Interviews with Constâncio Pinto

UN involvement in Timor-Leste, first I will say to keep the issue alive at the General Assembly, you know, the Decolonization Committee. But in terms of the active participation on the ground, I didn’t see any UN presence there, at least during my presence in Timor-Leste.

The only international agency we had at that time was the Red Cross. The Red Cross was the one organization that came into Timor-Leste in 1978, 1979, to provide assistance to the IDPs [internally displaced people] and people who came from the jungle, from the mountains. But other than that, I didn’t see any UN agency, like UNDP [United Nations Development Programme] or UNHCR [United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees] being present in Timor-Leste at the time. Because I think it was not allowed – UN was not allowed to be in Timor-Leste at that time, by the Indonesians.

We did have UN visitors, Special Envoys to Timor-Leste every now and then. One of the visits that actually encouraged the Timorese, the movement, the underground movement, was the visit of Peter Kooijman, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights. And I think his presence made people more excited and so want to participate in the protest we had. Because for us, his presence was key – a messenger for us to tell the world that we still exist as a people, under Indonesian occupation.

Constâncio Pinto is the ambassador of East Timor to the United States. Still a child when the Indonesian military occupied the former Portuguese colony of East Timor in 1975, he fled to the mountains with his parents. The family remained in hiding for several years before returning to Dili, the capital, where Pinto attended high school and college. While still in school, Pinto became a leader of the underground movement for self-determination. In 1991 he was arrested, detained, and tortured for several days. The military authorities released him on the condition that he serve as an informant, but instead he escaped from Timor and eventually from Indonesia. After his escape, Ambassador Pinto studied at Brown University and served as the Timorese self-determination movement’s representative in the United States. He developed close working relationships with members of Congress and other U.S. human rights advocates and, when Timor achieved independence in 2002, he became a diplomat. He was appointed ambassador in 2009.