Wonder Woman of the Week: Kirsty Sword Gusmao

The Wonder Woman this week has lived an incredible life. While at university, the Australian-born Kirsty Sword learned about the struggles of the people of East Timor and took up their cause after graduating. East Timor at the time was the eastern half of an Indonesian island that had been fighting for independence for two decades before Sword learned of their struggles. Between 1992 and 1996, Sword worked in Jakarta as an administrative secretary at the Australian embassy, but in secret began her work as a spy for the East Timor resistance.

Indonesian military forces fought hard to maintain control of the territory- killing and torturing hundreds of thousands of people. Kirsty met resistance fighter Xanana Gusmao while visiting a prison containing several resistance fighters. When Gusmao finally left prison in 1999, pro-Indonesian militias increased their attacks on citizens and UN Peacekeepers arrived to finally try and establish stability. Sword and Gusmao married in 2000, and Gusmao became president in 2002. Peace was far from achieved however.

One year after leaving the presidency and moving into a Prime Minister role, Gusmao and his motorcade came under gunfire in 2008 by would-be assassins while armed militias surrounded his home where Sword and their children hid behind guards for safety. Sword was able to bluff her way past the militia and managed to evacuate herself and her children. After 2010, East Timor's violence finally started to decrease; but throughout the violence, Sword refused to leave the country. In 2013, Sword underwent treatment for breast cancer; and in 2015, Sword and Gusmao announced they were separating. Sword moved with her children back to Australia where she continues to campaign for women's rights in a nation she used to see as a First Lady.