THE atrocities still haunt Pat Walsh now – sexual violence, torture, illegal detentions and impromptu killings.
Having worked in East Timor and Indonesia for the last 30 years, Mr Walsh has heard some of the most gut-wrenching stories of cruelty that as safe Australians, we can barely imagine.
As disturbing as those stories are, the hardest to come to terms with was the level of death due to famine.
Before East Timor gained independence, more than 100,000 people would lay dead from a population of just 600,000.
A South Purrumbete local, Mr Walsh first became interested in Indonesia and East Timor back in the early 70s when he taught Indonesian as a Catholic priest at Monivae College in Hamilton.
“I started following Indonesian affairs as a matter of course,” he said.
“By 1978 I was working for the Australian Council for Overseas Aid and working with a lot of refugees from Timor who had fled to Australia.
“My role was to keep the aid agencies informed about the suffering of the people and to advise on policies to help.
“I also lobbied hard for journalists and members of government to go to East Timor so that the country’s plight could be better understood.”
Invaded and overtaken by Indonesia in 1975, a violent reign of terror ensued.
“The violence that followed was wrong, wrong at every level,” Mr Walsh said.
“Even the official position of the international community was that the occupation was wrong.
“East Timor is a colony and as a colony it had a right to determine its own future, just at Papua New Guinea did, Vanuatu did and the Solomon Islands did.”
After 24 years, The occupation finally ended in 1999 after Indonesian president Suharto stepped down from power, paving the way for a national vote on East Timor’s future.
In a landslide result, 78 per cent of the country’s population voted in favour of independence.
Mr Walsh was on hand for the vote as part of an Australian delegation, which included former Deputy Prime Minister and UN election scrutineer Tim Fisher and the Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, Laurie Brereton.
“I will never forget the courage and determination of the people to defy their persecutors,” he said.
“The result was like a dream come true for them.”
No longer a priest and heavily embroiled in the plight of the East Timorese people, Mr Walsh spent the next 10 years working in East Timor as part of the country’s Reconciliation Commission.
“Our charter was to document what happened to ordinary people and to hear what their needs are,” he said.
“It’s also important to document what went on so history never forgets and to help us learn from it.”
The result was a 3500 page document, filled with firsthand accounts of “very graphic” violence.
“The stories have moved a lot of people to tears,” Walsh said.
“The sexual violence and torture, it was horrific.
“But for me, the deaths through famine were the hardest to hear – kids, women, grandparents slowly and painfully dying.
“The people constantly on the run from the military, they couldn’t stay in the one place long enough to provide for themselves and the country was completely sealed off from the outside world, which meant no aid could get through.”
Helped by the UN to get back on its feet, Timor has now been self governing for 10 years and has “made terrific strides”.
“The outpouring of help is wonderful,” Mr Walsh said.
“Doctors have volunteered there, as have teachers, tradesmen, environmentalists, computer experts, and the list goes on.
“And many friendships have been forged through sister city type arrangements through schools and councils.
“East Timor is only an hour and half plane flight from Darwin, so I encourage people to go and see for themselves how the country is recovering.”
Fittingly, Mr Walsh was appointed as a member in the General Division of the Order of Austrlia (AM) in this year’s Australia Day Awards.
The award was given for his “service to the international community in the Asia-Pacific region as an advocate for human rights, particularly in East Timor”.
He plans to use the award as a platform to push for much of the violence inflicted on the East Timorese to be recognised as crimes of war and dealt with as such.
“It’s a huge honour to be recognised, especially when you consider the calibre of people who have won awards and whose company I’m in,” he said.