Timor pays tribute to rights campaigner

Siobhan Maguire

He was an unemployed Dublin bus driver who set up a campaign to help free East Timor from Indonesia. Now Tom Hyland has been hired by the government he helped to liberate.
The 53-year-old from Ballyfermot moved two months ago to Dili, the capital of Timor-Leste, the country’s name since it gained full independence in 2002, to work in its foreign office.

The move followed several calls in the past year from the Timorese foreign ministry asking Hyland to take up an advisory role and help teach English to its diplomats.

“I feel like an ant among elephants when I look at the Timorese people and what they have achieved, so there was no hesitation in moving out here to work,” he said. “I consider myself very lucky to have had an opportunity to play a part in a small nation achieving independence and I want to be part of the country’s reconstruction movement as well.”

Hyland’s interest in East Timor began in 1992 after he watched a documentary about the oppression suffered by its people under Indonesian control. The programme, John Pilger’s documentary In Cold Blood: The Massacre of East Timor, showed the killing of East Timorese civilians by ruling Indonesian forces, which invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975 and occupied it until 1999.

The following day, Hyland set up the East Timor Ireland Solidarity Campaign with the aim of helping the country gain independence.

Using political allies such as David Norris, the senator, Hyland brought the campaign to the Irish government and in 1999 travelled to East Timor as an adviser to David Andrews, who became the first European Union foreign minister to visit the country. The trip subsequently led to the establishment of a United Nations peacekeeping force, which included an Irish contingent. An Irish embassy was later established in Dili in 2001.

Norris said: “When Tom started the campaign he showed real political skill. I remember how proud I felt when the Indonesian regime in East Timor fell. I was listening to a BBC radio broadcast saying that this was due in part to the campaign by Tom Hyland from Dublin. He was just an ordinary man who put the skids under a dreadful multi-millionaire dictator — a 21st-century David and Goliath story.”

Hyland continued to lobby the Irish government for overseas funding and has already played an important role in helping the country to re-establish itself economically. In 2003, the government announced Timor-Leste as the first programme country under the Ireland Aid project, which was awarded €11m.

Since then, Hyland has continued to divide his time between Dublin and Dili. When he suffered heart problems two years ago, the former bus man decided a move to a sunnier climate could help with his recovery.“My health is fine now and I have a lot less stress in my life,” he said.

Widely known in Timor-Leste as “Mr Tom”, Hyland has been celebrated by both the Irish and Timorese governments in recent years.

In 2003, he was conferred with an honorary doctorate of law for his international reputation in promoting the development of civil society in East Timor.

That same year, Kay Rala Xanana Gusmao, the president of Timor-Leste, paid tribute to Hyland for putting his country on the political map.

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