Timor Leste’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CAVR) and its report titled Chega! (Enough!) have become a model in the region for transitional justice mechanisms. Despite the nation’s challenges to meet the comprehensive recommendations, its campaigners continue public education of the report’s contents. Even if it has been impossible, for instance, to prosecute the Indonesian generals that the Timorese militia said had trained them, the Centro Nacional Chega! (CNC) and civil society persistently spread the message to avoid violence and hatred, as part of the transformation needed for society to heal and move on.
Students regularly visit the CNC, which is centred in the former Balide prison, where staff brief them on the history of the prison and of the nation, including what Chega! is about. The Asosiasaun Chega Ba Ita (ACbit), a partner of AJAR, has also spread the contents of the CAVR report to the districts of Manatuto and Maliana-Atabae in 2023. On 22-23 September 2023, 95 boys and girls attended the Chega!Mobile visit to a high school and an elementary school in Manatuto. Participants were overjoyed to attend the first event of its kind in the village; the teachers were also grateful for the encouragement of students to learn about their history. A quiz following the discussions revealed that most students could understand the presented material.
Participants in Maliana-Atabe were also highly enthusiastic in the Chega!Mobile campaign on 15-16 November 2023. There were 126 students from three schools — a vocational school, a high school, and one elementary school. However, although survivors had organised the events, few from the affected communities were present, particularly in the Manatuto Laclo district. In contrast, both students and the surrounding community were active participants in the Maliana district bordering East Nusa Tenggara, the nearest Indonesian province on West Timor island. During the Chega!Mobile activity, 220 visitors attended the exhibition, which displayed photographs reflecting the history of Timor Leste, developments, and struggle towards independence. Visitors could also observe the results of the PAR workshop including the participants’ visualisation of their “House of Peace.”
Continuous campaigning of Chega! is vital to avoid collective amnesia of the nation’s history, and normalisation of injustice.
