Born October 12th, 1952
Died December 24th, 2024
Tom Hyland had, in his own words, “72 years of happy life”. The former bus driver from Ballyfermot, Dublin, and East Timor solidarity leader died early on Christmas Eve in a Timorese hospital after a long illness.
Hyland, known in Timor as “Papa Tom”, was a founding member of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign. He also campaigned for West Papua and LGBTQ+ equality.
The day after watching a film by John Pilger on Channel 4 of the 1991 Santa Cruz cemetery massacre of about 100 young mourners by Indonesian troops, Hyland set up the East Timor Ireland Solidarity Campaign. The campaign was officially launched at a 1992 Afri (Action From Ireland) event. Together with similar international organisations, he campaigned tirelessly until a 1999 United Nations referendum ended 24 years of brutal Indonesian military occupation.
The Santa Cruz footage had been shot by the late Max Stahl, who buried his film, and after his arrest and nine-hour interrogation by Indonesian officers, returned to the cemetery and dug up the visual record and smuggled it out to the world. It showed soldiers shooting and bayonetting to death young men, women and children, mourners of an independence activist killed two weeks earlier.
[ An Irishman’s Diary on Timor-Leste’s joyous liberationOpens in new window ]
Ireland’s foreign minister, David Andrews, became an EU special envoy to East Timor and brought a planeload of observers to the UN independence referendum in 1999.
An Irish Interests section was set up in Dili. Irish gardaí and soldiers went as UN observers and peacekeepers, while the Carter Center also observed. The Irish aid agencies Concern, Trócaire, and Goal all established branches in East Timor.
Andrews also visited Xanana Gusmao, then a guerrilla leader, in his house arrest in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital.
Hyland travelled to the former Portuguese colony for the first time in 1997. He decided to change his passport into Irish and travel incognito. But entering by bus from neighbouring Indonesian West Timor, an Indonesian officer at a border immigration hut glanced at the “Tomás Ó Haoláin” passport and said: “Welcome, Mr Hyland”. He was watched, often through binoculars, for the rest of that visit. He heard stories of atrocities, including one involving a Fretilin (pro-independence) person who was staked crucifix-like to the ground and cut with blades, his wounds rubbed with chilli.
Hyland told a story from when he was living in Timor of covert Indonesian attempts to get him to accept an invitation from mountain guerrillas so that he would lead intelligence agents to their location. Another concerns the arrival of a taxi at his hotel, and the driver’s surprising announcement: “Your flight is at 12.30 tomorrow.” Hyland said this was letting him know “they knew everything about us”.
[ Death announced of East Timor peace campaigner Tom Hyland (72)Opens in new window ]
East Timor became the independent Republic of Democratic Timor-Leste in 1999, with a vote for independence of 78.5 per cent.
Adding to the 186,000 already dead victims of the occupation, 1,000-plus died as the departing army trashed the infrastructure, including power lines.
In recent years Hyland worked as a government teacher of English. It was joked that he created Timorese diplomats speaking with a Ballyfermot accent.
In 2003 his work was honoured by the conferring of a Doctor of Laws degree by the University of Limerick.
President Michael D Higgins has described Hyland as “one of those exceptional people who, having familiarised himself with what was happening far away from Ireland, decided to take action on an issue of humanity that could not be ignored”. The Timorese prime minister, Xanana Gusmao, considered “Timor-Leste has lost one of its own”. Gusmao said that Hyland was particularly concerned about the plight of people in Gaza.
And president José Ramos-Horta said: “Let us honour Tom Hyland by continuing the work he so passionately championed.” He recalled that Hyland received his country’s Order of Timor-Leste, the highest such award. Not just a supporter of Timor, “he was a passionate voice that resonated across continents”.
Tom William Hyland is survived by his elder brother, Jimmy, and sisters Marcella and Ellen. The eldest, Mary, predeceased him.