Interviews with Fernando "Lasama" de Araújo

For our friends who until today still continue to fight, just like we, the people of Timor-Leste who also continue to fight to build democratic governance system, right now we have to build our processes, now, there are still many of our friends out there who continue to fight to gain the opportunity to improve or to build democracy in their land, my message is this: whenever you take a decision, you must hold fast to your principles, you must have faith in the principles not only as dogmas but to hold firm the principles according to our thinking, conforming to our rationality.

For friends who currently fighting for self-determination as in many countries in the world, perhaps you could learn from the fight of this small people is as I have earlier mentioned, that there needs to be a commander, need to have one leader, and each person needs to convince his or her own self, to believe in and put faith in this one commander. This is our experience. Some people think that the word “commander” signifies authoritarianism, that only in military system does one have a commander, if there is another word to describe this, I could use it, but for lack of terminology, we use this, but what I mean is there needs to be in existence a sort of leader who is like a manager who is believed by all in order to lead our movement because we need to walk together in unity and we need to converge ideas which differ from each other, together, so that we can continue to walk towards one objective.

Some in other parts have many ethnical problems, each want to maintain the standings of their own groups, each want their groups to be the one to be on top/leading, and they will not achieve their end, because a society that is divided within itself will never be able to achieve anything. Therefore, from us in Timor-Leste we are ready to part the little experience, which we had lived through, the experience on reconciliation, which we have, for example, in our war against the Indonesians which lasted for 24 years. However, within 3 or 4 months after the war ended, we managed to reconcile ourselves with Indonesia.

This is an example, which perhaps our friends from other parts of the world could follow. We also had our share of civil war back in 1975 and now we managed to reconcile with each other, we managed to sit together in order to face our national reconstruction. I think our fellow men in other countries, other lands, these are our experiences, and we, in Timor-Leste are open and more than willing to share these experiences with you, our friends.

Thank you.

Fernando de Araújo (1963 – 2015), also known as “Lasama,” was a politician from East Timor.

He was born in 1963 in a mountainous district of what was then Portuguese Timor. In 1975, East Timor was granted independence by Portugal, but Indonesia invaded the country and claimed it as an Indonesian province until 2002. During the 1975 Indonesian invasion, Araújo saw the Indonesian Army kill 18 members of his family.

As a university student, he became an activist for Timorese independence and was selected as the first secretary general of the East Timor Students’ National Resistance (RENETIL). As a result of his student activism, he was arrested in 1991 and taken to Jakarta where he was tried and sentenced to six years and four months of imprisonment.

After his release, Araújo remained in Jakarta and continued to work for self-determination and democracy in East Timor, working closely with Indonesian human rights defenders and democracy advocates. He returned to Timor and in 2001 and founded and led the Democratic Party.

He was an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency in the April 2007 elections. In the June 2007 legislative elections, he was elected to parliament.

Araújo was elected President of the National Parliament in 2007 and served in that role until 2012. In 2008, he briefly served as acting president after an attempt on the life of President José Ramos-Horta. From 2012 to 2015, he served as Deputy Prime Minister, and was named Minister for Social Affairs and Education in April 2015.

He died from a stroke on June 2, 2015.