This quiet has traveled from rural Australia to a remote area of East Timor
to repay a debt of honor. It's the culmination of a 15 year relationship
between the two communities for Belka terrorists, then a 19 year old. It began
when he escaped to Australia, just before Indonesia invaded East Timor in
1975. leaving his family behind,
and my dad and other brothers and sisters were killed. Yes.
It was said because he cannot.
He don't know what exactly happened.
But then equally
you're determined to fight. Yeah, yeah, fighter for him.
For the Australians that began with the belief that the Australian Government
should have been doing more to support the
people of East Timor. Many of us were aware of the dead of Horner, that
Australia owed to the team race people
during World War Two as Japanese forces swept towards Australia. They came up
against Australian commandos in East Timor, who withdrew to the mountains to
fight a guerrilla campaign against a far larger Japanese sports
that was supported by young this team was led to call the Koreas a garden.
This train commanders they interpreted for them, they led them to villages
where they could obtain food and carried supplies. And it's one of the great
military feats of Australian history.
Unfortunately,
a great cost to the team or his people, you know, up to 20% of the population
mine five were killed through the reprisals.
Three decades later, when Indonesia invaded East Timor Belka terrorists was
lucky to escape to Dallas One from the remote airfield and Australian caribou
went to ever equate people, mostly priests and nuns, the clergy. And then
we got waved on board
stuck in Australia, he worked as an activist to build Australian support for
his team or his independence,
then do our path and to publicize and tell the world and tell anyone who wants
to listen that our struggle is still well alive inside the country. And we
want our freedom.
The St. Mary's fought a war of resistance for the next 24 years for
much of it with little international support. If the
politics of the time really did not favor us, and so Australia as a state
was on the other side of the fence. Yeah, Australia as a people. We had the
support
but the time turned in in 1999. The st. Marie's voted overwhelmingly for
independence from Indonesia. But the vote ignited more distraction and
bloodshed. Australia later United Nations military intervention, they
found a country left in ruins, needing not only to rebuild, but needing to
establish a new government
to know we lost almost a quarter of a million people. Every single person in
in East Timor was touched by by the war. Virtually everything was destroyed,
there was no bureaucracy. So we had to build everything in and the thing was
that we are free. You know, we're free. So we work, build a country build a
state
in 2003 or belga. Terrorists went to Sydney as Timor Leste days console
general and set about establishing friendship groups, between communities
in Timor Leste
and Australia to see how we can galvanize the sympathy they support that
there is in Australian community.
Over 30 friendship groups were established, including the group in
Baga. Each group was paired with a different district in Timor Leste.
Above the tears between the South with the breakey net ahora sub district. It's
fairly remote area on the on the south coast. of the 15 years we've worked on
things like fencing, supplies of tools, supportive permaculture workshops and
camps for school garden projects supply of tractors, fuel and seeds, water and
total infrastructure. The building of the new St. Francis School supplying
schools with sports equipment, about 150 bicycles, professional development of
the teachers. We provided agricultural scholarships, maternity center, health
booklets, reusable hygiene kits for female students. We've been selling
Supporting women's groups developing their own expertise in sewing and
manufacturing things to sort market.
And everyone's been doing a lot of singing. Dave Croton is a professional
musician and teacher.
Zero singing culture over the
particularly in the schools and with the kids, just uninhibited, pure See,
David supplied just hundreds of musical instruments that were created up and
taken over there. He really got on board local people, which again, strengthen
the bonds of friendship because this was an international language that we didn't
need to be able to speak perfect technical, they didn't need to speak
perfectly English for us to communicate music he will make you happy.
Yes, music is give you peace. It brings in that sense of living in harmony with
your neighbor with your friends,
with your environment, if you want to lease concerts we, we play that became
big community events.
It was so successful that the group now has an even bigger vision.
envisage that maybe one day they'd be an international choir festival in Timor.
Wow,
that's even better. If I mean if that happens, who can you imagine you have a
choir from different countries? Like maybe some some someone, some group from
the Pacific, some group from from Asia know, like Japan or Korea or India, or
even Afghanistan? Yeah. You know, some Yeah, I mean that that would be really
fantastic. If something like that happened.
It just keeps on multiplying. Yeah, get stronger, you know, to cry.
you sow the seed and then it falls on fertile ground to grow. And I think this
is probably one of them.
Bill Brown, ABC News, bigger