Description
The main objective of this paper is to address the use of written text as an element that contributes to creating affective imagery of human rights violations in conflict resolution and post-conflict societies. I argue that through the poetry of Xanana Gusmão and other East Timorese poets, the images of wounded bodies were mobilised to connect the resistance movement to the International Human Rights Movement. This mobilisation aimed to call International Community’s attention to the human rights violations in Timor-Leste. First, I will discuss how the written text, particularly poems, is crucial to creating affective imagery perceptions and producing ‘(re/dis)embodiments’ (Purnell, 2021). Second, I will discuss how the East Timorese Resistance changed after the Santa Cruz massacre, focusing on a human rights rhetoric and giving more emphasis to its diplomatic front. Third, I will focus on analysing the poetry of Xanana Gusmão, leader of the FRETILIN and how it mobilised the wounded bodies as a symbol of the Resistance Movement in Timor-Leste. Gusmão’s poems show us the atrocities committed by the Indonesian government in Timor-Leste by presenting realistic recounts of massacre scenes and suffering from the East Timorese people.
