Speaking of the movement of solidarity with Timor-Leste in France immediately brings to mind Danielle Mitterrand, the wife of president François Mitterrand (in office 1982-1996) and her brainchild, the Fondation France-Libertés. Fair enough: she was the best-known French personality who lent support to the network, being permanently aware of the situation in Timor-Leste and its developments, and raising that issue with her husband. Also, she took part in the press conference in the wake of the Santa Cruz Massacre (1991) and made the premises of her foundation available for numerous meetings and similar initiatives up to the 1999 referendum, and visited Timor-Leste in 2000, when she addressed the National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT) Congress.

However, Danielle Mitterrand is the exception to a regrettable rule: the French state took absolutely no attitude that might be perceived as antagonizing Suharto, never challenged the Indonesian occupation of Timor-Leste, and refrained from any initiative which could lead to question the financial interests of a handful of important business interests. When young East Timorese students sought refuge in Western embassies in Jakarta in the 1990s, the French legation sided with those that called on the Indonesian police to deal with those students. Recently – that is, over thirty years later – one of those in charge of the embassy sought to justify their behaviour telling me that “they presented themselves as students but in reality they were activists .”

Efforts were plenty to approach MPs and the personnel at the foreign office. After listening to our arguments as a bare minimum of courtesy requires, most often their frank response would betray their weakness: “On a personal level, I’d agree with you; but as a servant of the state, I must support the interests of France.” Full stop. Only the final crumbling of Suharto’s regime in 1998 allowed for timid overtures, shrouded in the utmost prudence, so that the material gains of financial groups or huge bank loans would not be jeopardized.

In September 1999, when the UN deployed its military mission, France made a “ gigantic” contribution and sent one coastal guard frigate from neighbouring “French territory” of New Caledonia with a minute crew, mooring in Dili bay for a fortnight during which it provided health care to locals. For a  permanent member  of the UN Security Council in charge of  “peacekeeping operations,” this is ridiculous.

Luckily, in France, the solidarity movement has a brilliant story to tell when one looks at civil society and human rights activists rather than at the behaviour of a state that claims to be the heir to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In the beginning…

José Ramos-Horta visited Paris just six months after the December 1975 invasion. A solidarity committee organized a rally to denounce and condemn the invasion. That same year, the Association de Solidarité avec le Timor Oriental (ASTO) was registered. A fundamental partner was L’Harmattan a bookshop publisher which produced the very first (and long time the sole) book in French on the Timor-Leste issue: Timor oriental : Hier la colonisation portugaise; aujourd’hui la résistance à l’agression indonésienne, signed by Marcel Roger (a pseudonym, a collective in fact).

At the time, solidarity with Timor-Leste was polyphonic , rather than tightly coordinated. Even though I was still in Portugal, I believe the following were the better known groups of activists:

• ASTO was probably the most important group and regularly published a bulletin. Part of their information was provided by Catholic Church channels such as the Églises d’Asie, a publication of the Missions Étrangères à Paris.
• The Secours Populaire Français provided support to the East Timorese who had sought refuge in Portugal, namely in the infamous Vale do Jamor area. Allow me to insert a personal note: our late friend Lucien Jailloux was married to an Indonesian. After his visit to Vale do Jamor, and for that simple reason, she was severely harassed at Jakarta airport.
• The French Communist Party’s annual festival under the banner of its journal L’Humanité offered Fretilin a free stand in the “ international village” (thanks to the late Pierre Marcie).
• The community of Indonesian exiles in Paris offered hospitality and support to the East Timorese leaders from the early 1980s, especially the late Umar Said and companion Emile, with the restaurant Indonesia.[1]
• Support to the interventions of East Timorese leaders and refugees in UN instances offered by French organizations holding seats in those committees, like MRAP[2] or FIDH.[3] The late Professor Michel Robert was a key figure in this effort.
• Articulation of the most progressive Catholic community – polarized by CCFD[4] – with the Indonesian Catholics. This was tainted with ambiguity as we know – and knew then – of the Timorese efforts to build an independent national Church. Still, a big hug, dear Sergio Regazzoni.
• Dissemination all over France of our friend Jean-Pierre Catry’s pamphlets produced in Portugal by A Paz é Possível em Timor-Leste. Those tracts were written in Portuguese and French.

For all these groups and activists, one can say they had a limited capacity to mobilize the French public opinion at large, and to exert significant pressure upon the state. For France, Indonesia meant serious business in finance, petroleum, cement, port activities, luxury hotels and tourism, but also arms deals and multilevel cooperation including the scientific and university realm which was surveilled by and largely controlled by the Indonesia embassy in Paris. The pro-Indonesian lobby was far stronger than the Timor-Leste solidarity network, and capable of circulating among the inner circles of power. Ali Alatas’ actual or alleged role in the post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia issue credited him with being a smart politician whose “vision” tended to converge with that of the French diplomacy. For the latter, any mention of the Timor-Leste issue was received with contempt and disdain.

Between an impotent solidarity network and a state sponsored negationism

In the late 1980s, ASTO accepted Bruno Kahn, Olivier Duffau and myself as new members. At the time, the prospects for a decent solution seemed very fragile, pessimism was the dominant tone, and our capacity to bring new ideas and proposals tended to fall on deaf ears. We felt it necessary to challenge the dominant organizational lethargy, but were suspected of personal ambitions to take over control of the association. For us, no time and effort could be spared as the news of increasing sufferance being inflicted upon the East Timorese was unbearable.

“We are dying as a people and as a nation,” shouted Bishop Carlos Belo. Together with our dear friend António Dias, we launched a new association – Agir pour Timor – that he first chaired. Our aim was to make the solidarity with Timor increasingly visible and to provide a new impetus to partnerships with other NGOs.

Often, we were questioned “why two solidarity organizations in France?” My typical answer was: just like the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to two East Timorese, one from the Catholic Church, the other the Resistance’s diplomatic leader, so in France there was more than one sensibility but all converged in the demand for a self-determination referendum, even though some may have, at a later stage, and in line with their attachment to the Indonesian Catholics, opted to campaign in favour of voting for autonomy rather than independence. Such was the pluralism of our solidarity network.

Apart from diverging views on tactical issues, a major difference between ASTO and Agir pour Timor derived from the significant presence of Portuguese citizens among the latter’s leadership who proposed to mobilize the large Portuguese community in France. This specific point has often been overlooked, and it deserves some brief comments.

The Portuguese community in France in the 1980s may seem to be an odd aspect as far as Timor-Leste is concerned, but I believe some of its characteristics proved quite singular. If one looks at not-at-war Europe in the 20th century, the most massive intra-European population displacement took place from Portugal to France, Germany, Benelux, Switzerland and the UK in the 1960s and early 1970s: over one and a half million individuals (from a resident population of nine million or so). In France alone, more than one million Portuguese found a new “home”, a substantial part of them in the Paris area which was then considered the “second most populous Portuguese city,” after Lisboa and before Porto. Seen from the other side, the Portuguese were the largest number of “foreigners” living in France. To care for such a large community, Portugal established a network of 17 consulates, and at a point, provided more than 500 teachers to teach Portuguese language to the children. Portuguese workers in the local labour market created more than one thousand multi-purpose non-profit associations, each one offering language courses, its own football/soccer team, its folk song and dance groups, its weekend parties, its bar with a TV set permanently set on (allowing all to see Portuguese RTP 1 and 2 channels from 1990).

As a barely visible and scarcely politicized community, many used to say “we are here to work,” and their dream was of a new house back in their village where they could retire at the end of their labouring life. However, with the passing of time, a hybrid generation emerged, groomed in French schools and Portuguese clubs, eager to gain its own voice. They self-styled themselves as “lusodescendents”. By 1990, the official number of Portuguese residents in France was 798,337.

The 1980s witnessed Portugal accession to then-EEC, thus making the circulation of people among its member states much more fluid. The “cartes de séjour” (residence permits) disappeared as “being European” initiated its slow movement of replacing “being a foreigner”. Many “lusodescendent” youths have opted for French citizenship and enjoy all their civil rights.

Before these changes, the electoral victory of François Mitterrand and its left-leaning new government in 1981 brought along new phenomena. Radio waves were liberalized and new radio stations mushroomed, many being “alternative ” radios or baring close articulation with ethnic clubs and associations. Most were geared to local audiences within a short radius, and focused on those communities’ issues. Both the Portuguese authorities and business interests supported some of the new media, including an expansion of the local free newspapers’ network and club bulletins, granting subsidies or through publicity contracts. If the Portuguese were not among the most prone to read, they did invest in the new radio landscape, often taking spots left unused by the French nationals on Sunday mornings.

These are the main features of the social and cultural landscape which Agir pour Timor sought to address and mobilize for active solidarity with Timor-Leste. Not by chance, the three successive chairs of our association – António Dias, Alexandre Milheiro and myself – were all Portuguese citizens. Let me give you a handful of examples, all revealing a common trait: Agir pour Timor organized “low intensity” activities, but it represented a group of “high intensity activists”.

Lusodescendents, Cap Magellan and other lusophone students’ associations

The most successful example of an organization established by the Portuguese students’ elite was Cap Magellan, created in Paris in November 1991 – a few days after the Santa Cruz Massacre – and chaired for many years by Hermano Sanches Ruivo. In 1992, the first issue of the magazine Cap Mag was published and distributed in several institutions of higher education. In 1993, the magazine turned monthly.

This association organized on a yearly basis “employment and education forums” which used to last for three days and bring together thousands of participants, including businesses, public administration units both Portuguese and French, and… Agir pour Timor.

Apart from those initiatives, a group of its members was tasked with liaising with other Timor-Leste solidarity initiatives – Nuno, Olga, Paula and the late and much-missed Elvira (who eventually joined Ramos-Horta’s office in Lisboa) were among them. That is why Timor was a regular and constant feature in Cap Magellan forums, which welcomed Ramos-Horta, Luís Cardoso, Roque Rodrigues and Paula Pinto. On such an occasion, Ramos-Horta is credited with saying: “France offers Indonesia a red carpet, and Timor-Leste the back door.”

Apart from Cap Magellan which was – and remains – a nation-wide organization, Portuguese students also created associations in different universities (Nancy, Bordeaux, Strasbourg….) which took several initiatives such as “cultural weeks.” Timor-Leste was regularly present in their programs through the screening of movies, exhibitions, lectures – and the contribution of activists from Agir pour Timor travelling from the Paris area.

The Union of Portuguese Teachers Abroad

As mentioned above, Portuguese language teachers in France – recruited in Portugal, paid by the Consulates, and teaching in local associations – at one point numbered more than 500. This figure declined as Portugal reduced the budget for this initiative, but a significant number of teachers remained active and formed a network covering the main areas of Portuguese settlements in France.

The leader of this union, Alexandre Milheiro, was born in … Timor-Leste. He lived there until he moved to Portugal for his secondary education, and then migrated to France where he was a founding member of Agir pour Timor and its second chair.

Direct sensibilization of students and their parents for the drama of Timor was then possible. Moreover, many of those teachers were pursuing further education in French universities (many enrolled in MA, a few in PhD programs). Through their union, and thanks to their activism, interesting initiatives took place in universities all over France.

The network of university professors and lecturers in Portuguese

This network was a vehicle for the circulation of information and proximity initiatives in contact with Portuguese associations. For instance: in the university of Pau and Tarbes (south-west France), Catherine Dumas[5] was professor of Portuguese literature, and the late Mariana Saragoça – recently arrived from Australia and highly attuned to the situation in Timor – was the Portuguese lecturer. Both were critical in organizing – at the university and in the city – lectures, film screenings, exhibitions…

The department of Portuguese had close links with a local association – Lusophonie – whose leaders were Reine Accoce and Felisbina Seixas. The initiative of translating Xanana Gusmão’s poetry book Mar Meu (to French and English) and to launch a record together with the book came precisely from Pau and these activists.

Portuguese language radio stations and press

In the Radio France system of public radio stations, the Portuguese language section was well represented, broadcasting both for the migrant communities and the Africa and Latin America programs. A handful of journalists, including the late Álvaro Morna,[6] missed no opportunity to have East Timorese passing through to broadcast news on the situation on the ground. Radio France’s team had in its ranks the late Daniel Ribeiro – who was in Timor-Leste to cover the 1999 referendum – António Garcia, the late Ruy Luís Bacelar, Isabel Pinto Machado, Elisa Drago, Vítor Matias, José Marinho, and others. All served as foreign correspondents for Portuguese media – Lusa (the news agency), daily papers, weekly journals and magazines, major radio stations. Through their established networks, they acquired credibility in the eyes of the French, Portuguese and Lusophone authorities, and were eager to question political leaders on the Timor issue.

Local radio stations from grassroots associations. Radio ALFA

In the 1980s, many broadcasts, both in French and Portuguese, organized by migrants and luso-descendents in connection with locally-based associations, were aired as an alternative to the services of traditional media. Each program was a potential stage to raise the Timor issue, if and when fresh news were available. With regular broadcasts in French, several stations in Paris had Portuguese collaborators: Radio Aligre, Fréquence Paris Plurielle, Radio Libertaire…. Agir pour Timor had plenty of opportunities to use their wavelengths.

The major breakthrough was the creation of Radio ALFA in 1987.[7] Starting as an associative project, it soon evolved into a full commercial radio station. Its project leader, Vitor Esteves, was keen to broadcast news on Timor. His team, which included Artur Silva, Marie Paule de Pina, Ricardo José and others, was a faithful ally. In every press conference, the strong voice of Radio ALFA journalists would make themselves heard. When the World Bank staged a meeting in Paris to discuss the Indonesian public debt, and all the European solidarity groups demanded the OECD make its support contingent on Indonesia’s respect for Timor, Artur Silva questioned PM Edouard Balladur, only to hear back: “You know, sir, there are so many Timors in this world…”

Radio ALFA was also the institution providing the first ever experience and then training to young aspiring journalists, such as Vitor Santos, Telma Oliveira, Dora Garcia, Inês Peixoto, Fernando Sousa… About ten of those youths supported by Marie Paule de Pina were responsible for a regular program, “Tempestade”. They all took part in Agir pour Timor activities and were precious links among French and French-Portuguese student networks.

The Press

The so-called “emigration press” was composed, at that time, by various newspapers, magazines and bulletins, written mostly in Paris and disseminated all over the country through the Portuguese consular network, grassroots associations, local markets, as well as regular subscriptions. Titles such as Encontro, Vida Lusa, Latitudes, Portugal hoje or Presença Portuguesa were vehicles for the diffusion of news on Timor and other pieces that Agir pour Timor produced. For instance: the weekly Encontro covered our campaign “Quatre mois pour parler de Timor – Four months to talk about Timor” offering us one whole page in every issue.

The Portuguese bookshop in the Quartier Latin

The Portuguese star in the Quartier Latin was João Heitor. In 1987, he opened a bookshop located at Sommerard street, next to the Sorbonne university, keeping it running until 2008. He would provide a lot of school material to support the teaching of Portuguese. Having spent his active life in Portugal with the Combonian missionaries, when he arrived in France he developed close links with French and Portuguese Catholic milieux and with the world of schools.

The bookstore A livraria do Heitor was a meeting place where teachers, students, artists and activists, from all the Paris area, would gather and welcome those who were just visiting. It was the right spot to look for information bulletins or any book that might have been published on Timor. Many times, João Heitor closed the bookshop doors and invited his customers to join demonstrations, namely those related to Timor. One year after the end of his experience as a bookseller, he initiated another adventure: a “cultural café”, Lusofolies, next to Bastille, where various anniversaries of Timor-Leste’s independence have been celebrated, books have been launched, and meetings of France-Timor-Leste association (created in 2002 in the wake of the path opened by Agir pour Timor) were held.

Artists, musicians, singers, poets…

Michael Leach’s chapter discusses music. In all sectors of artistic creation in France, Timor had Portuguese speaking friends. I will single out but four of them.

First, a group of singers and musicians from the Portuguese migrant community (Tony Carreira and others). Inspired by examples from other countries, they produced a 45 rpm record, called Agir pour Timor, widely circulated in France and whose revenues financed solidarity actions.

Second: as an example of musical creativity serving a just cause, I recall a beautiful tribute to Konis Santana and the Falintil guerrillas composed by the late Ângelo de Sousa. It is called “O Guerrilheiro” and it is still broadcasted by Radio ALFA.

Third: Lidia Martinez, painter, performer, poet and choreographer, the first one to translate one of Luís Cardoso’s short stories into French, used to attend fashion salons dressed in her own creations and testifying on Timor. She was an immensely dedicated and complete artist.

Fourth: Margarida Guia, our dearly missed Guida, actress, poet, singer, who used to read Xanana’s poems in meetings and festivals, and who supported the organization of solidarity initiatives in Lille, in northern France and Belgium.

The Casa de Portugal in the Cité Universitaire de Paris

Formally created by Gulbenkian Foundation as residence for students and scholarship holders, the Casa de Portugal was in reality a lively cultural centre where artists, trade-unionists, association leaders – in a word: the who’s who of the Portuguese community in the Paris area, and sometimes people from the rest of the country – would cross paths. It held regular exhibitions, concerts, lectures, shows, thematic workshops, welcoming much of what was relevant in the cultural arena – but often in the social and political areas as well. A tribute is due to Rogado Dias, its director, for his willingness to open its doors to initiatives related to Timor. Filipe Rios, secretary general of the Casa, is included in my tribute. The three of us spent hours on end in meetings, xeroxing documents, posting letters and parcels…. José Ramos-Horta visited this place several times, and took part in public meetings organized by Agir pour Timor. In one of those visits, Filipe Rios said: “You have before you someone who will one day be the president of independent Timor.” How right he was!

Produções do Crocodilo

Xanana was in Cipinang on his fiftieth birthday. In his honour, we wrote and directed a 30-minute video called Carta a Xanana/Lettre à Xanana .[8] Using the available means, we made sure he would receive it in prison. Then, we set up an ad hoc association – Les Productions du Crocodile – and produced hundreds of copies of the video that were subsequently shown all over France, many thousands of people screened it.

The last sequence of the movie-letter was an invitation for Xanana to visit Paris. He did so in 2003 for the occasion of his acceptance ceremony of the UNESCO Houphouet-Boigny peace prize, and he was welcome as head of the new state by President Jacques Chirac at the Elysée palace. He was hosted at the presidential suite of the Crillon Hotel, where Suharto had been, less than ten years before.

The Coordination of the Portuguese Communities in France

There were more than a thousand Portuguese community centers in France. In each consular area, a federation was created in order to coordinate calendars, initiatives, artists visits and so forth, and to establish a dialogue with the French authorities. By the end of the 1980s, there were such federations in Nancy, Strasbourg, Nantes, Orléans, Bourges, Seine-et-Marne, Marseille, etc. Many were highly dynamic, providing language courses and sport activities, promoting theatre and dance groups, radio programs, etc.

In 1990, a refoundation congress was held to consolidate the Coordenação das Colectividades Portuguesas de França (Coordination of Portuguese Groups in France, CCPF),[9] bringing together 130 associations and federations. Whereas each association worked solely on a volunteers’ basis, federations included paid coordinators and CCPF had a professional staff. I was a Board member and deputy president (1998-2001).

CCPF always granted a special spot for Portuguese speaking migrants and communities from Brazil and the African countries. Agir pour Timor joined CCPF soon after its creation, and this was a wise decision both because it was timely in political terms, allowing for a wider circulation of news and information on Timor, and because it offered logistic comfort. The material that we had produced – exhibitions, films, list of speakers – in the catalogue offered by CCPF to all its members permitted many associations and local libraries and municipalities in all of France to include something on Timor – a country of which they mostly knew next to nothing – in the programs for “cultural weeks” and similar initiatives.

CCPF leaders received on a weekly basis a summary of the Portuguese media. Agir pour Timor provided one page every week and this small initiative would provide more information to all of us than the French press.

The headquarters of CCPF in Aubervilliers (next to Paris), and later in Paris-20th district, housed the Centro de Documentação sobre Timor-Leste (East Timor Documentation Centre). It was open to the public, and many researchers (students, radio activists and journalists) were able to find updated information there. In 2004, the contents of this centre were offered to the École Française d’Extrême Orient (EFEO)[10] where it remains in the public domain. In those headquarters, countless meetings were organized, banners painted, posters drawn, and demonstrations prepared.

CCPF co-organized and participated in the annual meetings of Lusodescendents in Portugal. Once in the Algarve, an evening was devoted to Timor with the participation of José Camarada and several Timorese youths. For many of the participants, from Europe and the Americas, it was the very first time they had a chance of seeing Timorese youths.

Presidents of CCPF were in succession Filipe Rios (one of the founders of Agir pour Timor), António Garcia, Aurélio Pinto and Hermano Sanches Ruivo – and they all deserve a special mention and a heartfelt thank you. The late Simão de Carvalho was among the most dynamic activists of CCPF, a great friend of Timor, and founder of France-Timor-Leste.

Civil society and associations are self-sustaining pyramids and parallel powers that exercise non negligible influence on local authorities. CCPF became a founding member of CAIF – Conseil des Associations d’Immigrés em France,[11] and the chairperson of Agir pour Timor, became a member of the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights to the Prime Minister[12] in its Group on International Issues and Human Rights in the World.

The Estados Gerais da Comunidade Portuguesa

In 1993, I was one of four conveners of the Estados Gerais da Comunidade Portuguesa em França / Assises de la Communauté Portugaise em France (General Gathering of the Portuguese Community in France) at the Grand Arche de la Fraternité (Paris). Agir pour Timor could not miss the opportunity. Our chairman António Dias read before hundreds of association and community leaders our appeal for them to put pressure on their senators, MPs, mayors and political figures, to inform them of the situation in Timor, calling their attention to the sensibility of the Portuguese-French electors towards this issue (Cordeiro 1997).

This sort of initiative, linked with the political development of the communities, has been one of the reasons leading to the emergence of new municipal councilors of Portuguese origin.

Conclusion

What I have just presented are but some of the themes and methods of our collective work. If the French media ignored what was going on in Timor, we used local radio stations from NGOs and grassroots associations. We supported the costs of the first ever doctoral dissertation in France dedicated to the Timor issue (Defert 1991). Given that TV refused to broadcast Max Stahl’s footage of the Santa Cruz Massacre, we organized a campaign called “Four months to talk about Timor”, bringing together about fifteen NGOs and solidarity organizations.

Because we assumed that the struggle for independence converged with the plight for political and civil rights, that the end of colonialism is a precondition for sustainable development, and that democracy and human rights begin by fully accepting the principle of self-determination, we embraced activists from Indonesia, Myanmar, Tibet, Western Sahara, Papua….

Often, we ask ourselves: how was such a small number of people able to achieve so much? Did those efforts bring about any real contribution to our common goal, or were we just frantically twisting our arms in a desert of indifference?

Many solidarity initiatives were staged at the Place des Droits de l’Homme, in the Quartier Latin, in the Place de la Concorde, over the Seine bridges, next to the World Bank headquarters. The huge presence of the French-Portuguese community was a constant feature. We brought many people along with us, and this became evident for all to see in the terrible September 1999, soon after the popular consultation. Protests next to the Indonesian embassy were taking place every day, with organized activists staying all day long and hundreds of citizens joining in by the evening. The Portuguese community from the Paris region came en masse, thousands and thousands demonstrating at the Place de la Bastille.

Several members and sympathizers of Agir pour Timor decided to go to Timor. From 2000 onwards, they were part of French and other European NGOs (including Portuguese NGOs) assisting the Timorese.

What made all this possible? A broad convergence of all the small knots in our extensive network, the mobilization of Portuguese descendants and association activists, the ant-like work in local radio stations, community associations, schools, university departments. All these were “low intensity” forms of active solidarity. They converged in the dramatic moments of September 1999 into a real mass movement.

Agir pour Timor had achieved its foundational goals: against mighty odds, to speak on behalf of the Timorese people until the full exercise of national sovereignty was restablished. On May 20, 2002, the largest room in the French Senate was full of our companions and guests to celebrate Timor-Leste accession to independence. That very same day, the creation of a new association, France-Timor-Leste, was made public, its aim being to support the reconstruction of the new nation and promote friendship relations between the French and the Timorese peoples. Twenty years on, we are still engaged in pursuing that goal.

Viva o 20° aniversário do Timor independente!

Viva Timor-Leste !

TRIBUTE TO

When we are about to rescue memories of a long history dating back to 1975, the names of several comrades who have sadly left us at some point along the way, must be recalled so that a tribute can be duly paid. They were all tenacious, generous, and full of energy. Our debt can only be lessened through the acknowledgement of their exceptional contribution. Here are their names. May the Timorese – and all their friends – register them in their hearts.

Some of them were Portuguese: Mariana Saragoça, university lecturer of Portuguese in Pau; Simao Carvalho, cultural activist in Paris; Elvira Mendes, solidarity activist in Paris, Lisboa and Timor; Rogado Dias, director of the Casa de Portugal in Paris; Margarida Guia, artist in Lille; Olimpia Milheiro, language teacher in Paris and Switzerland; Alvaro Morna, journalist in Paris; Manuel Ramos Pereira, teacher in Paris; Daniel Ribeiro, journalist in Paris. 

Also some international activists: Umar Saïd, journalist, Indonesian political refugee, founder of the cooperative Fraternité and the restaurant Indonesia; Michel Robert, university professor, member of ASTO and later of MRAP; Dagmar Daillant, Amnesty International; Lucien Jailloux, Secours Populaire Français, Asia sector; Pierre Marcie, French Communist Party, international section; Josiane Alarcon, permanent companion to António Dias; Sergio Regazzoni, CCFD coordinator; Danielle Mitterrand, founding member of Fondation France-Libertés.

Thanks to the French NGOs who collaborated with us and more specifically to: ASTO – Association de solidarité avec le Timor Oriental; Fondation Danielle Mitterrand – France Libertés; Restaurant Indonesia; Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l’amitié entre les peuples; Fédération Internationale pour les Droits Humains; CCFD – Terre solidaire; Secours Populaire Français; Amnesty International – France; ACAT – Action chrétienne pour l’abolition de la torture; Peuples solidaires – Action’Aid; CIMADE; ICRA International; Secours catholique – Caritas France; Cap Magellan; CCPF.