[East Timor has marked the eleventh anniversary of the Santa Cruz massacre. Hundreds of people were killed in the Dili cemetery on November 12, 1991, when Indonesian forces opened fire on some 2,000 peaceful demonstrators. The East Timorese marked the day with a mass and flown the nation's flag at half mast. The anniversary also coincided with the first national public hearings at East Timor's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.]

Presenter/Interviewer: Quinton Temby, Dili

Speakers: Father Jevito Araujo, vice chair of East Timor's Truth and Reconciliation Commission; Jose Estevao Soares, former pro-autonomy leader and now Truth and Reconciliation Commissioner; Pat Walsh, a United Nations advisor to the Commission

Temby: A mass in the Motael church yesterday commemorated the Santa Cruz massacre for the first time in an independent East Timor. It was a funeral procession from here 11 years ago that turned into an historic protest, and was lethally suppressed by the Indonesian military.

From now on November 12 is a public holiday in East Timor. This year it also marked the first public hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Broadcast on national radio, thirteen men and women testified of gross human rights violations over the 24 years of Indonesian occupation. Many for the first time publicly named the people who abused them.

An elderly man described the death from starvation in the mountains in 1978 as people sheltered from aerial bombing. A young woman showed the child she had after being gang raped by military and militia in the attack on the Suai church on September 6, 1999.

Atanacio da Costa described how he was tortured in April 99 by militia with knives and machetes. He removed his shirt to show the stab wounds.

One of the commissioners is Jose Estevao Soares, who was a founding member of the pro-autonomy movement. On hearing the testimony, he brought a handkerchief to his face and said: I was pro-autonomy, please forgive me.

Soares: "My reaction was just simply translated into that simple word, forgive me, forgive us. Forgive me, forgive us, as a pro-autonomy. And I think that it was not enough."

Temby: While the commission has no judicial power, the information it collects may be used for prosecutions in the future. Pat Walsh is a United Nations advisor to the commission.

Walsh: "I think it's really an opportunity for victims who've suffered so horribly to express their experience publicly for the first time, without fear of recrimination. I mean, some of these people suffered badly when they were 12 or 13 years old in 1975, 76 at the hands of the Indonesian military. For the first time, in all the years that have intervened, they've had this inside them, this terrible feeling, this anger, no-one's ever been able to acknowledge what they've been through, let alone to offer them professional assistance in the form of counselling or whatever. And here finally they're able to talk before the Commission that wants to hear them, that wants to honour them."

Temby: The importance of listening is emphasized by Father Jovito, the vice-chairperson of the commission. He's disappointed by the lack of government interest in the hearings.

Araujo: I'm not happy, because as one of the victims said, that they could not even give us one minute, five minutes to listen. They keep themselves busy. A lot of people in this new country, everyone won't want to talk. Nobody wants to listen. So I think from this I learned how important in this new country that many people need to learn to listen, especially those who are in power. They need to listen."