Robert Wesley-Smith

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From left: Martin Wesley-Smith , East Timor’s President Taur Matan Ruak , Robert Wesley-Smith and Peter Wesley-Smith (2014)

Robert Wesley-Smith (born October 2, 1942 ), better known as Rob Wesley-Smith , is an Australian East Timor activist.

Career

Wesley-Smith began his engagement when he met the East Timorese independence activist José Ramos-Horta in Darwin in 1974 . In September 1976, Wesley-Smith tried to bring food, medicine and radio station accessories from Australia to Indonesian- occupied East Timor in a boat with three other activists Cliff Morris, James Zantis and Manolis Manny Mavromatis . They also had six firearms with them for self-protection. The Australian authorities arrested the four men and they were given a small fine on February 14, 1977 for drug (the drugs) and weapons smuggling after ten days of trial. The Northern Territory Supreme Court later overturned the conviction, but the lawsuit had drained Wesley-Smith's savings.

Wesley-Smith was also one of the activists , along with Brian Manning and Chris Elenor, who recorded the programs of the East Timorese wind stand radio station Radio Ma Brille for three years and distributed them in Australia. The broadcasts in Australia were illegal as the Australian authorities refused to grant a license. The information was also taken to Sydney , Maputo and Lisbon and published by the East Timor News . In 1978 the transmitter in East Timor was tracked down by the Indonesian occupiers and switched off.

On July 14, 1978, in view of reports of Indonesia's use of napalm in East Timor , Wesley-Smith announced that he would publicly burn a dog in Darwin. The announcement attracted a lot of public attention and Wesley-Smith actually appeared with a small dog under his shirt in front of the waiting crowd, which included police officers, animal rights activists, firefighters and media representatives. When the police threatened to arrest Wesley-Smith if he carried out his plan, the dog pulled the dog out from under his shirt and it turned out to be a stuffed animal. Wesley-Smith denounced that people came here for a dog; But the fact that Indonesia was burning people did not cause a riot. Wesley-Smith had achieved his goal of drawing attention to the Indonesian actions.

After the Santa Cruz massacre in Dili , in which at least 271 people were murdered by Indonesian security forces on November 12, 1991, Wesley-Smith organized a demonstration, at the end of which Timorese camped in front of the Indonesian consulate in Darwin for three weeks. Because he devoted so much time to East Timor, Wesley-Smith eventually lost his public service job. He used the free time to organize further events and demonstrations and to send supplies to the military resistance via Maria do Céu Lopes : medicine, money and a laptop for the guerrilla leader Xanana Gusmão . In 1994 Robert traveled to the Philippines with his two brothers Martin and Peter to take part in the Asia-Pacific Conference on East Timor APCET as a representative of East Timor . East Timorese themselves were prevented from attending the conference itself. The three brothers came to the Philippines on a list of foreigners to be arrested and deported. After the Indonesians withdrew from East Timor in 1999, Robert Wesley-Smith traveled to the devastated country and helped with the reconstruction and development.

With the emergence of the border disputes between Australia and East Timor , Wesley-Smith again took sides for the Southeast Asian country and sharply criticized Australia's behavior. He called it Australia's "sixth betrayal" of East Timor.

family

Robert has two younger twin brothers, Martin and Peter, who are also committed to East Timor. Jeremy was the fourth brother. The father Harry was an academic archivist at the University of Adelaide and the mother Sheila presented the ABC radio program "Kindergarten of the Air".

Awards

In 1998 Wesles-Smith received the Denis Freney Memorial Activist Award from the East Timor Relief Association ETRA.

In 2014 Wesley-Smith received the Collar des Ordem de Timor-Leste from East Timor’s President Taur Matan Ruak . His brothers Martin and Peter were also honored.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c NT News: Brave trio honored , October 1, 2014 , accessed November 17, 2019.
  2. ↑ a b Ramesh Thakur: Responsibility to Protect and Sovereignty , 2016. Limited preview in Google Book Search.
  3. ^ National Film & Sound Archive Australia: Radio Mauchte ( Memento from April 30, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ a b Robert Wesley-Smith: Australian treachery, again , In: Inside Indonesia, Edition 71, Jul-Sep 2002, accessed on November 17, 2019.
  5. ↑ a b Shoalhaven: Peter Wesley-Smith , accessed November 17, 2019.
  6. ↑ a b Tempo Semanal Sabadu: Estado TL condecorados Membros da Solidaridade no dia 30 de Agosto de 2014 , August 30, 2014 , accessed on August 30, 2014 on TIMOR CONDECORA .
  7. ↑ Limelight Magazine: Martin Wesley-Smith has died , September 27, 2019 , accessed November 17, 2019.
  8. ↑ Jornal da República: Decreto do Presidente da República n ° 25/2014 , August 27, 2014 , accessed on November 13, 2019.
  9. ↑ NT News: Brave trio honored , October 1, 2014 , accessed November 16, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Wesley-Smith, Robert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wesley-Smith, Rob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Australian East Timor activist
DATE OF BIRTH October 2, 1942