I include here my books, recent articles and public presentations. Click on the headings to read the non-book items.
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NEW! Is former Lt.Gen. Prabowo fit to be Indonesia’s next president?
On 14 February 2014, Indonesia will vote to choose its next president. Prabowo Subianto, an ex-general and son-in-law of dictator Suharto, is one of three contestants and tipped by some to win. It will be at least his third attempt to grab the top job in the world’s most-populous country. His record demonstrates that he has little regard for the rule of law. Due to his unconventional role in East Timor, many in fact regard him as a war criminal. Others fear he is a throwback to the bad old Suharto years. This backgrounder looks at his record in East Timor, a chapter that is rarely referenced.
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East Timor’s cardinal leap forward
Eureka Street, 15 June 2022
Will East Timor’s new cardinal champion the church’s prophetic role?
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Around Easter 2021, Zach and his family paddled 300 kms down the Murray River to Echuca where I (aka Grandad) and Grandma Annie met them to celebrate their adventure. That night Zach dreamt that a mysterious stranger commissioned him to care for the river he’d fallen in love with.
Click on the book image to read.
[Hint: Best viewed in ‘Full-screen mode’]
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BOOK: Milking Our Memories: 150 Years of the Walshs of Walshs Road, South Purrumbete.
Pat Walsh, KPG April 2020, 340 pp. illustrated.
Milking Our Memories is a memoir, sometimes sad, often funny, of the tribulations and triumphs of two Irish teenagers and their Australian descendants, many of them dairy farmers in Victoria’s fertile Lakes and Craters district.
Here’s a few excerpts and images from the book.
PRAISE FOR MILKING OUR MEMORIES
Tony Wright, Special Writer for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, writes: Walsh, “a story teller with a rare gift for words… has returned to his childhood to write an arresting history of his dairy-farming family just south of the Stony Rises at South Purrumbete, a land of ancient volcanoes and lakes between Colac and Camperdown in the Western District” of Victoria. See his article here.
MORE INFO: Visit Facebook page The First Walshs of Walshs Road, South Purrumbete.
HOW TO PURCHASE
Contact Pat Walsh by email (padiwalsh@gmail.com), SMS/text (0434 045 261) or Messenger. Price: $30.00.
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BOOK: The Day Hope and History Rhymed in East Timor and Other East Timor Stories
Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia (KPG), Jakarta, 2019.
“In 1999, in a remote corner of the world, something almost miraculous happened. After 500 years of colonialism, the political stars finally aligned and the people of Timor-Leste, written off as losers in the face of irreversible odds, successfully voted for freedom. Twenty years on, Pat Walsh remembers the day like it was yesterday.” (Extract from book cover)
More information in my report on the book’s launch in Dili, 28 August 2019.
How to purchase
Timor-Leste: Livros e Companhia (Lecidere & Timor Plaza), Xanana Gusmão Reading Room.
Indonesia: Ganesha Bookshop, Ubud, Bali (Jl Raya Ubud, near the PO).
Australia: Australia East Timor Association (AETA), c/- Claire Woods: mcwoods54@gmail.com
E-book: on Gramedia Digital.
Enquiries
Pat Walsh: padiwalsh@gmail.com
Tetum language version translated by Mayra Walsh:
Loron Ne’ebé Esperansa no Istória Rima iha Timor-Leste No Ai-Knanoik Seluk Kona-ba Timor-Leste (KPG Gramedia, Nov 2019).
BOOK: Stormy With a Chance of Fried Rice: Twelve Months in Jakarta
Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia (KPG), September 2015.
Written while editing the English language edition of the Chega! report in Jakarta. A reader says ‘this beautiful book is a kind of therapy for a human rights activist’.
Click here for excerpts.
Review by Duncan Graham (Jakarta Post)
Reflection by Johannes Nugroho (Jakarta Globe)
Melbourne launch by Sri Dean
Review by Emma Coupland (Inside Indonesia)
How to purchase:
International: Amazon
Indonesia: Gramedia, Gramediana, Ganesha (Ubud & Sanur). Price: ~Rp 50,000.
Timor-Leste: Livros e Companhia (Lecidere & Timor Plaza).
Australia: Pat Walsh <padiwalsh@gmail.com>
BOOK: At the Scene of the Crime: Essays, Reflections and Poetry on East Timor 1999-2010
Mosaic Press. 350 pages. 2011.
A collection of pieces, both light and heavy, written during East Timor’s first ten years after independence from Indonesia. ‘Insightful and entertaining’, Jose Ramos-Horta, Nobel Peace Laureate and former President of Timor-Leste.
Click here for excerpts
Book Review (Helene van Klinken, Inside Indonesia)
Book Review (Dewi Anggraeni, Tempo): English \ Indonesian
How to purchase: Mosaic Press has closed and can no longer fill orders. Requests for the book should be directed to Pat Walsh by email: padiwalsh@gmail.com
Australia’s illogic over Timor and West Papua
Eureka Street. 13 August 2019
Papuans are entitled to ask why the UN treated them differently to the East Timorese.
Redeeming the past
Talk at Carmelite Centre, Middle Park, Melbourne. 29 August 2017
Timor-Leste could benefit by adding a spirituality of reconciliation to its reconciliation strategies.
Growing flowers in a prison
Herb Feith Foundation talk, 16 August 2017
Timor-Leste’s new institute of memory, called the Chega! National Centre, can be a regional hub of post-conflict best practice.
Ahok is innocent and Indonesia needs him
Eureka Street. 14 May 2017
The gaoling of Jakarta’s governor, Ahok, is a major setback for Indonesia on multiple fronts.
Using Stormy With a Chance of Fried Rice in the classroom
A helpful classroom resource for high school teachers of Bahasa Indonesia, designed for the Victorian Indonesian Languages Teachers Association (VILTA) by Suzannah Daniels, Marist College Bendigo, March 2016.
Pushing the envelope on truth, justice and reconciliation in Timor-Leste
Talk given at the European launch of the English language Chega!, Nobel Institute of Peace, Oslo, 25 Jan 2016.
The seminar was sponsored by the Norwegian Government and brought together key activists, officials, and experts on transitional justice to reflect on Chega! and Timor-Leste, ten years after the appearance of CAVR’s monumental report. Timor-Leste’s two Nobel Peace Laureates, Jose Ramos-Horta and Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, also participated. More information at Activities & Interests.
Inconvenient Truths: The fate of the Chega! and Per Memoriam Ad Spem reports on Timor-Leste.
Co-authoured with Budi Hernawan. Asia Justice and Rights (AJAR), August 2015
A new study finds that Indonesians remain generally ignorant of Indonesia’s past involvement in Timor-Leste despite the availability of two major, though uncomfortable, reports.
Thunder in the silent zone
Talk given at University of Melbourne, 4 June 2015
Indonesia’s intellectuals should ensure the truth about the East Timor issue is known in post-Soeharto Indonesia.
Indonesia shows its ugly side with regressive executions
Eureka Street. 28 April 2015
Lament for the damage Jokowi is doing to himself and Indonesia.
Nice guy Jokowi a death penalty strong man
Eureka Street. 03 February 2015
President Jokowi is making capital punishment a signature policy of his presidency.
New Indonesian president offers hope for West Papua
Eureka Street. 31 August 2014
Progress in settling the West Papua issue can only come from Indonesia.
Indonesia’s new paradigm must include the past
Eureka Street. 28 July 2014
The Jokowi presidency is an historic opportunity for Indonesian civil society.
<id=”new03″>Australia should be worried about a Prabowo presidency
Eureka Street. 6 July 2014
A Prabowo presidency will set back Australia-Indonesia relations.
Nailing Indonesia’s next president
Eureka Street. 23 June 2014
Indonesians face a stark choice for their next president.
Abbott’s mixed messages for Indonesia
Eureka Street. 02 October 2013
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s narrow focus on boats and business is not a good look in Indonesia.
Indonesia gives a Gonski
Eureka Street. 23 July 2013
Indonesians, not just East Timorese, are enjoying and benefitting from the liberation that followed the end of the Soeharto era 15 years ago.
The road to Vienna went through Bangkok
Ahead of the 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights, NGOs met in Bangkok to to strengthen human rights in the Asia-Pacific, the world’s weakest region on human rights.
Vienna: ‘all human rights for all’
The regressive human rights views of Asia’s strongmen were rejected by the world community in Vienna.
Bringing up Inside Indonesia
Inside Indonesia 112, April-June 2013
Reminiscing 30 years on about how Inside Indonesia got started and grew in the 1980s and 1990.
Behind the scenes
Inside Indonesia 112, April-June 2013
30 years ago, as today, volunteers were vital to the survival and success of Inside Indonesia.
Kevin Rudd and Indonesia’s Obama
Eureka Street, 3 July 2013
As president, Prabowo would be bad news for Indonesia, Australia and the struggle against impunity.
Dawn of a human rights revolution
Eureka Street, 27 June 2013
The world conference on human rights held in Vienna 20 years ago was not revolutionary but it was an important re-statement of classic human rights principles critical to holistic human rights in Asia.
Human rights viewed from a Swiss mountaintop
Eureka Street. 04 June 2013
Switzerland is a long way from East Timor in many respects but its mountains, Christian heritage, language and security issues made me think of East Timor during my recent visit. [This is a bit of text coloured white to force a line break]
East Timor’s lessons for our abuse Royal Commission
Eureka Street. 28 November 2012
While the East Timor experience shows that a victim-friendly Royal Commission is eminently achievable it is also a painful reminder that Commission recommendations for the benefit of victims can be difficult to implement.
Before and after Bali’s searing flash
Eureka Street. 11 October 2012
Bali has recovered economically from the Kuta bombings ten years ago and benefited from much Australian goodwill but the scars from that nightmare and other challenging issues remain.
Post-conflict justice in Timor-Leste: a long and winding road for victims
ANU, Canberra, 17 September 2012
Timor-Leste’s leaders tell victims of historic crimes they should be satisfied with liberation and that the perpetrator-friendly policy that the government has favoured since 2002 is the country’s only realistic option. Victims and their advocates believe more can be done.
Life in the Ramadan fasting lane
Eureka Street, 5 September 2012
Ramadan in Indonesia is not only about fasting and going without. It is also a time for solidarity with the have-nots, family, the community and Allah.
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Winter of East Timor’s Patriarchs
Talk given at the Friends of Aileu/METAC dinner held at the Hume Global Learning Centre in Melbourne, 4 May 2012.
The deaths of Xavier do Amaral and Joao Carrascalao early 2012 have further thinned the ranks of independent East Timor’s 1975 founding generation. The trend to romanticise East Timor’s struggle should not obscure the ugly side of that struggle, which both men were part of, or the heights of moral courage both men rose to.
What Australia doesn’t want East Timor to know
Eureka Street. 5 April 2012
The famine of 1977-79 cut a swathe through East Timor’s civilian population. Having failed to subdue the Timorese, the Indonesian military opted to starve them out. Details from that little-understood period are contained in cables that Attorney-General Nicola Roxon has blocked from public access.
Jose Ramos-Horta’s Ian Thorpe moment
Eureka Street. 21 March 2012
East Timor is living far too dangerously by dumping its incumbent president Jose Ramos-Horta in last weekend’s election. It remains to be seen whether Ramos-Horta will continue in public life or retire, but there’s no doubt the nation would do well to use his vast experience as an elder statesman
Xanana Gusmao’s Strategies for the Future
Launch of the East Timorese Prime Minister’s collection of speeches.
22 February 2012. Victoria University, Melbourne.
A personal recollection of support given to Xanana during his years in the jungle and as a political prisoner in Jakarta.this is some invisible text to force next item down a line. Length of line can only be determined by trial and error.
Timor-Leste We Forget
Launch of a video produced by the Mary McKillop East Timor Mission. Mary MacKillop Place, Sydney, 17 December 2011.
Japan’s attack on Darwin during World War II was executed to aid its invasion of East Timor not to take over Australia.