Hello all, and welcome to those folk who recently signed onto the
list!

Below are details of our next big gig. Well, our bit of it won't be
very big :-( but the gig is certainly huge :-) Read on!

Miguel Heatwole
Director, Solidarity Choir
...............

East Timor Tribute Night at Sydney Town Hall April 21st

The First Lady of East Timor KIRSTY SWORD GUSMAO will be the guest of
honour in a charity benefit night at the Sydney Town Hall on
Wednesday 21st April 2004 at 7pm . The event will be a fund-raiser
for the 'Alola Foundation' which was set up by Kirsty to assist the
women of East Timor.


A wide range of musicians, writers, poets, comedians and some well-
known local identities will come together on the night in what the
evening's program director, Mr Jefferson Lee, is calling "one for the
people". ALP State politician Linda Burney will start the show with
an Aboriginal welcome. Speakers from The Greens, Liberals and
Independents have also been invited with Sen. Kerry Nettle and Peter
Andren accepting so far. They all have strict instructions to be
brief. The real comedy is later with CNNNN News Team!


Mr Lee said "Kirsty has been to Sydney on official visits with her
husband - President Xanana Gusmao - a number of times, but this
occasion will be more informal. " It is a chance for her to meet the
thousands of ordinary people who supported East Timor during the dark
days of September 1999."


"It will be primarily a night of fun and entertainment. But it will
also be a night to remember the tragic deaths in East Timor while
paying a special tribute to the passing of one of Kirsty's close
Australian friends - the Sydney human rights activist, medical
practioner and Timor Oil justice campaigner - Dr Andrew McNaughtan -
who was the Convenor of the Australia-East Timor Association before
his death," Mr Lee added. Other "achievers", from Local Government
projects in East Timor, to Mary MacKillop Institute (Sr. Susan
Connelly) to World War Two diggers (Paddy Kenneally), to women's
regional struggles, will be acknowledged throughout the night.


Performers on the night include two of Sydney's most popular choirs,
comedian satirists from the spoof television show "CNNNN News", award-
winning blues singer Jeannie Lewis, "folkies" The Fagans, Rachel
Hore, Enda Kenny (from Melbourne), Cassandra Eager, playwright
Katherine Thomson, authors Irina Dunn and Linda Jaivin, poet Denis
Kevans and assorted filmmakers and mix media artists including Jaslyn
Hall and Mic Conway. Journalist Max Stahl, famous for his graphic
documentary footage of the 'Dili Massacre', will also lend a hand.
There will be some surprises, so don't miss out! Book early through
Ticketek from Monday 22nd March 2004.




Wednesday April 21, 2004 benefit starts at 7pm sharp.


A silent art auction will be available for bids in the foyer.


Tickets : Gleebooks and through Ticketek - $29.50 or $17.50
concession (inclusive of booking fee) .


A limited number of tickets will be available at the door on the
night.



For more information or offers of support contact: Jefferson Lee at
the Timor Special Projects Office (02) 9519-4788
<jefferson.lee@...> "cc" <katefinster@...> or contact
the Alola Foundation on <http://www.alolafoundation.org> to make a
direct donation or obtain more details of their charity work.


ENDS
========
BACKGROUNDER ON KIRSTY SWORD GUSMAO



Kirsty Sword-Gusmão, the Australian-born first lady of East-Timor and
author of A Woman Of Independence: A Story Of Love and The Birth Of A
New Nation (Publishers: MacMillan Australia, 2003).



From her first visit to East Timor in 1990, Kirsty Sword fell in love
with the country and its people and became determined to help them in
their seemingly hopeless struggle for independence. Little did she
know then where her passion for the cause would lead her.


Over the next decade, Kirsty worked as an undercover activist in
Jakarta, becoming an increasingly valuable operative within the East
Timorese independence movement. In 1994 her work brought her into
contact with the jailed leader of the resistance movement, the
charismatic Xanana Gusmao. Through their letters, smuggled in and out
his prison, they fell in love. This unlikely but remarkable romance,
no less passionate for their being so forcibly separated, was further
tested when Kirsty was compelled to flee Indonesia one step ahead of
its feared intelligence service. It was not until the fall of
President Suharto and Xanana s subsequent release from prison that
Kirsty was finally reunited with the revered independence leader.


Working beside Xanana, Kirsty found herself at the very centre of the
epic events that saw East Timor freed from Indonesian occupation: the
vote for independence, the militia groups murderous rampage that
followed, the intervention of Australian and international
peacekeeping forces, and the slow and painful rebuilding of a
devastated country. Today, the former guerrilla commander and the
activist live together as president and first lady, with their two
children, in a country where fear has been replaced by hope.


The ALOLA foundation was originally established in 2001 to raise
awareness about the problem of sexual and gender-based violence in
East Timor and to benefit women, children and their communities in
East Timor.


Today, the Alola Foundation has grown to respond to a range of other
needs of East Timorese women such as advocacy, economic empowerment,
education and literacy, maternal and child health and humanitarian
assistance. A wide range of initiatives including the Women's
Resource Centre, Friendship School Program, National Breast Feeding
Association, the Friends of Alola and East Timor Exhibitions has been
developed to continue to build links between East Timor and the rest
of the world. The foundation works in direct partnership with women's
non-profit organisations in East Timor.


Alola is the childhood nickname of a young East Timorese girl from
Suai called Juliana dos Santos. During the violence of September
1999, Juliana was kidnapped by a militia leader and taken to
Indonesian West Timor. She was 15 years old. This militia leader
still holds her today.


============


EXPLANATION OF NAME "ALOLA FOUNDATION"


Addendum: The 'Alola Foundation' story is revealed in Kirsty Sword
Gusmao's biography "A Woman of Independence" (Pan/Macmillan 2003)
which was launched in Sydney with Jose Ramos-Horta speaking last
November 2003. On page 308 Kirsty explains that 'Alola" was the
nickname for Juliana dos Santos a 15 year old East Timor girl.


The book tells the story of a 15 year old school girl - Juliana dos
Santos (knick-named "Alola") who was brutally kidnapped from the Suai
Cathedral grounds on 6th Sept 1999. Minutes before she watched, as
her 13 year old brother and 200 other people, including priests, were
macheted and murdered by the "Laksaur" militia.


Eighteen months later, in March 2001, Juliana's parents appealed
directly to Kirsty as 'First Lady of East Timor', to do something to
retrieve their kidnapped daughter. Kirsty took their case,
symptomatic of the rape, torture and murder of hundreds of Timorese
women, to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva. As a result of
Kirsty's efforts, the Indonesian Government was forced to allow a
brief meeting in a West Timor police station between the kidnapped
daughter and her parents.


After repeated rape, "Alola" by then had born a child to the militia
leader, Igidio Manek, who claimed her as (one of his) "wives".
Remember "Alola" , as one of the few survivors of the Suai Massacre,
would be a key witness to any future UN War Crimes Tribunal hearing
against him.



Despite the brief family reunion in the Indonesian police station,
not surprisingly, the family were not allowed to reunite. "Alola" is
still a virtual prisoner in the squalid West Timor camps where
armed "militia" still operate and conduct cross border raids into
East Timor. Australia wants to pull out its peace-keeping border
troops this coming May 20th 2004.


=====