US Rep. James McGovern to discuss East Timor Crisis in Lecture at Holy Cross

WORCESTER, Mass. – U.S. Rep. James McGovern (D-MA) will discuss the East Timor crisis in a lecture about the recent referendum and its aftermath on Friday, Oct. 22 at 7:30 p.m. in the Brooks Concert Hall at Holy Cross.  The lecture is free and open to the public.

McGovern, who represents Massachusetts' third Congressional District, is a well-known supporter of human rights.  He will discuss his recent fact-finding trip to East Timor with Sens. Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Jack Reed (D-RI).  He also recently met with Bishop Carlos Belo, who shared the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in East Timor.  While working for U.S. Rep. Joseph Moakley (D-MA), he was involved in leading a Congressional investigation into the murders of six Jesuits and two lay women in El Salvador, which resulted in members of the Salvadoran high command, including its minister of defense, being implicated in the murders.

McGovern will be joined by David Hicks, a professor of anthropology and chair of the department at SUNY-Stony Brook.  He received his Ph.D. from Oxford University, England after spending 19 months conducting research in East Timor.  He recently returned from East Timor, where he served as a delegate of the Carter Center monitoring the referendum.  He is the author of several books, including Tetum Ghosts and Kin, Peoples of Timor, People of Timor: Life, Alliance, Death and Ritual and Belief: Readings in the Anthropology of Religion.

Susan Rodgers, a professor of anthropology and chair of the sociology and anthropology department at Holy Cross, will also take part in the lecture.  She has done anthropological research in Indonesia since 1974; this summer she spent five weeks in Sumatra, Jakarta and Yogyakarta, Indonesia.  Author of several books, including Sitti Djaoerah: A Novel of Colonial Indonesia, and Telling Lives, Telling History, she also co-edited Indonesian Religions in Transition with Rita S. Kipp.  She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.