East Timor supporters at NT Expo
By Sally Mitchell
DARWIN — Members of Australians for a Free East Timor (AFFET) and local Timorese held a protest stall at the Northern Territory Trade Expo, June 27-29. NT Expo, opened by trade minister Tim Fischer, lures Australian and south-east Asian business to promote investment opportunities in the region.
Each year Indonesia has a strong presence, fostering the theft of East Timorese and West Papuan natural resources. The AFFET stall highlighted the lack of consideration of human rights by all governments in the region.
Before 1996, the AFFET stall at NT Expo was banned and police arrested protesters who entered the Expo grounds wearing "Free East Timor" shirts.
However, facing the persistence of the protest contingent, Expo organisers appeared to find it less embarrassing to permit a stall at the entrance to (but not inside) the Expo site.
"This year we used the stall to create a greater awareness of the recent atrocities in East Timor", Jessie Watson from AFFET told Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly.
"We received an overwhelmingly good response from people with the display of photographs obtained recently in Indonesia of East Timorese youths being tortured. Visitors to the Expo were very supportive of the East Timorese cause and were asking for more information, signing letters to John Howard and buying books and shirts."
Watson said that the lack of a stall inside the grounds was largely made up for by the group's "prime position at the front entrance, where we had a huge East Timorese flag made by a local Larrakia Aboriginal woman.
"The death of Timorese resistance leader David Alex has brought a sense of urgency for us to let people know that while they are doing business here, the East Timorese are suffering under a repressive military regime. The disregard for basic human rights in East Timor and in Indonesia should be the major consideration before any trade is negotiated."