I’ve been in Suai, southern Timor-Leste, for the past week or so. Sunday was the 10-year anniversary of the Suai Church Massacre, while on Tuesday — and I don’t understand why it was moved to Tuesday — there was an official ceremony to mark the occasion.
Up to 200 people died in the Suai Church Massacre in 1999, slaughtered by members of the Indonesian militia group Laksaur, led by the likes of Martenus Bere and Egidio Manek.
There was a young boy named Carlos killed that day. He was 12 at the time. His older sister, Juliana “Alola” dos Santos, then 15, is well known in Timor-Leste and around the world. She was kidnapped by Menek after the massacre — paraded around the community as a war trophy and taken back to West Timor where she was forced to marry him.
Alola now has three children and 10 years on, she is still in West Timor. She is Manek’s prized possession and she can’t go anywhere without being accompanied by security guards, locals told me.
I met Alola’s father, Manuel Soares, on Sunday. He was sat outside a house near the church, a blank look on his face. At first he was reluctant to talk about Alola and his feelings, but once he started speaking, it all came out.
He spoke of being let down by his country’s leaders. He said he was sick of the constant stream of local and international organizations passing through and promising the world, yet delivering nothing.
He told me about Kirsty Sword Gusmao, East Timor’s first lady, who named her non-governmental organization the Alola Foundation after the kidnapped girl. Mr Soares told me Kirsty Sword and other organizations have used his daughter’s name to further their own cause.
Mr Soares said nothing he had been promised by Kirsty Sword and others had been delivered. They promised him a car and to help rebuild his house, he said. He was given a medal, but what good is a medal other than for a photo op?
Yesterday I went to Mr Soares’s house. He lives in a quiet neighbourhood, across the road from his brother, Julio Amaral.
He showed me photos of Carlos and Alola. He also had a photo of Manek, Alola’s kidnapper, with one arm around Alola, his first wife, and the other around another woman, his fourth wife.
I told Mr Soares that there are people thinking of him at this time and there are people who want to help and support him. I passed on the best wishes of those in Dili, Australia and beyond. There wasn’t much more I could say.
He feels totally deserted by the leadership of Timor-Leste. The police in Suai arrest people for minor crimes, he said, but murderers and rapists go free.
While the president is worried about “petty politics” and being disrespected by parliament, the residents of Suai are in disbelief that the people who terrorised them 10 years ago are free to do as they please, often living much better off than the survivors of the massacre.
Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao and his wife Kirsty Sword Gusmao were in Suai on Tuesday. Mr Soares had said he would talk to the prime minister about his concerns, but he didn’t in the end, and I can’t blame him.
Yesterday, Mr Soares told me he knew the prime minister and Kirsty Sword were looking for him, but he didn’t want to see them.
Alola’s name has been paraded around the world, but for whose benefit? asked Mr Soares.
