Tears of Santa Cruz

When hundreds of people were killed in the Santa Cruz massacre in 1991, Mario Viegas Carrascalao was governor of East Timor, then a province of Indonesia. Here he recounts what happened that day.

December 17, 2013

I don't want to enter the Santa Cruz cemetery," Mario Viegas Carrascalao firmly replied when invited to make a pilgrimage to the famous graveyard in Dili. The bloody tragedy of November 12, 1991, seems to linger in his memory. On that day, thousands of East Timorese demonstrated to demand freedom from Indonesia. When security personnel showered them with gunfire, many were killed. "It was a very tragic incident. It made me shed so many tears," Mario

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