome.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Permit me all the indulgence to recount my own little short story. Growing up in suburban Melbourne in the 1980s and 90s was about as far removed as you could get from the realities of life in Timor between the period of 1975 and 1999: far removed from hiding up in Mount Ramelau, holed up in a cave in Bauro or conducting clandestine meetings in Dili.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">But the solidarity always existed. Whether you were a Timor oan or a malae. From East Timor solidarity groups in Melbourne to New York, Lisbon and many other cities around the globe, we were one in our shared commitment and determination for the realization of self-determination of the Timorese people.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">It was in this context that Sara Niner and I first crossed paths in 1993. In working together on a project to learn from the experiences of one of the leaders of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front to organizing fund-raising Aussie Rules Football matches for the cause, an incredibly strong friendship was being formed as a by-product of our mutual activism, deep respect for the figures of the liberation and for Xanana Gusmao. We demonstrated when Xanana was captured and we cried together when he gave an impassioned speech over a loudspeaker transmitted at the top of Bourke Street at the steps of Parliament house in Melbourne in 1999. Little belief and sense did I have at the time whilst demonstrating up and down the main streets in Melbourne, that Timor would be where it is today, and that we would be standing here Sara.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Timor, its people and Xanana existed in another dimension: on banners, photographs, t-shirts and postcards. I first met Xanana on the front of a tshirt, Sara met him in Salemba, Jakarta, under house arrest in 1998. He was then, as is the case now, the voice and aspirations of our people.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Xanana once said, “it was not Xanana, it was the people”, and it is on the pages of this biography that those stories are also revealed. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">The product of 12 years of scholarly study interspersed with having a child, working and finally completing a thesis have resulted in a work of great depth, understanding and clarity. The commitment and vision to distil 100,000 words of a thesis into a coherent, engaging and insightful account of ‘Xanana, Leader of the Struggle for Independent Timor-Leste’ is nothing short of a remarkable effort.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">It is the journey not only of a remarkable man, but also of a remarkable people and land and the events that have shaped all of our lives.<br />
<br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Sara Niner has dedicated the biography to “all the veterans and those who suffered during the struggle for independent Timor-Leste: women and men; young and old”.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Her gift is to us all, and especially to Timorese, of all ages, for the ages: I grew up getting to know my people and my homeland a little better by reading the stories written by close family friends and authors in Melbourne, Cliff Morris, Michelle Turner and others, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">So let me take this (public) opportunity to express my deepest gratitude and sincerest admiration to Sara Niner for this enduring and invaluable gift of documenting and retelling such a large and important part of Timorese history through the story of Xanana.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">And in closing, for her enduring friendship.<br />
<br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%;">Parabens e Obrigado wa’in Sara.</span></div>Dr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-72070044552083284952010-10-05T11:04:00.004+11:002010-10-05T11:22:00.257+11:00Bisoi—a woman of resistance: recognition of women veteran’s in Timor-Leste<m:smallfrac m:val="off"> <m:dispdef> <m:lmargin m:val="0"> <m:rmargin m:val="0"> <m:defjc m:val="centerGroup"> <m:wrapindent m:val="1440"> <m:intlim m:val="subSup"> <m:narylim m:val="undOvr"> </m:narylim></m:intlim> </m:wrapindent> </m:defjc></m:rmargin></m:lmargin></m:dispdef></m:smallfrac><br />
<h1></h1><div class="MsoQuote">... What is very upsetting is that the discrimination is from our own partners in the struggle… (Bisoi Interview 2010)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12pt;">In Timor-Leste today women combatants who served the nationalist movement for independence (1974-1999) have been treated with discrimination historically and as an afterthought in the process of recognizing veterans. How a post-war society treats its female veterans is a significant indicator on the status and future of women in that society (c.f Enloe 2004). In Timor-Leste women who served either directly in the guerrilla army Falintil as combatants or those who carried out military support roles have not been recognised and rewarded adequately or appropriately, unlike their male colleagues. This issue is being elaborated here by taking a biographical approach. This approach has the advantage of providing an exploration of a woman’s political involvement from her own perspective illuminating the experiences of women more fully.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Rosa de Camara is better known by her resistance code name of Bisoi. She is one of the women who served the nationalist movement bravely and continuously but she feels her role has not been fully recognized. She is now a member of parliament and is still fighting for women’s rights in society and for better treatment of women combatants. This paper will trace her personal story along with supplying the historical context for her comments including a gender analysis of this evidence. It will conclude with some documentation of the process of veteran recognition. Previous evaluation reports have not focused on a gender analysis of this process and this paper provides the first in depth investigation in this regard and explains why the veterans recognition process has not been fair for women.<br />
<br />
This paper was delivered at the 10th Women in Asia Conference at ANU 1 October 2010 </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">FULL PAPER COMING SOON....<br />
<br />
A VERSION WILL ALSO BE PUBLISHED IN UPCOMING BOOK: 'Women in Nationalist Movements in Southeast Asia' editing by Helen Ting and Susan Blackburn</div>Dr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-44364556878656382922010-10-05T10:59:00.002+11:002010-10-05T11:37:11.954+11:00Seminar Summario OINSA BARLAKE MUDA IHA TIMOR LESTE? Is barlake changing in Timor-Leste?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_eOKAJQBo6co/TKpzDc3bBoI/AAAAAAAAAFs/UFi4egNIn6o/s1600/2010_09_24+Barlake+Lecture+UNTL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_eOKAJQBo6co/TKpzDc3bBoI/AAAAAAAAAFs/UFi4egNIn6o/s320/2010_09_24+Barlake+Lecture+UNTL.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><m:smallfrac m:val="off"> <m:dispdef> <m:lmargin m:val="0"> <m:rmargin m:val="0"> <m:defjc m:val="centerGroup"> <m:wrapindent m:val="1440"> <m:intlim m:val="subSup"> <m:narylim m:val="undOvr"> </m:narylim></m:intlim> </m:wrapindent> </m:defjc></m:rmargin></m:lmargin></m:dispdef></m:smallfrac><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><m:smallfrac m:val="off"> <m:dispdef> <m:lmargin m:val="0"> <m:rmargin m:val="0"> <m:defjc m:val="centerGroup"> <m:wrapindent m:val="1440"> <m:intlim m:val="subSup"> <m:narylim m:val="undOvr"> </m:narylim></m:intlim> </m:wrapindent> </m:defjc></m:rmargin></m:lmargin></m:dispdef></m:smallfrac></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="PT" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 20pt;">Seminar husi Dr. Sara Niner, Monash University</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="PT" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 20pt;">OINSA BARLAKE MUDA IHA TIMOR LESTE?<br />
<i>Is barlake changing in Timor-Leste?</i><br />
</span></b><b><span lang="PT" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16pt;">Haksesuk depois ba panel Timor Oan<br />
</span></b><b><i><span lang="PT" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14pt;">Followed by discussion from Timorese panel.</span></i></b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="PT" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 20pt;"></span></b></div>Held at the <b><span lang="PT" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%;">PEACE and CONFLICT STUDIES CENTRE<br />
Universidade Timor-Leste (UNTL) Dili 24 Sept</span></b><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;"><b><span lang="PT" style="font-size: 20pt;"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="PT">Sumário:</span></b><span lang="PT"> Pratika lisan ka <i>adat</i> neébe hadulas serimonia kaben sira no relasaun entre familias ka uma lulik husi parte noeiva no noeivo sira hanaran <i>barlake.</i> Ida neé hamaruk relasaun ajuda malu sira entre famila husi feto no mane no kontinuasaun de troka sasan ba malu e fahe servisu iha tempu lia mate ou lia moris. Barlake ne’e nu’udar parte ida husi sistema bo’ot ida (adat ka lisan) ne’ebe regula sosiadade indígena ho nia objetivu hodi hametin solidariedade no armonia. Embora iha diferensa barak entre grupu etno-lingistíku ne’ebe distintu iha Timor, maibe barak mak iha fiar no estrutura socsial hanesan. Ba ema barak iha Timor, Barlake no lisan fo sensasaun makas ida konaba identidade no valor ba sira nia moris. Tuir tradisional relasaun entre feto no mane ne’e kompleta malu, maibe baseia ba dominasaun mane no feto sai hanesan subordinada. Hadiak balun ba situasaun ida ne’e, ba maioria feto sira tem ke halo liu husi pratika sira hanesan barlake.Seidauk tan komplexidade no variedade husi barlake, ladun dokumenta ho diak, no peskisa konaba oinsa barlake afeta ba feto sira nia vida seidauk too ba objektivu ida ne’e.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="PT">Influensia estrangeiru, hanesan religiaun katólika iha Timor Leste, afeta no muda lisan ka barlake, maibe ao mesmo tempu influensia estrangeira sira ne’e mos adopta-an tiha ba lalaok tradisaun Timor Leste nian. Desordem ba família sira no vida ekonómika ne’ebe kausa husi okupasaun Indonésia (1975 – 1999) no ejijénsia iha periúdu rekonstrusaun, destina kom ke família barak dala barak hahu la konsege kompleta pedidu Barlake nian ka sai hanesan todan ida ba família ne’ebe depois lori ema ba frustasaun, iha situsaun ida ke todan tiha ona ambiente post-komflitu. Ohin loron, hanesan iha fatin barak iha mundo, ema la halao ona kostume tradisaun sira, hanesan barlake maibe sira uja sira nia rekursu sira hodi selu edukasaun moderna no asistensia saúde, ho mos uma, kareta, no produtu moderno sira seluk. Ho rasaun ida ne’e, ohin loron iha mudansa signifikante iha Timor Leste. Barlake mos sai hanesan objektu de atake ida ba feto activista sira tamba nia afeta feto sira nia moris. Ohin loron, kritisismu sentral maka, barlake sai tiha ona nu’udar “noeiva nia folin” deit, ne’ebe halo ita hare hanesan feto no nia fertilidade selu tiha ona no trata feto hanesan produtu ida. Seidauk tan Lia nain sira hateten katak , troka/folin ne’ebe iha barlake ne’ebe los tem ke hanesan, no haforsa relasaun entre familia sira. Aumentu iha uja osan inves de produtu tradisionais iha prosesu fo folin iha barlake, hanesan karau, kafe, fahi ou tais diminue valor prosesu ne’e, halo Barlake hanesan prosesu sosa feto ida do ke kostume importante kultural ida. Investigasaun ida oinsa barlake muda no oinsa nia afeta ba feto sira nia moris no sira nia familia bele asiste iha hetan solusaun ba impaktu negativu balun.</span></div><h2 style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 6pt;">How is Barlake changing in Timor-Leste?</h2><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 130%;"><b>Abstract: </b>In Timor-Leste indigenous customary practices that surround marriage and relations between the families or clans of the bride and groom are called <i>barlake. </i>Barlake creates relationships of life-long commitment of mutual support between the families of the bride and groom and an ongoing exchange of goods and duties in the context of ritual life and death ceremonies. These practices are integral to a wider, complex system of social action and ritual exchange that regulates indigenous society and aims to build social solidarity and harmony. Although there are many differences between distinct ethno-linguistic groups in Timor most share very similar cosmological beliefs and social structure. Gender relations, while complementary, are marked by the domination of males and subordination of females. However for most people in Timor-Leste these practices engender a deep sense of identity and meaning. Any significant improvements to the lives of the majority of women must be made through an engagement with these indigenous or ‘traditional’ practices. Yet the complexity and variability of barlake systems is little documented and research about its everyday impact on women’s lives is sorely inadequate for this purpose.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 130%;">The spread of Catholicism in Timor-Leste and the impact of modernity have degraded indigenous practices to varying degrees, but conversely these foreign influences have also simply become synthesized into indigenous systems. The disruption to family and economic life caused by the Indonesian occupation (1975-1999) including the final conflagration of 1999 and the challenging reconstruction period, has meant that many families often cannot begin or complete this exchange process or that the exchange becomes a burden for families leading to angst and frustration in an already tough post-conflict environment. Today, as is the trend in many societies, individuals are opting out of traditional practices, like barlake, in favor of using their available resources to pay for modern education and health services, along with more contemporary homes and commodities. For these reasons there are significant changes to barlake in Timor-Leste today. Barlake has also come under attack from the modern women’s movement because of the way it affects the lives of women. The main criticism today is that an uneven exchange of goods, favoring the bride’s family, encourages the perception that women and their fertility are being bought and subsequently treated as a commodity. Yet traditional authorities contend that legitimate barlake exchanges are equal. There is also a sense that the increasing use of money in place of the traditional exchange items, such as buffalo, coffee, pigs, jewellery and hand-woven textiles (<i>tais</i>) is degrading the process, making it seem more akin to a commodity exchange than a meaningful cultural practice. An investigation of how practices are changing and the effects on the lives of men and women may assist in finding solutions to some of these negative impacts.<br />
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<span lang="PT">FULL PAPER COMING SOON</span></div>Dr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-54734209671220296262010-09-29T00:48:00.000+10:002010-09-29T00:48:23.161+10:00Ubud Readers and Writers Festival<a href="http://ubudwritersfestival.com/writer/sara-niner">http://ubudwritersfestival.com/writer/sara-niner</a><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://ubudwritersfestival.com/sites/default/files/WSaraNINER.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" px="true" src="http://ubudwritersfestival.com/sites/default/files/WSaraNINER.jpg" /></a></div>Dr. Sara Niner is an Endeavour Fellow and Adjunct Research Fellow at Monash University, Australia. She is the editor of To Resist is to Win: the Autobiography of Xanana Gusmão with selected letters and speeches (Aurora Books, Melbourne, 2000) and author of Xanana: Leader of the Struggle for Independent Timor-Leste (Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 2009).<br />
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Along with academic pursuits she has worked in solidarity with the East Timorese community in Melbourne since 1991 and as a volunteer and consultant in Timor-Leste since 2000. She is currently living in Dili, Timor-Leste, researching and writing about contemporary society there and enjoying tropical living. Dr. Niner hopes to soon concentrate on writing a crime fiction novel based on recent Timorese political history. <br />
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Festival Appearances<br />
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Other People's Lives 8 Oct 15:45 Neka Museum <br />
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Timor L'Este in Words 9 Oct 16:30 Citibank LoungeDr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-6913236894420784132010-08-11T15:51:00.000+10:002010-08-11T15:51:45.113+10:00Why is the East Timorese woman’s movement so upset by a kiss?When wealthy East Timorese business man Raul Lemos kissed Indonesian pop star Krisdayanti in front of Indonesian press cameras last week and said this was common behaviour in his country of Timor-Leste it upset East Timorese women so much that three women’s groups (including the overarching women’s council Rede Feto) held a press conference and denounce his statement? (http://bit.ly/9M39Lk) They said his statement about unmarried couples lip-kissing in public degraded East Timorese society, culture, and women and the sanctity of marriage and corrupted East Timorese children. In doing so they invoked the name of CEDAW: the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against women. This seems an over-reaction to a kiss between consenting adults and an off-hand comment about kissing. So what’s really behind such a strong reaction?<br />
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The women were careful not to criticize this powerful man personally or his kissing-buddy, a popular celebrity. They carefully pointed out they were not criticizing his personal choices (although they did express solidarity with his wife who is from a politically prominent East Timorese family and, it can be assumed, many in the women’s movement know personally). Polygamy and philandering husbands are common in East Timor’s patriarchal society, especially amongst rich and powerful men. The wives seem powerless to change this situation and suffer these practices, along with domestic violence, as they have little access to legal recourse and to separate from a husband is in most cases economic and social suicide (women earn one eighth the salary of men). Publicly criticizing men is also not socially acceptable (and certainly the women were careful not to criticize Raul Lemos too personally although their disapproval of him is explicit). Women instead criticised his statement about kissing therefore being more muted in their response and skilful in getting around these cultural norms. The humiliation and disempowerment associated with a philandering or violent husband keeps women suffering in silence, along with a social acceptance that these issues are private domestic ones that must be kept hidden (as happens all over the world). This press conference might seem to have been about “kissing” but it is really about much more. It might not have been couched in these terms but it was a criticism of patriarchy and how men get to behave in ways women cannot and how men treat women in East Timorese society. It was a signal women do not want to put up with such treatment and want to be treated with more respect and consideration, just the same way men are treated.<br />
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Direct, forthright, open criticism of men might still be considered as going too far. It might be judged as a betrayal of the new nation and the nationalist struggle women and men have all fought for so hard together. It might be deemed too early to turn on their brother’s and point out how women have been discriminated against during that struggle and how their contribution remains substantially unacknowledged and rewarded and how painful that is. Taking on patriarchy and pointing out the entrenched power and privilege of men is a tough, life-long struggle that women (along with their male supporters) all over the world are engaged in. On a personal level it can mean missing out on having a husband or even a family. This is a big sacrifice and most women find ways to live with patriarchy but continue to make efforts to change things, just as the women at the press conference did last week. Culture changes all the time and this is evidence of that: it wasn’t just about the kiss.<br />
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Dili, Timor-Leste August 2010Dr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-41250595460369655272010-05-06T11:55:00.011+10:002010-10-05T11:10:44.047+11:00East Timor Literary Book Reading St Kilda Library<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_eOKAJQBo6co/S-IgoIA5NoI/AAAAAAAAAEk/12b4tRJBAB4/s1600/Timor+book+reading+Beti+Gomes+Sian+Prior+Sara+Niner+131209.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_eOKAJQBo6co/S-IgoIA5NoI/AAAAAAAAAEk/12b4tRJBAB4/s320/Timor+book+reading+Beti+Gomes+Sian+Prior+Sara+Niner+131209.jpg" tt="true" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>L-R: Poet, Beti Lim Gomes, Journalist, Sian Prior, Author, Sara Niner, Dec 2009</b></span></div>Dr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-57812923315885370022010-05-06T11:42:00.000+10:002010-05-06T11:42:24.013+10:00Convite*Invite Dili Livru*Book Launch: XANANA 14 Maiu*May 2010Convite*Invite<br />
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Dili Livru*Book Launch <br />
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XANANA: Leader of the Struggle for Independent Timor-Leste by Sara Niner <br />
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XANANA GUSMAO READING ROOM<br />
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Rua Belarmino Lobo<br />
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6.00pm<br />
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Sesta*Friday 14 Maiu*May 2010 <br />
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You are invited to the book launch of "XANANA: leader of the struggle for an independent Timor-Leste" by Dr. Sara Niner.<br />
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This book contains a political biography of Xanana Gusmão, leader of the East Timorese struggle for self-determination, Founding President and currently the Prime Minister of the new nation of Timor Leste. This is the story of a remarkable man.<br />
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Dr. Sara Niner is a an Endeavour Fellow and Adjunct Research Fellow at Monash University where she has recently finished a Post-Doctoral Fellowship focussing on women, handcrafts and development in Timor-Leste. She is the editor of 'To Resist is to Win: the Autobiography of Xanana Gusmão with selected letters and speeches' (2000).Dr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-2274905130067298212010-03-23T16:45:00.001+11:002010-03-25T16:11:01.592+11:00The Launch Machine!I am feeling so greedy that I had 4 book launches in Australia but after so many years of working alone on the PhD thesis and the book it was so nice to take it out into the world and talk about it and get people’s feedback and reactions. The book launches in different states couldn’t have been more different and are worth a word or two in themselves.<br />
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The Melbourne Launch was like a big warm party in the cosy-shabby Bella Union Bar of our great Trades Hall Council building on the edge of the city. This is a building with so much soul and grace it warms you up as you trudge the big stone stairs worn out by the feet of <em>companheiros</em> of the past. I couldn’t think of better place to launch my book in my own hometown and on International Human Rights Day too. It was all so perfect. Xanana visited here for a solidarity love-in in 2000 and it was the home of the East Timor emergency office for years after that too. I loved being able to Viva Xanana in this room and hear friends and family and collegas call it back. Terry Bracks gave a wonderful speech and highlighted the feminist leanings of the book (see her speech below) which is of course why it had to be a sister who launched it. <br />
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The Sydney Launch was held at Gleebooks in Glebe—possibly what’s left of Sydney’s bohemian inner city. The big room upstairs was packed with a load of very different people, friends and family, old and new East Timor solidarity folk and political activists of the leftist variety. The event was part of the Andrew McNaughton lecture series which as given by Jude Conway who was also launching her book “Step by Step: Women of East Timor, Stories of Resistance and Survivial’ (Charles Darwin Univeristy Press 2010). I commend this book to you and thank Jude for all her hard work in compiling the stories of these fascinating lives of Timorese women. Thanks to Jefferson and AETA Sydney for organising the event.<br />
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Robert Domm, who was the first foreign journalist to interview Xanana in a secret guerrilla camp in Timor in 1990, launched my book in Sydney and it was gratifying to hear him praise the book. I was so elated that someone who features in the book got to launch it and know that he'd really enjoyed the read. He remembered meeting with Fernando Araujo in Surabaya to begin the journey to Timor in 1990 and Fernando passionately thanking him for 'laying down his life for the Timorese cause’, and Robert, taken aback, said maybe they shouldn't get ahead of themselves. After I had read out the chapter in the book that features Robert’s interview describing the arduous 20k uphill march to reach the camp he also admitted that they had had to fudge the details a little to throw the Indonesian’s off the scent and it really hadn't been that far or that arduous!<br />
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The Adelaide Launch the next day was a more refined affair held on a balmy afternoon at Kathleen Lumley College but what would you expect of the civilised city of Adelaide. Assoc Prof Felix Patrikeef, head of the Australian Institute of International Affairs in Adelaide gave a erudite launch speech focussing on his speciality of political leadership. I was most pleased that someone could use a quote from Shakespeare in a speech launching my book. His close reading of the book and insight into Xanana’s political leadership was a great joy for me to listen to. Thanks to Andy Alcock and Cathy for their generous hospitality and friendship.<br />
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Parliament House in Canberra was the penultimate. My dear <em>colleaga</em> MP Janelle Saffin launched it in one of the courtyards with Timorese coffee and Portuguese tarts. Jorge Camoes the <em>charge d’affaires</em> at the Timor-Leste Embassy shared some kind words about the book. Thanks also very much to the Portuguese Ambassador for coming and promising to read the book. In fact thanks to everyone who bought the book and I would love to hear what you think.<br />
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As you can tell I’ve just had the most wonderful time launching the book which is why I made the most of it. As I said at the beginning after so long alone with the words and the computer I just had to share it as much as possible! Although I feel greedy about having so many lauches I am already starting to think I simply must have one in Dili now that I am here! Let's see what happens...Dr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-76683670336968830462010-03-23T15:50:00.001+11:002010-03-23T15:50:44.679+11:00Launch Speech of Associate Professor Felix Patrikeeff, School of History & Politics, University of Adelaide & Master of Kathleen Lumley CollegeSara Niner should be congratulated on having produced a compelling and important book.<br />
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Compelling, because in a world largely bereft of charismatic leadership Xanana stands tall. Equally so, because her study examines a leader whose fledgling country’s history is intertwined with ours in so many ways, but about whom our own literature is – remarkably – quite silent. <br />
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For the most part, Australians have been dependent on the sound bite and the news report; missing the gruelling historical process that has produced not only the leader, but also the country. Dr Niner’s study corrects this lacuna most admirably.<br />
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But it is on the issue of leadership – such an important aspect of politics – that Dr Niner excels. A few years ago now, I introduced a course on the Comparative Politics of Leadership; one that has become a very popular offering, and, indeed, is now a Core Course in our International Studies degree.<br />
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In teaching on the subject of leadership in the political area, a number of elements stand out:<br />
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– The significance of Charismatic leadership, but most understand this innately & semi-consciously so (In the mass media age, after all, the image feeds – in fact often builds – the substance, rather than the other way round);<br />
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– Most consider the rise of a leader as being inexorable, and a process that doesn’t need a detailed explanation (born leaders simply take charge, and direct the troops in a pre-ordained direction);<br />
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– The importance of contemplating the fit between the leader, the environment and, often, crucially, circumstance (how many failed leaders are there who intone the well-known quote from Hamlet: ‘O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space; were it not that I have bad dreams.’);<br />
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– Rarely is the psychology of leadership thought about, and how this factored into the equation of what allows, and sustains, a person’s leadership of others.<br />
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– And what causes a leader to rise and rise (Gusmao), and others to rise and fall. Few would know that Trotsky, the brilliant orator and charismatic leader of the Russian Revolution, who at his height addressed thousands upon thousands of workers, soldiers and peasants (and was instrumental in inspiring, building and leading the Red Army), in delivering his last speech in the Soviet Union, did so to just a handful of workers at the edge of Red Square – it could be argued that his ability to attract and lead had failed him before Stalin put a brutal end to his tenure as an inspirational leader.<br />
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Sara’s book invites us to contemplate all of these important aspects of leadership, as well as to savour the changes that occur in person and environment; the complex marriage of individual strengths and weakness, and the physical and political conditions the individual is confronted with in the gestation period of their leadership. Equally, and most impressively, the solitude and the stygian expanse of uncertainty that a leader has to patiently endure in the course of this.<br />
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And so Dr Niner’s book invites us to follow Xanana the boy, the adolescent and onto dedicated early adulthood (I would depict these stages as being his transition from rebel without a cause, to rebel with a cause!).<br />
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The book delves into his personal, and remarkably sustained, appeal; one that encapsulates the famous theorist Weber’s depiction of charismatic appeal. Importantly, the book refers to his ease in the company of women, and the extra dimension that this adds to a leadership that coexists with the more two-dimensional forms of many of his comrades’.<br />
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The study is also a rich modern political history, taking us through the desperately complex shifts between Portuguese colonialism, Indonesian intervention and the role of resistance in this context. Telling is the frequent reference to Xanana’s stubborn refusal to cast off the Portuguese element of his outlook, and, one must say, thereby the intentional (or inadvertent) enduring engagement of Portugal in the evolution – and increasingly Indonesia-centric nature – of the East Timor problem. <br />
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The riches continue: the study provides an important insight into how a widespread guerrilla movement is formed, and how leadership within it is secured (In reading the book, I frequently mused on details of Dr Niner’s study of Xanana in East Timor with the problems of Che Guevara in Bolivia). At the heart of this analysis is a keenly-observed gradual development of a populist base, acquiring knowledge of, and connection with, grassroot support. Most important of all: the certainty of the latter.<br />
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But we are never far from the existential crises that the freedom-fighters are plagued by. One remark resonates in this respect. A rebel, in listening to an otherwise unintelligibly English BBC broadcast, hears and recognises the name East Timor is recognised. He exclaims: ‘We are still alive, we are still alive.’ (p.48) How poignant the experience, but how bleak must the outlook have seemed to him in advance of this modest revelation? Dr Niner most usefully quotes at length some remarkably good poetry from Xanana. Its power is, however, based on the depths of dark uncertainty that surely plagued him in the course of extracting this very essence of his existence at the time. <br />
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And for the ‘political scientists’ amongst us (I don’t believe politics is a science, and this books reminds me why this is the case: it is art & deep humanity): multifarious forms of resistance leadership, the negative internal dynamics between them, and all – painfully – suggesting the eventual splits and schisms in the independent Timor Leste. Equally, the emergence of Gusmao as a multi-hatted leader (ideology, political control, administrative headship) - 1981– (p.73). And coming from Soviet and East European Studies, I could but chortle at Gusmao’s approach to Communism, becoming perforce a communist-of-convenience (p.76), but equally his play on Maoism and Mauberism! Important too the emerging all-significant nexus between church, moderate political line and the ability of Xanana to meld these, while at the same time excoriating (or should I say marginalising) radicalism (p107) <br />
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The one major weakness of the book? Dr Niner’s Afterword, which employs a political studies scalpel with surgical skill to the independent state of Timor-Leste. I say it was a weakness not because I found fault with the analysis, but because it was all too brief, and left me with a yearning to read more of the next critical chapter of this tiny state’s life. Doubtless there will be more books brought out by Dr Niner, and I very much look forward to reading them with the same enthusiasm that I had in tackling the present one.<br />
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In conclusion, I commend this book to you, and would heartily congratulate Sara on her great achievement.<br />
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13 February 2010Dr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-80348615311263545572010-01-08T12:06:00.001+11:002010-01-12T13:49:43.521+11:00Sara's Speech Melbourne Book Launch 10 Dec 2009Thanks Terry for launching the book and I have to thank Terry for all the support she has offered the Alola Foundation over the years.<br />
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When I started writing this book last century, as an idea for a PhD at Latrobe Uni in 1997 , I didn’t (and probably not many others did either) imagine that the new nation of Timor-Leste was actually only a few years into the future. <br />
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When I started writing this book Xanana was an imprisoned resistance leader and my motivation as a young and probably naive political activist was to bring further attention to the unjustness of Xanana’s and Timor’s situation. The journey that this book took me on was right to the centre of the UN negotiations over the ballot held in 1999 which took place in Jakarta between UN representatives, the remnants of the Suharto regime and a re-newed Timorese resistance, called CNRT. It was at this time I did the major interviews with Xanana in his prison house in Jakarta, and sat in on meetings with various visitors—one a typically rude Alexander Downer, telling Xanana all this business really had to be sorted out by Christmas as he really needed to take a holiday with his family. After 1999 wound up in its heartbreaking way I took off to Dili in 2000 to work for CNRT and in Xanana’s Office and observe the tortuous process of re-building a national community out of what remained after all the destruction. <br />
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These are the great historical and political events that got in the way of this book being published.<br />
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But there are other reasons why it took so long to publish this book and why it is such a relief to be here tonight launching it. <br />
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I underestimated the demands of a PhD, we also published another book along the way—the collection of Xanana’s writings in 2000, I had a child and my own natural inclinations toward procrastination didn’t help—I think this book has almost cured me of that. <br />
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The PhD, and the associated publications, were intended to be a by-product of my political activism but the demands of real research and analysis and writing took over and against my will I appear to have become an academic (I think—I’m still not sure about that). <br />
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So what this book started out as, a simple hagiography, it could not remain and it has changed me to. I have become a more critical and accurate observer and this book will now probably not please anyone in politics in Timor today. <br />
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Yet I believe it is a fair and accurate historical account (as much as it is possible at this time so soon after the events) by an independent outside observer, although with great empathy for my subject.<br />
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I hope this book will serve rather to elevate the differing political perspectives drawn in it to a less-fraught and academic level.<br />
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My great fear is that it will only serve to reinforce political divisions there as so much Australian analysis about Timorese politics has done. <br />
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Yet what I hope most (as I always have) is that this book remembers, and reminds outsiders, of the intolerable events that the Timorese people have had to face alone and endure over a very long period of time, its especially important to remember that today on HRD. This book is not just a history of Xanana and the Timorese resistance but a history of the human rights abuses in Timor by the Suharto regime many of whom have not yet been called to account and the shocking absence of assistance to the Timorese from their neighbours and internationally. I hope also it reminds us of the absence of a full acknowledgement of women in Timor's struggle.<br />
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Also after spending so much time with Timorese people what I believe has been added (that I could never have imagined at the beginning) is a reflection on what such events do to people and how these effects makes what the Timorese have had to do since 1999 so very difficult and the outbreaks of violence there so understandable. Mostly I hope this book increases awareness about those traumatic effects and makes readers empathise with the difficulties faced by those in Timor today.<br />
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There are loads of people to thank but I think I have done that in a whole 2 pages of acknowledgements in the book and I can’t read it all out---so heartfelt thanks to you all turning up here tonight to celebrate the end of this very long journey with me. <br />
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Viva Xanana!<br />
Viva Timor-Leste!Dr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-35892082710820639892010-01-08T11:15:00.001+11:002010-10-12T21:42:11.136+11:00Canberra Times Review of XANANA 12 Dec 2009 by Chris KearnyCanberra Times (Australia): War-torn stories of Timor-Leste's unlikely leader <br />
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Saturday, December 12, 2009 <br />
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Xanana Gusmao former Falintil guerrilla leader, Timor's first President and now Prime Minister and head of Timor's AMP coalition government is one of Asia's most compelling, charming and contrary political figures. But as this book details so well, the man who would lead a ragtag resistance army to victory and rally a nation behind the costly fight for independence was not earmarked for leadership either by dint of birth or by his own direction in early adulthood. Monash University academic Sara Niner says that in Dili of the 1960s and early 1970s, Xanana Gusmao was known primarily for his sporting prowess. Many Timorese, when told of his leadership of the resistance in the 1980s, remarked: "Who? The goalkeeper?" His difficulties as a young man trying to make good in Dili are fascinating, both for the picture of a more vulnerable Gusmao they paint and for how they illustrate the rigid structure of colonial Timor. Gusmao ran away from a Jesuit seminary at 16 and then struggled to find work in the tightly controlled Portuguese civil service and to complete his education at high school. The early years in Dili were a time when Gusmao was on the outer of both the colonial elite and an emerging group of young nationalist leaders. These years also point to an ambivalence about party politics. Gusmao joined the Fretilin party in May 1975, much later than the party's other founding members. According to Niner, his nationalist fervour was forged not so much in the debates of peacetime Dili, but in the first bloody years of Indonesia's occupation. Niner recounts how, in 1978, 140,000 Timorese were trapped around Mt Matebian in the east of the island. Indonesian forces bombed this last stronghold relentlessly and Gusmao describes seeing friends dismembered in one such aerial attack. This became a turning point for the relatively green guerrilla commander. Niner has put together a compelling and comprehensive account of the long, lonely, sometimes chaotic years in the 1970s and 1980s, when Gusmao struggled to organise and unite a resistance, which was king hit by the Indonesians again and again. The perilous nature of the guerrillas' existence in those years is shocking. Gusmao and his soldiers would sometimes be on the march for weeks at a time, eating whatever they could find and sleeping two hours a night. Gusmao suffered from kidney disease which was so painful that he contemplated suicide. On another occasion he had a tooth knocked out by a vet. Flesh and part of his jawbone came out with the tooth. He was unable to eat for a week and his men all swore off any more bush dental treatment. His difficulties with another Falintil commander called Kilik are also interesting. Kilik disappeared in 1984, most likely killed by Indonesian forces, after a botched coup attempt against Gusmao as commander-in-chief of the resistance forces. Kilik's widow has accused Gusmao of murdering her husband. While Niner says the accusation is not credible, it is a claim which still causes tension in Timor. The very nature of Timor's war against the Indonesians a clandestine struggle in which the need for secrecy was paramount has meant that controversies like these continue to be shrouded in mystery and rumour. In a sense, disputed wartime events such as this point to the vast story of Timor's war against the Indonesians and the many more accounts from this time which are still waiting to be told. Also illuminating are references to Gusmao's long-running tensions with Fretilin, which emerged as early as 1977. These tensions have come into much sharper relief since Timor's 1999 referendum and this is one of the disappointing aspects of the book. Niner has condensed the 10 years since the 1999 ballot, a period in which Gusmao has been dealt some serious blows, into a relatively short afterword. I would have liked more analysis on how the consummate guerrilla leader, who relied on a centralised command to keep both his own leadership and the resistance intact, has adapted to the democratic landscape of post-independence Timor. Similarly, more analysis of Gusmao's dealings with foreign powers such as Indonesia, Portugal, Australia and China, and his handling of Timor's devastating 2006 crisis, would have been informative. On several occasions, Niner highlights Gusmao's failure to fully acknowledge the contribution of women to the resistance effort. If an army marches on its stomach, then the many Timorese women who fed and sheltered Falintil fighters, week in and week out during the war, putting themselves and their families at great risk, have surely earned the right to be considered heroines of the resistance. But as Niner remarks, this is another untold story from Timor's war 24-year struggle for independence.Dr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-53311960194320537952010-01-06T17:50:00.005+11:002010-01-08T12:08:15.015+11:00YOU ARE INVITED TO: “XANANA” : Sydney Joint Book Launch & McNaughton Memorial Lecture<span style="color: #274e13; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #6aa84f; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Sydney Joint East Timor Book Launch </span></strong><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #6aa84f;">Friday 12th February at 6pm</span> </span></strong><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: lime;">GLEEBOOKS</span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: lime;">49 Glebe Point Rd Glebe</span> <br />
<a href="http://www.gleebooks.com.au/default.asp?p=events/events4_htm#Andrew_McNaughtan_Lecture<br>Jude_Conway">Go to Gleebooks to Book</a><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Xanana: Leader of the Struggle for Independent Timor-Leste</span></strong><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">by Sara Niner</span></strong><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Launched by Robert Domm</span><br />
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</span><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>Step by Step: </strong></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>Women of East Timor, Stories of Resistance and Survival</strong></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Edited by Jude Conway </span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Launched by (former Greens Senator) Kerry Nettle.</span><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>East Timor: A Nation's Bitter Dawn </strong></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">By Irena Cristalis</span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Launched by Emily Werlemann</span><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>Part of the SIXTH DR ANDREW MCNAUGHTAN MEMORIAL LECTURE</strong></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>Lecture by Jude Conway</strong></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Donations at the door for Australia East Timor Australia</span><br />
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</div>Dr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3294162293989934261.post-6099675088391066532010-01-06T17:39:00.000+11:002010-01-06T17:39:31.074+11:00Terry Brack’s Speech at Melbourne Launch of "Xanana"I was at first surprised when Sara approached me to launch her biography of Xanana Gusmao.<br />
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Because, it is of course, my husband Steve Bracks, in his role as Special Governance Adviser to Prime Minister Gusmao, who is usually asked to do this sort of thing.<br />
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I enthusiastically said yes however, before she could change her mind.<br />
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I had met Xanana Gusmao and his wife Kirsty on a number of occasions in Melbourne and in Timor-Leste. I had also worked with Kirsty as co-chair of the Friendship Schools project as one of the many programs of the Alola Foundation, an organisation set up by Kirsty to help women and children in Timor-Leste.<br />
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And I certainly encouraged Steve to take on the challenging role as Special Governance Adviser to Prime Minister Gusmao when the stars aligned, and Xanana took on the new leadership role, just as Steve was stepping down from his.<br />
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I have joined Steve on three of his many visits to Timor-Leste and our three children have all accompanied him on a visit.<br />
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We haven’t lived there, but we have certainly lived with stories of the incredible individuals like Xanana, who are working 24 hours a day to make the reality of independence worth the struggle.<br />
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But there has always been a big gap in the story of Timor-Leste. There are many accounts of the Indonesian invasion in 1975, and Robert Connolly’s recent film Balibo, took us back there with confronting realism.<br />
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And the events of 1999, the triumphant ballot and its bloody aftermath, were played out on our television screens.<br />
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But the long dark years of Indonesian occupation have always been shrouded in mystery. How did Xanana and his guerillas survive in those desolate mountains? How did they feed themselves and communicate with each other? How did they maintain the motivation to keep up the struggle? How did Xanana transform from a non-political public servant with a love for poetry and painting, into one of the most successful guerilla leaders of our times?<br />
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Thanks to Sara Niner, and her incredible book, we at last have the answers.<br />
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This book is a labour of love, over a decade in the making.<br />
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It is the result of hours of interviews with Xanana and his friends and foes.<br />
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Thanks to Sara we now know that Xanana carried a pistol every minute, he mostly slept in the bush - except for when it was raining when he slept in “small rough hewn-huts”, - that he, and his army, ate everything “that could be digested by the stomach”, they drank coffee from small plantations under their control and occasionally palm wine, and sometimes they walked for two or three days without eating anything at all. <br />
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There were tough rules about contact with family and interaction with villagers. There was in fighting and petty bickering. Death was a daily reality.<br />
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We also know that Xanana was constantly thinking strategically and somehow, despite the appalling conditions, managed to write detailed plans for internal restructures and external peace proposals. And yet, as Sara notes, he was “determinedly pragmatic, forward-looking and would never be hemmed in by strict ideology or policy.” <br />
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Sara’s book explains the ideological conflicts over Marxism and over military versus diplomatic tactics that absorbed Xanana’s time and intellectual effort. <br />
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It details the complex history of Xanana’s relationships with the key political leaders in Timor-Leste today – the exiled diplomatic campaign leaders Jose Ramos Horta and Mari Alkatiri, now respectively President and Leader of the Opposition and other players like Fretlin Commander, Taur-Matan Ruak, now Brigadier-General, and former Indonesian appointed governor, Mario Carrascalao, now Gusmao’s second Deputy Prime Minister.<br />
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When Steve read Sara’s book he said he was fascinated to learn just how far back the relationships between Xanana and some of the members of his government went. According to Steve, “it explained a lot.”<br />
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By the time I’d finished reading Sara’s book for the first I was no longer quite so surprised that she had invited me to launch it.<br />
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It is a meticulously researched book, that rarely editorialises – Sara generally lets the extraordinary facts speak for themselves.<br />
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However, there is one issue on which Sara does occasionally offer a personal opinion – the under recognition of the critical role women played in the resistance. <br />
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In her words “Xanana retells several anecdotes of assistance by women but makes no overall acknowledgement of their fundamental political and strategic importance to the armed struggle.” <br />
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I suspect Sara has another book in her. <br />
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But before we burden her with those expectations I take great pleasure in officially launching Xanana: Leader of the Struggle for Independent Timor-Leste and invite Sara to say a few words.Dr. Sara Ninerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537732251700889169noreply@blogger.com0