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The East Timorese government does not believe that we should consider compensation for the victims because there are tens of thousands of people who were, in one way or another, affected by the violence either directly or indirectly.

After so much suffering, after enduring so much sacrifice, sanctioned and embraced by our people, what is it that the people of East Timor expect as a result of independence?

When millions of dollars and thousands of humanitarian workers poured into Indonesia, we quickly faced the challenge of coordinating our own bureaucracy with the multitudes of approaches and priorities the donor community wanted to pursue.

Everyone with all those good intentions came to help Indonesia rebuild from the tsunami; but the co-ordination problem was very big, because they came with their own way of doing business; they came with the inflexibility of their own governance.

Of course, there can be serious injustices within free societies.

Only a cheap politician, greedy for political gain, would try to single out one individual for blame. The fault lies not with the individual but with the system, and that system is Richard Nixon.

I came across the Indonesian genocide in 2001, when I found myself making a film in a community of survivors. They were plantation workers, and it turned out they were struggling to organize a union.

In El Salvador, when neighbors were disappeared, tortured or killed, people doubted their own knowledge of the victims, and worried there must have been some secret guilt involved to deserve such punishment! That's how political terror succeeds.

A good government may, indeed, redress the grievances of an injured people; but a strong people can alone build up a great nation.

Solutions will not be found while Indigenous people are treated as victims for whom someone else must find solutions.