Nobel laureates Seamus Heaney, Mairead Maguire, David Trimble and John Hume are among 29 public figures who have expressed solidarity with the people of East Timor as they go to the polls today.
The group demands a free and fair ballot today and calls for the people of East Timor to be allowed to determine their own future without threat. Other signatories of the statement include Bono and The Edge, writers Roddy Doyle, Edna O'Brien, Frank McCourt, Brian Friel and Maeve Binchy, actors Pierce Brosnan, Gabriel Byrne, John Hurt and Brenda Fricker and Ronan Keating. "In light of the current honourable stance taken to allow the people of East Timor the right to determine their own future in the upcoming United Nations referendum, we, the undersigned, wish to express our solidarity with the East Timorese people at this momentous time," the statement says.
"We recognise, with concern, that since the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975, over 200,000 people, a third of the population, have died at the hands of the Indonesian military."