History
The idea of raising the Cristo Rei statue was proposed by the East Timor
governor José Abilio Osorio Soares to President Suharto. It was intended as a
present for the 20th anniversary of East Timor's integration into Indonesia.
Suharto
appointed the director of national airline Garuda Indonesia to lead the project.
Garuda was given the responsibility to find capital for funding the project,
and raised 1.1 billion rupiah (US$ 123,000). However, that was not sufficient
to erect the statue, and contributions from East Timorese civil servants and
businessmen were needed to complete the project, which eventually cost more
than 5 billion rupiah (US$ 559,000).
It took
almost a year of working to create the body of the statue, which was fabricated
by 30 workers in Sukaraja, Bandung. It was made of 27 separate copper sections,
which were then loaded onto three trailers and shipped to Dili. Reconstruction
of the statue, including the globe and a 10-meter-high cross, took three
months.
It
was unveiled on 15 October 1996. Roman Catholic bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes
Belo, together with President Suharto and East Timor Governor José Abilio
Osorio Soares, directly witnessed the revelation of this statue from the air
using a helicopter.
