Friday evening at St Patricks Primary School Hall, Wangaratta
Friends of Lacluta group members and many supporters gathered to hear Kevin Bailey speak about his experiences of East Timor.
As a young member of Australia’s SAS Kevin met some of the men of “Sparrow Force” who had served in East Timor during WW2. They told of their battle to stay alive and combat a much larger Japanese force. They could never have done this without the invaluable help of the Kriadus, young Timorese who left their families and villages to guide and protect the Australians. They stuck with the Australian forces in spite of knowing that the Japanese were torturing and killing their families in retaliation. When ships were eventually sent to evacuate the soldiers they were told that the Kriadus must be left behind. The Australian soldiers never forgot their horror at having to leave the Timorese behind most of whom were rounded up and killed by the Japanese.
This experience, and the later knowledge of how Australia was complicit in Indonesia’s take over of East Timor and probably took far too large a share of the Timor Sea petroleum resources led to Kevin’s passionate determination to help this neighbour of ours to become a successful new nation.
For some years Kevin was Timor’s Honorary Consul General to Australia. He is now a fund director of the Petroleum Fund of Timor-Leste. This provides by far the largest portion of East Timor’s national income.
His presentation on Friday evening was entertaining, informative and inspiring. We thank him warmly for making the trip to Wangaratta to speak to us.
Congratulations to the committee members who organised and ran the evening. Thanks to the people who turned up to support us.