DILI – Tens of thousands of East Timorese streamed Tuesday toward a seaside park for Pope Francis’ big Mass, held on the same field where St. John Paul II celebrated a historic liturgy during East Timor’s fight for independence from Indonesian rule.

The Tacitolu park just outside Dili is said to have been a site where Indonesian troops disposed of bodies killed during their rule. Now it is known as the “Park of Peace” and features a bigger-than-life-sized statue of John Paul to commemorate his 1989 visit, when the Polish pope shamed Indonesia for its human rights abuses and encouraged the overwhelmingly Catholic Timorese faithful.

John Paul’s visit helped draw international attention to the plight of the Timorese people and shine a spotlight on the oppressiveness of Indonesia’s military rule, during which as many as 200,000 people were killed over a quarter-century.

Francis celebrates a Mass on the same site Tuesday, following in John Paul’s footsteps to cheer the Southeast Asian nation on two decades after it finally became an independent state in 2002. East Timor, known also as Timor-Leste, remains one of the poorest countries in the world, with some 42% of its 1.3 million people living below the poverty line, according to the U.N. Development Program.

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