EAST TIMOR: Independent East Timor remembers an Irish soldier, serving with the UN, who died there last month. David Shanks reports from Fatoluro
As cocks crowed, a helicopter chopped the air, and a sentry watched the trees above. A Celtic cross memorial to the Irish UN private, Peadar Ó Flaithearta, was yesterday unveiled next to the school building in a mountainous East Timorese village where he was accidentally killed last month.
Mr David Andrews, the former minister of foreign affairs and representative of the Taoiseach, laid a wreath of red petals on the cross after a moving open-air Mass. The ceremony was attended by troops from Ircon, the 40-strong Irish contingent in Timor, New Zealand soldiers and poor villagers of Fatoluro. Mr Andrews wore a locally woven tais around his neck.
In an area obviously long ready for development, Mr Andrews said he would be reporting to the incoming Government that Timor should become Ireland's seventh bilateral aid priority country. He was glad to have made the 30-minute helicopter trip from the capital, Dili, for this "beautiful, beautiful ceremony" at which about 30 New Zealand soldiers performed the "haka".
It was all "hugely spiritual, hugely powerful," Mr Andrews said. In a semicircle of plastic chairs, Mr Tom Hyland of the Ireland East Timor Solidarity Campaign sat with the VIPs, including the head of Ireland Aid, Mr David Donoghue, and the district leader or posto, Mr Victorino Angelina de Jesus.
On the question of Timor as a priority country, Mr Donoghue would only say that proposals would be put to Ministers about East Timor "and elsewhere in Asia" in a matter of months.
The Rev Stuart Hall from Australia told the Irish troops there had been many high points in their time in Timor. "I know what your low point has been," he said. But he said that the Irish platoon, which will leave by November, had "lifted the burden of fear by their gesture of love" for the Timorese.
Gifts were exchanged between the Irish and New Zealand commanders, Lieut Larry Heffernan, and Lieut-Col Anthony Hayward. Mr Andrews expressed "deep, deep thanks" to the Irish troops for giving "great credit to the name of Ireland".
As the convoy negotiated the perilous dirt track from the Taroman base, Timorese at every wooden or straw house waved, calling "good morning" in the indigenous Tetun language.
This is a border area where anti-independence militias, operating from Indonesian West Timor have been active. Patrols are still regularly sent into the bush to check reports of militia activity.
At Taroman, Private Enda McGuane from Co Clare pointed to two Indonesian army positions in the distance. A New Zealand soldier said the militias were "very much withering on the vine now".
Deaglán de Bréadún writes: The UN and the Security Council could be proud of the positive role it had played in assisting East Timor to achieve its independence, a senior Irish diplomat has told the Security Council.
Mr Gerry Corr, deputy head of Ireland's UN mission, said that, thanks to the valour and fortitude of its people, East Timor was now a "free and honoured nation" and this was "a victory of the human spirit".