BY CHRIS ATKINSON
MELBOURNE — "The year 2000 is the year of emergency", Xanana Gusmao, the chairperson of the National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT), told 500 invited guests at the May 4 opening of the Melbourne office of the CNRT's National Commission for the Management of the Emergency.
The office is to "mobilise material assistance and offers of support [for East Timor] from local government, small business, community groups, educational institutions and individuals in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania", Gusmao said.
The commission, headed by Gusmao appointee Agio Pereira, works closely with the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) and plans to organise the training of those Timorese living in Australia who plan to return to their country.
The Melbourne coordinator of the project is well-known Timorese community leader Abel Guterres, who announced that, through talks with Premier Steve Bracks' state Labor government, a Parliamentarians for East Timor committee has been set up to help with "practical self-help programs".
The event was tainted by more than a little posturing on the part of the ALP deputy premier and minister for health and planning John Thwaites. "The Victorian branch of the Labor Party", he declared, "has always had a policy of supporting independence for East Timor since 1975". His party's decades of support for Indonesia's occupation of East Timor was not discussed.
Thwaites was also less than modest when handing a large mock cheque to Gusmao, milking the photo opportunity for all it was worth.
The commission aims to coordinate scores of initiatives in Australia which will assist East Timor's reconstruction, including through education and training. In addition to training those Timorese still in Australia, students from Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor are campaigning for Australian universities to provide scholarships to allow Timorese to come to Australia to study.