Constancio Pinto was 12 years old when Indonesian forces invaded his home country of East Timor in 1975.
Like many others, Pinto said he felt a "spontaneous" nationalist reaction against the invasion and subsequent occupation and joined the Timorese resistance movement.
"I felt a responsibility to protect my country and my right to self-determination," he said. "I was willing to fight to get this right."
This a responsibility that Pinto has felt throughout his life; he has remained involved with the National Council for Timorese Resistance -- the main pro-independence East Timorese umbrella organization -- and currently serves as its United States representative.
Pinto gave a speech titled "East Timor: The Long Road to Independence," last Thursday, sponsored by the World Affairs Council.
Early Action
Both of Pinto's parents were also involved with the resistance movement and had been members of the Fretilin political party, which declared the eastern half of the island of Timor independent of Portugal Nov. 28, 1975.
Nine days later the new country was invaded by Indonesian forces, and it incorporated into the Republic of Indonesia as the country's 27th province in 1976 and began an occupation that lasted nearly a quarter-of a century.
A year after the Indonesian invasion, Pinto took to the forest as a guerilla fighter.
"I spent two weeks each month in the front line, sleeping in the dirt, without food," he said. "Looking back at the time, I question why I wasn't in school, why I was ready to fight at age 14," he said, adding that he was only one of many young people who joined the fighters.
After a year as a guerilla, Pinto trained and worked as a nurse. "I became closer to the community and the entire region," he said. "I listened to peoples' problems and treated them."
In 1978 Indonesia escalated their military operation on the island and almost the entire country was attacked.
"Many people died, children, old people, -- friends from disease, mass bombardment and starvation," Pinto said.
Concentration Camp
After two months of continuous travelling in an effort to escape the Indonesian army, Pinto, his parents and 100 other resistors were captured and brought to Remexio Village.
"We thought we were the lucky ones, we had been arrested alive, unlike the many others who died, and we could back to our normal lives," he said.
However, Pinto and the others were imprisoned in concentration camps.
"You have seen movies of the Holocaust camps, this was relatively similar," he said. "We were not allowed to move freely; to talk; and to do anything we wanted."
"There was a lack of food and medicine," he added. "We each got six cups of rice for the whole week, no vegetables or cooking oil and many died of starvation."
"We were also intimidated -- there were persecutions, arbitrary executions and torture," he said.
Due to international pressure, Indonesia released most people including Pinto from the camps after three months. He then went back to Dili, East Timor's main city and the current capital, where he worked and attended school.
"The resistance organization had been totally destroyed, so for a few years I was not active," he said.
"In 1983, I began to be involved in the underground movement with my friends -- we reorganized ourselves and students throughout the country to protest."
This culminated in a peaceful protest on Oct. 12, 1989 during the visit of Pope John Paul II.
East Timor was closed to the international community 1975-1989. "They opened it up to persuade the international community that Indonesia was there to develop East Timor," he said.
However the Pope's visit, as he was accompanied by a significant media entourage, became an opportunity for the Timorese to seize international attention for their cause, Pinto said.
Resistance Leader
After the protest, Pinto was elected to the executive council of the underground National Council of Timorese resistance movement.
Over the next two years, Pinto educated villagers, organized students for protests, channeled information to human rights organizations abroad and arranged visits into East Timor by foreigners.
As a result of his activities, he was detained for six days in February 1991 and put under military surveillance for the next 10 months.
"I played the game of a double agent with them -- by day I talked with those I knew worked for them, by night I planned under a large demonstration for Nov. 12," he said.
However, the police found out about Pinto's duplicity after torturing and interrogating students they arrested in a church.
"The police were angry and they decided to kill me at my house on Nov. 2," he said. Luckily, Pinto was warned by a sympathizer just hours before the planned ambush and he went into hiding.
In hiding Pinto continued to plan the Nov. 12 demonstration at Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili -- which attracted hundreds of Timorese but also resulted in a massacre of the protestors by Indonesian troops.
According to Pinto, 271 people were killed, 130 people disappeared, and over 301 people were arrested.
"The demonstration was a turning point," he said. After the massacre, which was filmed by foreign journalists, Indonesia could no longer deny the Timorese claims.
Pinto fled East Timor soon after and traveled across the world, eventually reaching the United States and enrolling in an undergraduate program at Brown University in the fall of 1993.
"I didn't come to the U.S. to study -- my motivations were political," he said.
Over the next six years, Pinto gave speeches across the country, testified before Congress worked with non-governmental human rights agencies to educate Americans about East Timor.
"I plan to keep up with my campaign," he said. "As much as I want to go back to my home and visit the places I used to -- there is no one else in the U.S. who will work with the United Nations and the government."
