This year Sydney IWD will be exhibiting a very harrowing collection of photos. Ten to twenty photos of East Timorese women being brutally tortured by Indonesian soldiers will be on display. This exhibition sponsored by Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor (ASIET). Sydney IWD collective and the Asia-Pacific Institute for Democracy and Development, aims to draw attention to the repressive role of the Indonesian government forces in East Timor.

The photos, after being sold by Indonesian soldiers, came into the hands of activists in Canada. Initially the photos were exhibited in Canada, to coincide with the APEC conference last November, attended by Indonesian President Suharto. The exhibition was successful in focussing world attention on more than 20 years of repression of the East Timorese since the Indonesian armed forces invaded.

These photos do not depict an isolated incident: two East Timorese human rights organisations, report receiving 339 complaints of human rights violations committed throughout 1997 by the Indonesian security forces stationed in East Timor.

An East Timor activist in Darwin was charged in 1997 with offensive behaviour in a public place after he displayed these photos. ASIET is outraged by the charges especially as the Australian government trained Indonesian soldiers who are stationed in East Timor.

We urge everyone to come to the exhibition and call on the Australian government to end military ties with the brutal dictatorship of Indonesia and to help the struggle of the East Timorese people for self determination.

Tuntuni Bhattachayya Sydney