Statement from The East Timor Justice Lobby, Australia
to the United Nations Special Committee on the Situation with Regard to the Implementation
of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to the Colonial Countries and Peoples
(Special Committee of 24) Dear Mr Chairman and Committee Members,
The statement from The East Timor Justice Lobby is being expressed through questions.
We address the members of the committee personally and we would sincerely appreciate your
responding to the questions with deep consideration:
The United Nations Decolonization Committee has been hearing petitions for 21 years on
the tragedy of East Timor;
Has any member present here today visited East Timor?
Are there plans for a visit in the near future?
Are any members on the Committee victims of torture?
Are your children actively involved in the liberation of their country from illegal and
brutal occupation?
Are you unable to vouch for the safe whereabouts of your children at this present
moment?
Are your children in danger of unlawful military abductions?
Are any of your children at this present moment in a military prison being brutally
tortured?
Do your children have cigarette scars on their body from torture?
Has your child been beaten by the military so that he or she is unrecognisable?
Has your wife been raped by the military?
Does the humiliation of being raped make your wife weep quietly to herself?
Do your daughters avoid medical clinics for fear of covert sterilization?
Do you and your family live in perpetual fear of military reprisals for your commitment
to the rights laid down in the UN Charter and Declaration of Human Rights?
If you have answered NO to the above questions which reflect the daily, we repeat
daily, reality of East Timorese families, can you honestly justify after 21 years of
inaction the role of the Decolonization Committee?
Can you, with integrity, given the immense suffering of the people of East Timor, due
in part to the inaction by the United Nations, justify your own employment and the
concomitant privileges of a life of comfort, safety and security while the people the
Decolonization Committee was implemented to protect continue to suffer?
What constructive, immediate and urgent action will you as Committee Members take to
rectify the illegal occupation of East Timor?
We look forward to the resumption of a fair and just decolonization process for East
Timor.
Thank You
Submitted by Dr Vaclava Vlazna, Coordinator
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