Dear NVT,
Hooka Hay: It's a Good Day To Die
Personal feelings on the East Timor Massacre: Kamal, my brother activist is
now dead.

Why???
Because he attended a funeral of someone who was killed struggling for East
Timor's freedom.  Sketchy reports filtering back to us today and contact with
Kamal's girlfriend indicates Kamal had been critically shot and is now one of
the sixty to one hundred innocent people that were slaughtered.

I've known Kamal for a number of years.  We've blockaded many rainforest
timber ships in Sydney and sat in front of the odd bulldozer together.  He
knew he was at risk in going to East Timor.  Kamal wanted me to join him.  He
must have known there was a risk in going on this funeral march.  

I respect the  decision to go forward.  Like many activists who decide to act
and take on the system, the law, the government and even the army, Kamal and
many others like them followed their hearts and were not guided by fears of
reprisals or ultimately the threat of death.  I guess they were following
their own inner truth coming from a point of recognizing their own power and
lifeforce.  Also possibly believing that even if they were ultimately to give
their own life living their truth, attempting to bring about justice on this
planet, that this would be for the highest good.  

Yet a dead person can't say much and martyrs themselves are quiet.  So I
wonder, as the slaughtered mourners mix their blood with the Earth, with
their last thoughts did they think, " Well, I've done my bit, now it's up to
everyone around the world who hears about this massacre to make sure this
never happens again, and our dream of having East Timor freed after fifteen
years of Indonesian occupation may soon be realized."

An old Sioux Indian saying comes to mind "Hooka Hay  It's a good day to die".
We are all going to die some day, so you might as well die doing something
you believe in.

I can't help but feel angry.  How dare they shoot unarmed fleeing men, women
and children ?  How dare they?  My immediate response is revenge, violence
and war.  Yet where has this led us in the past?  More death, more suffering,
more hatred.  True, there is still suffering today.  Yet, if we all get
really organized and if we, as global citizens upholding the truth and
justice, organize thorough grassroots sanctions, arms embargoes and a boycott
of Indonesia's goods and services, such as tourism to Bali, for example, and
not buying Indonesian clothing, crafts and jewellry, then why can't we rid
the world of these evil empires?  

I am sure we need to get organized.  Picket Indonesian airlines and travel
agents offering Indonesian destinations, list and publish all Indonesian
goods, picket Indonesian  Consulate or Trade Commissions, get grassroots
involvement and support, run video information nights in your local area,
etc.  We can do it.  I know the dead would have wanted us to.

John Lennon once said, that to change the world, we have to change or raise
the vibration of human consciousness worldwide.  Maybe by people around the
world taking responsibility for the atrocious actions of others by
nonviolently opposing their actions by the use of sanctions, embargoes,
boycotts, isolation, etc., we could bring about this rise in consciousness
that is needed.  I know the only alternative is to do nothing and I could not
live with myself if I chose that option.
Dean Jefferys



Dear NVT,
Many thanks for passing on your magazine.  Helps to break the isolation,
which the State hopes will bring about a recanting.  Isolation is the name of
the game.  They have transported me, with shackles and shotguns, thousands of
miles from Syracuse where we were sentenced.  I am in Pecos, Texas, two hours
from the Mexico border.  There are 500 inmates, and I am the only English
speaker: an attempt at geographic, cultural and linguistic isolation,
methinks.  Last night, following an escape attempt and a prisoner
confrontation with guards, shotgun volleys were fired over our heads.  It's
fortunate that this part of Texas still believes in warning shots.

Meanwhile, Moana and Sue remain in a County dungeon in Pennsylvania.  Bill is
in a Federal Penitentiary in New York.  Helen Woodson is seven years into her
eighteen year sentence for nonviolently challenging the doctrine of
escalation dominance in the missile fields of Missouri in 1984.  Sgt. Robert
Pete has begun a six year sentence at Fort Leavenworth for his nonviolent
noncooperation during the Gulf Massacre.  Also in Leavenworth is Capt.
Yolanda Huet Vaughn, a doctor sentenced to two and a half years.  Her 'crime'
was preventative medicine, which she practised by refusing to be deployed. 
Scores of others remain in military brigs, Federal prisons and County Jails
for their nonviolent resistance to the Gulf Massacre.

As the Wobblies would say, "We're in here for you, You're out there for us!"
Much love, many thanks,
Ciaron O'Reilly
03810-052, Reeves County Law Centre, P.O. Box 1560, Pecos, TX  79772