FOUR East Timorese men attended a special event in Dublin's Temple Bar yesterday to celebrate the presentation in Oslo of the Nobel Peace Prize to their countrymen, Bishop Carlos Belo and the resistance leader, Mr Jose Ramos-Horta.
Mr Dino Rai (22), Mr Luciano da Conceicao (24), Mr Bonventura Moreira (25) and Mr Jose Lopez (24) looked on as the Happy City Samba Band entertained a crowd which gathered to show solidarity with the cause of East Timor.
"It's good to celebrate but it's also tinged with a certain amount of sadness," said Mr Tom Hyland, co-ordinator of the East Timor Ireland Solidarity Campaign.
Ms Kathleen Lynch TD, Democratic Left, standing behind a wooden door-frame representing the symbolic new post, set up by the campaign, of East Timor Consul in Ireland - said that "a door in Ireland for the people of East Timor will be as important a thing as anything said in East Timor this week".
She accepted the credentials of the new "Consul", Mr Da Conceicao, after a symbolic cutting of the ribbon around this door.
"Since their invasion by Indonesia in 1975, there has been a catalogue of horror - up to 250,000 of East Timorese have died, that's almost one-third of the population," said Mr Frank Jennings, another member of the Irish campaign which highlights abuses by the Indonesian government of the East Timor people.
Mr Tom Kitt TD, Fianna Fail, and Mr Joe Costello, Labour, also attended the event.
"Now our problem is known in the world," Mr Dino Rai said. "We lost many family and friends but we hope that some day we can go back. Before the population was 700,000, now it is half of that."
To highlight another human rights issue, the Irish Traveller Movement organised a protest in O'Connell Street, Dublin, yesterday to mark International Human Rights' Day. The aim was to high-light discrimination as the underlying factor in issues that face travellers in education, accommodation, health and access to facilities and services. The ITM also used the protest to call again for strong anti-discrimination legislation.
Later, at the Amnesty International memorial flame near Bus Aras, two delegates from the National Union of Saharawi Women, facilitated by the Refugee Council, spoke of their experiences as refugees since the 1975 Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara.
A two-day European Unions forum on humanitarian aid also began in Dublin yesterday. It's jointly organised by the European Community Humanitarian Office and an umbrella body, Voice, representing a network of 70 aid organisations active in emergency-humanitarian aid.
Another discussion forum organised by the Debt and Development Coalition Ireland yesterday, looked at whether the World Bank and EU policies were increasing poverty in the developing world.
Another event in Dublin to mark International Human Rights Day was a listening forum for a number of communities in the North, whose human rights were violated during the marching season this year and other years.