From Paul Stewart
WHEN my band mate Gil Santos lost his father in the 1975 Indonesian
invasion all he was left with was his Dad's ``soccer ball and guitar.''
It was fitting really because music is such a vital part of life too
many Timorese as we found out on a recent return visit to East Timor
where Gil and I distributed 30 donated guitars to groups of blind,
disabled and struggling musicians.
Giving a kid a guitar in Timor is like giving them a car, such is the
joy and wide eyed rapture at such a gift.
Amongst the 30 guitars, we thought it only fitting to take five
guitars up to the Balibo House to donate one for each of the
journalists lost there in 1975.
It was a great trip and house manager Rogerio gladly accepted the
instruments.
Once again, though any visit to East Timor only opens you up to other
worthy fund raising tasks,
For example in Dili we met the Alma Nuns who look after the disabled
kids of Timor Leste.
Unfortunately for the Sisters their work load is an equation that
just does not add up.
Afterall, there are hundreds of disabled children, four nuns and they
own only one tiny motor scooter.
The spirit may be willing but it just does not add up for the ALMA nuns.
The four nuns of this religious order, inspired by the work of Mother
Teresa, fight a constant battle against the numbers in their
inspirational work looking after the disabled children of the former
Portuguese colony who are described in social terms as ``the lowest
of the low.’’
Raising a disabled child is hard enough to contemplate in well to do
Australia but in one of the world’s newest and poorest nations it is
just a nightmare.
The nuns of the ALMA order are attempting to help the parents of
disabled children with their help but because of their limited means
of transport they just cannot get around to visiting enough kids.
ALMA is an acronym for " Asossiasi Lembaga Misionaris Awam", which
means Association of Lay Missionaries for the poor and the disabled).
The Nuns who consecrate themselves completely to Christ and the
Kingdom of God, serve only the most disadvantaged children (the poor,
the abandoned, the disabled) and live amongst them in togetherness in
the community.
The sisters task is to help and to empower the abandoned, poor and
disabled helping along the way to change the mentality of the
community towards them.
They are under the jurisdiction of Bishop Dili and their mission has
been operation in for three years.
At the homes they do visit the Sisters perform physiotherapy on the
disabled children and then instruct the parents of the disabled child
to do the same.
Their work is showing great results.
On a recent visit around the back blocks of Dili with the Sisters I
met a young chap called ``Lorenzo’’ who could now sit in a chair and
perform tasks his crippled body just would not let him perform until
he started therapy with the nuns.
Unfortunately, the Sisters say they cannot keep up with the huge
demand for their services.
East Timorese Alma Nun Sister Justine said the order had only the use
of one tiny motor scooter.
``If we had a four wheel car with a tray we could do a lot, lot more
work,’’ she sighed.
``We could even get out into the countryside to visit the really
disadvantaged disabled children.
``It would be a miracle if Australian Christians could help us get a
vehicle. Not brand new just one to help us with our work.’’
A leading East Timorese Government official Joaquim Santos has said
he would purchase a good vehicle for the nuns from a credible Dili
second hand car dealer.
``We would just need about $10,000 in funds,’’ he said.
``While the world is going through tough economic times and money is
tight for everyone these kids need a lot more help than most.’’
The Jesuit’s have come to the party agreeing to get funds to the nuns
via their Dili office.
Those wishing to making a donation should send funds to ``ALMA Nuns
East Timor’’ c/o The Jesuit Mission, P.O. Box 193 (31 West Street)
North Sydney NSW 2059 AUSTRALIA.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
‘Balibo’: film, truth and justice
The movie ‘Balibo’ headlining the coming Melbourne International Film Festival will again put in the spotlight the murder and its cover-up of six Australian based journalists in East Timor in 1975 - five in the border village of Balibo and one in Dili eight weeks later.
There will be some who argue that the events depicted in ‘Balibo’ are now part of history, that again raising this issue serves no productive purpose and, perhaps, that we still don’t know what really happened in that remote border village on 16 October 1975.
Despite these often self-serving objections, what ‘Balibo’ does remind us of is that grave crimes have gone unpunished. It also shows that the mistakes of our governments still reverberate, and its continued inability to be honest about these events tells us much about the difference between the type of society we think we live in, and that which we actually live in. As a society, we retain a stain that can only be removed with the application of transparency and accountability.
On 16 October 1975, Indonesian special forces led by Yunus Yosfiah murdered Australian-based journalists Greg Shackleton, Tony Stewart, Gary Cunningham, Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie, who were reporting on Indonesia’s then covert invasion of East Timor. Roger East, who went to investigate their deaths, was murdered in Dili during the formal invasion, eight weeks later, on 7 December.
‘Balibo’ recreates these events, and the circumstances around them, with great skill and accuracy. But more than simply telling a story, ‘Balibo’ reminds us that the Indonesian military commanders who thereafter perpetrated massive crimes in East Timor continue to lead lives of impunity. As with the crimes against humanity that were pursued for decades after World War II, the crimes committed in East Timor have not disappeared because of the passage of time. It is simply that their perpetrators have managed to evade justice.
As a movie, ‘Balibo’ is confronting, heart-wrenching, and raises a sense of legitimate anger. These responses parallel how many Australians responded to events in East Timor in 1999, when by their numbers they compelled the Australian government to finally intervene.
Such responses also parallel how many Australians felt in 1975, and in the years since. If the concerns of 1975 faded, it was because our governments so effectively covered-up the truth of these events, and the horrors subsequently perpetrated upon the people of East Timor. The Indonesian government led that complicity, culminating in the carnage and its ignominious departure from East Timor in 1999. But our own governments, under Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, Keating and Howard, participated in that complicity.
The movie ‘Balibo’ also captures the reality that East Timor’s its people were just ordinary human beings caught in terrible circumstances. The scenes, too, in the forests and of streams, over the steep mountains and of the sea and sky are so accurate because they are East Timor. Dili’s emblematic Hotel Turismo had, and retains, the atmosphere of a Graeme Greene novel.
‘Balibo’s’ critics will attack it not for its art, but citing that Australia’s relationship with Indonesia is, these days, positive, and East Timor is now an independent state with its own aspirations and struggles. What they are unlikely to admit it that the problems that East Timor has endured since independence have been rooted in its brutal past.
Importantly, too, two of the generals who were so instrumental in East Timor’s misery are now competing for Indonesia’s vice-presidency. Wiranto and Prabowo Subianto were not expected to be successful, but that men who might legitimately face charges of crimes against humanity could run for office a heart-beat from leading Indonesia speaks volumes. This impunity continues to gnaw at the people of East Timor, as well as the families and friends of the murdered Australian journalists.
On grounds of truth, it is difficult to fault director Robert Connelly’s film, from the order and accuracy of events to the dress of the characters. Colonel Dading Kabualdi is shown to murder Brian Peters, although it was Yunus Yosfiah who fired the shot, if on Dading’s orders. On the back of his gruesome work in East Timor, Yunus rose to become a Lieutenant-General, and later Indonesia’s information minister.
The remnants of Australia’s discredited ‘Jakarta Lobby’ might claim that its depictions have not yet been proven. Yet the now formally recorded eye-witness accounts have become too overwhelming for any doubt to remain. The 86 people, including Roger East, murdered on Dili wharf on 7 December 1975, is known because others who lived were made to count as they were shot.
In the following few years, somewhere between a quarter and a third of East Timor’s population were killed or died of starvation or preventable disease, establishing a record of brutality matching that of Pol Pot’s Cambodia. ‘Balibo’ takes us back to the first fearful moments of that unimaginable human catastrophe, precipitating that which followed.
Connolly is to be congratulated for creating, with ‘Balibo’, a landmark piece of Australian cinematography. He is also to be congratulated for reminding us of crimes still unpunished and of wounds that, without justice, remain unhealed.
There will be some who argue that the events depicted in ‘Balibo’ are now part of history, that again raising this issue serves no productive purpose and, perhaps, that we still don’t know what really happened in that remote border village on 16 October 1975.
Despite these often self-serving objections, what ‘Balibo’ does remind us of is that grave crimes have gone unpunished. It also shows that the mistakes of our governments still reverberate, and its continued inability to be honest about these events tells us much about the difference between the type of society we think we live in, and that which we actually live in. As a society, we retain a stain that can only be removed with the application of transparency and accountability.
On 16 October 1975, Indonesian special forces led by Yunus Yosfiah murdered Australian-based journalists Greg Shackleton, Tony Stewart, Gary Cunningham, Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie, who were reporting on Indonesia’s then covert invasion of East Timor. Roger East, who went to investigate their deaths, was murdered in Dili during the formal invasion, eight weeks later, on 7 December.
‘Balibo’ recreates these events, and the circumstances around them, with great skill and accuracy. But more than simply telling a story, ‘Balibo’ reminds us that the Indonesian military commanders who thereafter perpetrated massive crimes in East Timor continue to lead lives of impunity. As with the crimes against humanity that were pursued for decades after World War II, the crimes committed in East Timor have not disappeared because of the passage of time. It is simply that their perpetrators have managed to evade justice.
As a movie, ‘Balibo’ is confronting, heart-wrenching, and raises a sense of legitimate anger. These responses parallel how many Australians responded to events in East Timor in 1999, when by their numbers they compelled the Australian government to finally intervene.
Such responses also parallel how many Australians felt in 1975, and in the years since. If the concerns of 1975 faded, it was because our governments so effectively covered-up the truth of these events, and the horrors subsequently perpetrated upon the people of East Timor. The Indonesian government led that complicity, culminating in the carnage and its ignominious departure from East Timor in 1999. But our own governments, under Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, Keating and Howard, participated in that complicity.
The movie ‘Balibo’ also captures the reality that East Timor’s its people were just ordinary human beings caught in terrible circumstances. The scenes, too, in the forests and of streams, over the steep mountains and of the sea and sky are so accurate because they are East Timor. Dili’s emblematic Hotel Turismo had, and retains, the atmosphere of a Graeme Greene novel.
‘Balibo’s’ critics will attack it not for its art, but citing that Australia’s relationship with Indonesia is, these days, positive, and East Timor is now an independent state with its own aspirations and struggles. What they are unlikely to admit it that the problems that East Timor has endured since independence have been rooted in its brutal past.
Importantly, too, two of the generals who were so instrumental in East Timor’s misery are now competing for Indonesia’s vice-presidency. Wiranto and Prabowo Subianto were not expected to be successful, but that men who might legitimately face charges of crimes against humanity could run for office a heart-beat from leading Indonesia speaks volumes. This impunity continues to gnaw at the people of East Timor, as well as the families and friends of the murdered Australian journalists.
On grounds of truth, it is difficult to fault director Robert Connelly’s film, from the order and accuracy of events to the dress of the characters. Colonel Dading Kabualdi is shown to murder Brian Peters, although it was Yunus Yosfiah who fired the shot, if on Dading’s orders. On the back of his gruesome work in East Timor, Yunus rose to become a Lieutenant-General, and later Indonesia’s information minister.
The remnants of Australia’s discredited ‘Jakarta Lobby’ might claim that its depictions have not yet been proven. Yet the now formally recorded eye-witness accounts have become too overwhelming for any doubt to remain. The 86 people, including Roger East, murdered on Dili wharf on 7 December 1975, is known because others who lived were made to count as they were shot.
In the following few years, somewhere between a quarter and a third of East Timor’s population were killed or died of starvation or preventable disease, establishing a record of brutality matching that of Pol Pot’s Cambodia. ‘Balibo’ takes us back to the first fearful moments of that unimaginable human catastrophe, precipitating that which followed.
Connolly is to be congratulated for creating, with ‘Balibo’, a landmark piece of Australian cinematography. He is also to be congratulated for reminding us of crimes still unpunished and of wounds that, without justice, remain unhealed.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Another visit to Balibo
Damien Kingsbury and Rae Perry visited Balibo on 24 and 25 February, meeting with Rogerio Goncalves of the Balibo Flag House Committee of Management, and others in the town. Despite numerous trips to Timor-Leste, it was Rae's first visit to Balibo since 30 August 1999, when Rae visited as an observer with the Australian Parliamentary delegation to the 'popular consultation', otherwise known as the vote of self-determination which allowed East Timor to finally achieve independence.
This visit focused primarily on discussions around the possibility of establishing the house in the old Portuguese fort as a home-stay for visitors, given there is no accommodation in Balibo at this time. The idea of establishing a home-stay in the fort house has been favorably received by the government of Timor-Leste, although there are numerous issues to sort through before this can become a real possibility. Damien also talked with locals about issues of language, which were raised in his last visit.
The regional linguistic patchwork of the sub-district includes the (Austronesian - Malayo-Polynesian, similar structure to Malay) Tetum Terik (original Tetum) being spoken at Cova, near the Indonesian border, Tetum Praca (Market Tetum) at Batu Gade, and Tetum Praca and some Tetum Terik as well as (Austronesian) Kemak being spoken in and around Balibo. About seven kilometres south of Balibo, next to the Indonesian border, the people of the village of Leohitu speak Becais (which they call Welaun). Becais is aalso an Austronesian language, of about 3,000 speakers and which is related to, but distinct from, Kemak.
Across the Bebai River, the villages of Leolima and Nunara speak Kemak, while in the sub-district of Maliana the languages of Tetum Maliana (a minor variation of Tetum Praca), Kemak and (the Trans-Papuan) Bunak are spoken. However, within the trading town of Maliana itself, Indonesian remains dominant: ‘It is the language of business’, said one local resident. Near Maliana, the border villages of Tapo Memo, Sebura, Holsa and Oromau all speak Bunak.
Beyond this linguistically inclined visit, there has been discussion with the Balibo House Trust about the type of arrangement that might exist between it and the Friends of Balibo. The Trust was undergoing a reorganisation at the time of writing, and it was hoped that following that reorganisation, a formal, cooperative arrangement would be established.
This visit focused primarily on discussions around the possibility of establishing the house in the old Portuguese fort as a home-stay for visitors, given there is no accommodation in Balibo at this time. The idea of establishing a home-stay in the fort house has been favorably received by the government of Timor-Leste, although there are numerous issues to sort through before this can become a real possibility. Damien also talked with locals about issues of language, which were raised in his last visit.
The regional linguistic patchwork of the sub-district includes the (Austronesian - Malayo-Polynesian, similar structure to Malay) Tetum Terik (original Tetum) being spoken at Cova, near the Indonesian border, Tetum Praca (Market Tetum) at Batu Gade, and Tetum Praca and some Tetum Terik as well as (Austronesian) Kemak being spoken in and around Balibo. About seven kilometres south of Balibo, next to the Indonesian border, the people of the village of Leohitu speak Becais (which they call Welaun). Becais is aalso an Austronesian language, of about 3,000 speakers and which is related to, but distinct from, Kemak.
Across the Bebai River, the villages of Leolima and Nunara speak Kemak, while in the sub-district of Maliana the languages of Tetum Maliana (a minor variation of Tetum Praca), Kemak and (the Trans-Papuan) Bunak are spoken. However, within the trading town of Maliana itself, Indonesian remains dominant: ‘It is the language of business’, said one local resident. Near Maliana, the border villages of Tapo Memo, Sebura, Holsa and Oromau all speak Bunak.
Beyond this linguistically inclined visit, there has been discussion with the Balibo House Trust about the type of arrangement that might exist between it and the Friends of Balibo. The Trust was undergoing a reorganisation at the time of writing, and it was hoped that following that reorganisation, a formal, cooperative arrangement would be established.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Report of Friends of Balibo visit, 13 December 2008
Damien Kingsbury and Grazyna Zajdow made the first visits as ‘Friends of Balibo’ to Balibo on Saturday 13 December. The visit followed a visit to meet the program manager of the Timor-Leste NGO Belun, Luis Ximines, and future Belun Balibo worker Feliciano da Costa Araujo, who will take over from World Visions T-L in assisting coordination and development of the Balibo Flag House project.
Damien and Grazyna arrived in Balibo after a long drive from Dili through Ermera, Hatolia and a night in Maliana, before arriving at Balibo the following morning. For those who have not done this drive, it offers some of the most breath-taking scenery in an already breath-takingly beautiful country. The view from above Hatilia of the junctions of three rivers at the foot of the mountains is one of the world’s most magical.
Damien and Grazyna were met at the Balibo Flag House by the recently elected coordinator of the Balibo Flag House Committee of Management, Rogerio Goncalves, and a small welcoming party, where they discussed some options for local development.
In particular, the Flag House Committee is keen to receive technical and training support for its computer project. It has some computers in a dedicated room, but irregular electricity (there is a generator but it costs money to run) and no telephone/data connection to allow the internet. The committee would also like to receive training in the use of the computers and the internet. There has been discussion by the Balibo House Trust about the possibility of such support being provided by Andrew Maher of InfoXchange Australia, which has assisted with a similar project at the Friends of Baucau-supported community house in Baucau.
Rogerio also noted to Damien and Grazyna that while the Flag House had a small motorcycle workshop and some basic tools, its mechanics required training. The furniture making workshop associated with the Flag House, though, appeared to be working well, producing household furniture for local consumption. The nearby crรจche associated with the Flag House currently looks after 27 children.
The group also discussed the possibility of establishing a homestay in Balibo, to be able to offer accommodation to foreigners who might wish to visit Balibo and its sub-district. The house located in the old Portuguese fort was considered as a possible site, and this idea was later supported in principle by the Director of State Administration, Snr Abilio Caetano.
Formal government approval will need to be arranged, along with ensuring that the house is in a condition to have guests before this idea can progress. But there was general support for it, and the idea of a poussada in Balibo, even if smaller than that of Maubisse and Bauacau, would assist in attracting some of Timor-Leste’s small but growing tourism trade. Further, not only would visitors be able to stay at Balibo, rather than at Maliana more than a half an hour’s drive away, but they would also be able to use Balibo as a base to explore the region, including the local villages such as Cova near the Indonesian border, and the old fort at Batu Gade on the coast.
The visit by Damien and Grazyna was a first, tentative step in making links to give substance to a Friendship arrangement with Balibo. But if the warmth and level of agreement on both sides was any indication, the Friends of Balibo may well have a promising future.
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