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East Timor’s Gangs A ‘Ticking Time Bomb’

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Download Noisy and colorful campaigns have filled the streets of the East Timorese capital Dili as the country gears up for presidential election.

Racked by political violence in the country’s first election in 2006, this year’s elections will prove an important test for political stability in the new and impoverished nation.

With high rates of unemployment, low levels of education, and thousands of Timorese joining martial arts gangs, analysts say these groups are ticking time bomb waiting to go off.

Kate Lamb investigates from Dili.

Last Updated ( Monday, 19 March 2012 10:21 )
 

Silent Witness of Indonesia’s Occupation in East Timor

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Download During Indonesia’s 24 year occupation of neighboring East Timor the Balide prison was place of horror.

Built in 1963 during the Portugese colonial period it was used by the Indonesians as a prison for political prisoners who dared support the independence movement.

Thousands of people were held there.

Now the notorious building is a museum that is teaching the next generation about the country’s dark past.

Citra Prastuti takes us on tour.

Last Updated ( Monday, 06 February 2012 10:40 )
 

‘If You Have Time, Please Come Home’: The Divided Families of Timor Leste

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Foto: Citra 

Download Indonesia occupied neighboring East Timor for 24 years.

During that time around four thousand Timorese children were taken out of the country by Indonesians - with and without permission from their parents.

Following Timor Leste’s independence some of those divided families have been reunited but others are still searching.

Citra Prastuti meets with one such family.

Last Updated ( Monday, 16 January 2012 13:21 )
 

A long journey home… Timor’s lost children

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Download It was not until Alexhia Cordova da Silva was 18 years old that she found out that she was in fact Timorese… not Indonesian.

She is one of nearly four thousand children from Timor Leste who were taken by Indonesians during their brutal 24 year occupation of the country.

They were taken by soliders, Indonesian aid groups and civilan families.

In most case the Indonesian foster families promised Timorese parents they would educate their children and then return them to the family.

This did not always happen.

Citra Prastuti tells Alexhia’s story that begins back in 1992 in Lospalos, in the east of Timor Leste.

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 28 December 2011 14:12 )
 

20 Years on still Searching for Santa Cruz Massacre Bones

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Download 20 years ago this month more than 250 unarmed students died when occupying Indonesian troops fired on a memorial procession to the Santa Cruz cemetery, in East Timor.

A further 250 are missing, believed dead and nearly 400 others were wounded.

Only a tiny number of the bodies from that day have been found.

As Leoneto Gonsalves reports from Dilli the families want the government to more so they can finally put their love ones to rest.

Last Updated ( Monday, 28 November 2011 10:13 )
 
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  • This week on Asia Calling

Influential Burmese monk refuses to be silenced:  Burma has recently been thrust into the international spotlight. Following the landslide victory of the National League for Democracy in the April by-election and Aung San Suu Kyi finally taking a seat in parliament – Burma is being hailed as Asia’s newest democracy. But the government continues to limit the public, and sometimes political, activities of Burma’s Buddhist monks. Prominent monk Ashin Pyinnyar Thiha is banned from giving any speeches and was recently evicted from his monastery in Rangoon.  Citra Dyah Prastuti travels to Hmaw-Bi Township on the outskirts of Rangoon to meet him.

Single Mothers Fight Prejudice in South Korea: In many parts of the world, May is the month for mothers.  But in South Korea, there’s also a special day for single mothers, unwed women who raise their children solo. Being a single mom is tough – but in South Korea it brings shame upon the entire family. Many children born out of wedlock are kept secret and adopted overseas. But the adoptees are now returning home to find their birth mothers and are working to curb the prejudice single mothers still face. Jason Strother has the story from Seoul.


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