Bella Galhos

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Bella Galhos (2020)

Bella Galhos (* 1972 in Portuguese Timor ), actually Isabel Antonia da Costa Galhos , is an East Timorese independence and LBGTQ activist.

Career

Galhos's father had 45 children from 18 different women. In 1975 Indonesia occupied East Timor. The Indonesian military captured Bella's father and brothers. She herself claims to have been sold to a soldier for five US dollars when she was three years old. The father justified the trade with the fact that Bella had a "very masculine, dominant personality". Only after long requests from the mother was the child allowed to return to the family. Bella Galhos was later forcibly given an injection that rendered her sterile.

At 16, Galhos joined the resistance. In 1991 several friends of Galhos were killed in the Santa Cruz massacre , from which she narrowly escaped. As a result, she lived for three years under a different identity as a double agent with the Indonesians. During this time there were various physical and sexual assaults. Eventually she was seen as loyal by the Indonesian government and sent to Canada as the country's representative . There she immediately applied for asylum and lived in Ottawa from 1994 to 1999 , where she continued to campaign against the occupation of her homeland.

In January 1996 Benjamin Parwoto , the Indonesian ambassador to Canada, visited the mother of Galhos and asked her to silence her daughter. The incident attracted public attention and the Canadian Foreign Ministry demanded an explanation from the ambassador and Jakarta . Galhos later studied psychology at the University of Hawaii . With the end of the Indonesian occupation, she returned to East Timor in 1999 and initially worked for the United Nations . In 2013, Galhos became President Taur Matan Ruak's civil society adviser . In 2017 she resigned from the advisory post.

At the CODIVA (Coalition on Diversity and Action) Pride Event 2016 (the first of its kind in East Timor), Galhos had her public coming out as queer . She is one of the first people in the country to acknowledge her bisexuality. She also shared about her own stressful family experiences. One of her brothers tried to kill her by throwing stones because she would have brought shame on the family. In 2017 Galhos co-organized the first Pride March in Dili , which was attended by 500 people. Together with her activist colleague and development expert Iram Saeed, Galhos founded the LGBTQ organization Arcoiris ( Portuguese rainbow ).

Together with Saeed, Galhos operates the Leublora Green Village (LGV), the Pousada in Maubisse and the “not-for-profit” environmental school (Leublora Green School). This also includes a women's cooperative for organic agriculture and an organic restaurant. The project aims to promote equality for women and environmental awareness in East Timorese society.

Galhos is a member of the Partidu Libertasaun Popular (PLP), which is led by Taur Matan Ruak. On June 15, 2018, she said that she had been informed within the party that she could not be considered as a member of the new East Timorese government . This was justified by the fact that their sexual orientation was "morally unacceptable". Galhos said she was under discussion as State Secretary for Tourism, Youth and Sport, Vocational Training and Employment Policy or Gender Equality. Fidelis Magalhães , one of the leaders of the PLP, stressed that Galhos was nevertheless "a valuable party member". The reason for the non-appeal, explained Magalhães, could have been sexual orientation. But the decision was made by the three party leaders of the ruling coalition Aliança para Mudança e Progresso (AMP).

Publications

Web links

Commons : Bella Galhos  - collection of images, videos and audio files

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Tinan 1995: Konferénsia Mundiál Pekin kona-ba Feto , March 5, 2020 , accessed on March 5, 2020.
  2. ↑ a b c d Diário de Notícias: Ativista timorense diz que foi excluída do próximo Governo pela sua orientação sexual , June 15, 2018 , accessed on June 15, 2018.
  3. ↑ a b c d Leublora Green Village: About Bella , accessed June 11, 2018.
  4. ↑ UPI: Canada wants Indonesia explanation over ex-pat , January 25, 1996 , accessed July 2, 2017.
  5. ^ A b Sophie Raynor: Behind Timor-Leste's Pride , New Naratif, June 7, 2018 , accessed June 10, 2018.
  6. ↑ Homepage of the Leublora Green Village , accessed on June 11, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Galhos, Bella
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Galhos, Isabel Antonia da Costa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION East Timorese independence and LGBT activist
DATE OF BIRTH 1972
PLACE OF BIRTH Portuguese Timor