Five hundred Filipinos and 51 international participants attended the Asia Pacific East Timor Conference in Manila between May 31 and June 4. Green Left Weekly spoke to one of the Australian participants, MAX LANE, who was in Manila representing AKSI — Indonesia Solidarity Action.
Many people thought the conference would not go ahead after the Ramos government moved to prevent foreigners attending. What was the conference like in the end?
The conference was always going to go ahead. The conveners group in the Philippines comprises most of the major progressive mass organisations as well as many individuals with a long history of struggle for democracy, including during the Marcos dictatorship. There is no way that they would ever give in to Ramos' bullying or bluffing.
What about the attempts to keep out foreign participants?
They were able to keep out several prominent East Timorese leaders in exile. But there is no way the government could keep out everybody. There were scores of solidarity activists around the world who were planning to come, and neither the Ramos nor Suharto governments are efficient enough to be able to keep tabs on everybody.
Many people insisted on coming even when they knew that they would be deported at the airport. This too resulted in extra media coverage for the conference and the East Timor issue. The media were always at the airport to cover the deportations.
What do you think were the main achievements of the conference?
First of all, the Philippines progressive movement has been consolidated as a base for ongoing solidarity with the East Timorese people. And, in fact, the base goes beyond the progressive movement now.
The enormous publicity connected with the conference, the many feature articles and TV profiles on East Timor, mean that a quite sizeable section of the Philippines public now has a very solid understanding of the issue and a strong sympathy for the plight of the East Timorese people. Ines Almeida, an East Timorese from the East Timor Relief Association who gave a very rousing speech at the conference, is now a very popular personality in the country.
What will the Filipino groups being doing next?
The conveners will, I think, transform themselves into a solidarity movement for East Timor. This will make the Philippines East Timor solidarity movement possibly the strongest in the world. It will have the backing of all the major mass organisations.
And then there is the prospect of a mini-conference or other actions to coincide with the holding of a big trade convention in Davao City [in southern Mindanao], which will be attracting many Indonesian businesses. This is the trade convention which had to be cancelled because the Suharto government ordered Indonesian business people not to attend.
The Philippines will now be an excellent base for conducting Asia-wide campaigns in support of East Timor.
APCET set up an Asian Pacific Coalition on East Timor, also to be known as APCET. An interim council was established with representatives from most parts of the region. Graham Pitts, from Friends of East Timor in Perth, and myself, from AKSI in Sydney, are representing Australia for the time being. Other regions represented so far include Japan and East Asia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, South Asia, and Indonesia.
It is hoped that many more groups in the region will also join APCET so that we can start planning regional campaigns. In the meantime, most groups want to coordinate the November 12 commemorations of the 1991 Dili massacre.