the mobius strip

Those crazy kids at Freeport mine in West Papua have been playing I Spy - not on their competitors but local activists. The New-Orleans based mining company set up a fake environmental group to try to capture the passwords of local environmentalists so they could read their emails. They’ve apparently been working closely with Indonesian military intelligence (BIN). BIN is believed to have orchestrated the assassination of human rights activist Munir. Garuda’s deadly upgrade, a film about BIN’s alleged involvement in Munir’s assassination, was one of the films mentioned by DFAT/the Australia Indonesia Institute when explaining their recent decision to cut off funding to the Jakarta International Film Festival (see below).

There’s a link to the original New York Times report on Freeport’s experiment with espionage, as well as a stub of an article on Freeport, over at sourcewatch.

LIMITS FOR BALIBO INQUEST

By Natasha Wallace THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, DECEMBER 22, 2005 THE families of five journalists shot dead in East Timor have waited 30 years to know whether they were murdered by the Indonesian Army, and what the Australian government knew about it. But after a decision by the NSW Coroner yesterday, an inquest will not hear evidence on the government’s knowledge of the deaths in Balibo in October 1975, and whether it could have prevented the tragedy. The NSW Coroner, John Abernethy, refused to subpoena high-ranking Australian government officials of the time, including the former prime minister Gough Whitlam. Mr Abernethy also refused to allow evidence on intelligence intercepts gathered after the deaths, which occurred on October 16, during an attack involving Indonesian special forces on the town of Balibo. He did agree, however, to make a written request that their burnt remains, stored in a Jakarta cemetery, be brought back for forensic examination. An inquest is to be held next July into the death of Channel Nine cameraman Brian Peters, a British citizen based in Sydney. The inquest will not examine the deaths of the other four journalists, because they were from Victoria. Official reports say the men died in crossfire between troops and Timorese militia. But their families insist they were murdered and suspect Jakarta and Canberra covered up the incident. Mr Peters’s family may seek to have Mr Abernethy’s decision overturned.

More uncomfortable truths swept under the carpet, ho-hum.

S’PORE FILM ON TIMORESE VILLAGE BANNED AT JAKARTA FILM FESTIVAL By Valarie Tan CHANNEL NEWSASIA, 04 JANUARY 2006

SINGAPORE: A Singapore-made film “Passabe” was recently banned in Indonesia while Eric Khoo’s “Be With Me” was disqualified from the Oscars. Experts say these can only spice things up for Singapore’s film industry. “Passabe” is a documentary about a remote village in Timor, home to the worst massacres following an independence vote in 1999. Shot over a year, the film captures the lives of those affected four years on. It features a former militiaman who was forced to kill during the violence. The filmmakers were invited by the United Nations-backed Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation to document the “Truth Hearings” and efforts at bridging deep divisions in post-conflict East Timor. But the documentary was banned at last month’s Jakarta International Film Festival. Two other films on the same subject were also banned. “The reason they gave for banning the film was that it would open up old wounds. But in trying to cover up that way, they let the wounds fester. They need to let them air. They need to let people understand what went on at that time,” said James Leong, co-director of “Passabe.” “We really wanted to show it in Indonesia. We feel that it’s important to show it there. That is where our audience should be,” said “Passabe” co-director Lynn Lee. “We’ve been invited back to the next Jakarta International Film Festival. So hopefully the government will reconsider and allow us to show it there,” she said.

Those sedition laws got passed, *sigh* There’s a pretty excellent analysis of the Anti-Terrorism legislation in a special edition of the Human Rights Defender, which can be accessed at www.ahrcentre.org

The Timor Leste Penal Code has finally been passed, and contains jail terms of up to three years for criticism of public officials. Not good, especially in a country where the judges are a bit trigger-happy with their sentencing. This is the update from IFEX:

EAST TIMOR: NEW PENAL CODE CRIMINALISES DEFAMATION

Journalists in East Timor are voicing alarm over a new penal code recently signed into law under which individuals who publish statements deemed to defame public officials can be imprisoned, reports the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA).

Signed by Prime Minister Mari Altakiri on 6 December 2005, the new code enters into force on 1 January 2006. Some legal experts say the code gives more protection to public officials than to ordinary citizens. Under Article 173, anyone can be jailed for up to three years and fined for publishing comments seen as harming an official’s reputation. The penal code does not set limits on fines and other penalties for defamation.

SEAPA says East Timor’s weak and inexperienced judiciary makes the criminal defamation provisions particularly worrying. It also says the provisions could undermine media coverage of the presidential and national elections in 2007.

Local journalists and legal experts had called for parliamentary debate and public consultations on the penal code provisions, but their pleas were ignored. SEAPA says government officials have taken an increasingly adversarial stance toward journalists in the past three years in response to more critical reporting from the country’s fledgling press.

Visit these links:
- IFEX Alerts on East Timor
- SEAPA
- International Press Institute Report on East Timor
- Internews East Timor
- BBC Profile of East Timor

“The Australian Government has withdrawn a grant to an international film festival in the Indonesian capital Jakarta because it says four Australian Films to be screened don’t promote mutual understanding between Australian and Indonesia.”
Radio National

The films cited as reasons for pulling the funding of JiFFest, a fast-growing and well-respected film festival, include “The President versus David Hicks” and “Garuda’s Deadly Upgrade”, a documentary looking at the assassination of Indonesian human rights activist Munir.

read more

Here’ s the response from JiFFest:

JiFFest Responds to Last-Minute Withdrawal of Funds by the Australia Indonesia Institute (AII) due to films that “do not meet objectives”

We are shocked and disappointed by the Australia-Indonesia Institute’s (AII’s) last-minute withdrawal of support for this year’s Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest) - funds that were committed fully five months ago in support of Australian films and workshops at this year’s festival.

Less than 24 hours before the festival’s opening, the AII – which operates under the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs - informed JiFFest of the withdrawal of their support because four Australian films being screened at the event “do not meet the objectives of the AII as set out in the Guidelines.” The films are: The President Vs David Hicks,Dhakiyarr Vs the King,We have Decided Not to Die andGaruda’s Deadly Upgrade.

We are amazed that such a decision should be conveyed to us barely 24 hours before the opening of JiFFest 2005, when AII’s concerns could have been expressed at any point between July 2005 (when the grant was awarded) and a few weeks before the festival – at which point it still would have been feasible to discuss the program content or seek alternative funding. Since JiFFest operates on an extremely tight budget, this last-minute withdrawal of funds will have a very damaging impact on the festival.

At no point did the AII ask to review the films JiFFest selected (or even their titles), or advise JiFFest of any review process. JiFFest does not understand why the films it selected supposedly “do not meet the objectives of the AII”, particularly since The President Vs David Hicks,Dhakiyarr Vs the Kinghave been approved for screening by the Indonesian censor board.

Even if the AII disapproves of the specific films listed above, JiFFest fails to understand why they have withdrawn the entire sum of their grant to the festival, including funds that support master class workshops for Indonesian filmmakers, which represent 45% of the AII grant. Surely this workshop activity is a classic example of “developing relations betweenAustraliaandIndonesiaby promoting greater mutual understanding” between the countries, to quote AII’s own program goals. We therefore regret that this important activity is being sacrificed.

Now in its 7th year, JiFFest has gained a proud reputation as an independent festival dedicated to quality films and the important messages they carry, particularly on the subject of human rights and social justice. We have therefore never allowed funding to influence our film selection, either as a carrot or a stick.

Orlow Seunke, JiFFest’s Director, said “JiFFest will go ahead and screen these films anyhow, as a matter of principle, although the festival must now pay out of its own limited coffers. I hope audiences in Jakartawill now show up in even greater numbers to view what the Australian government is apparently so worried about them seeing. All four films will be screened free of charge.”

For Further information:
Tel 021-31925115
Email info@jiffest.org
Web: www.jiffest.org

Translated by the Internews East Timor media monitoring service:

NGO PROTESTS AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT
DIARIO TEMPO, OCTOBER 7, 2005

The NGO La’o Hamutuk is protesting the Australian government’s decision to stop their aid commitment to a Timor Leste NGO, Forum Tau Matan (FTM), over the participation of FTM in an action against the Australian
government on the Timor Sea. “The political decision of the Australian government impedes the Aus-AID mission in Timor-Leste to support economic development and contradicts the right of free speech,” said
Santina Soares, a member of La’o Hamutuk NGO, in a press conference on October 6. La’o Hamutuk called on Australian citizens and government leaders to question their government over a decision to cancel aid to
the NGO Forum Tau Matan. “We ask Aus-AID to guarantee to those who have the potential to receive grants in Timor-Leste that they are able to express freely their ideas without any pressure from the government,”
Soares said.

Here’s a sample letter to the EU - might be a good idea to do a version of this for Oz.

H.E. JAVIER SOLANA

Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union

presse.cabinet@consilium.eu.int

Your Excellency,

Increased militarization and military operations against GAM fighters that have taken the lives of innocent civilians continue to violate the spirit of the present peace talks between GAM and the Government of Indonesia in Helsinki.

I strongly urge the European Union to demand that the Government of Indonesia

1. investigate immediately the killings of the civilians listed,

On 12 May 2005, 11.00 am, Team-2 Company Prasada TNI Yonif 743 led by 1st Sergeant Amin Dimyati shot dead one civilian, Ibnu Hajar (48), and kidnapped two other civilians from Gampong Batee, Laweueng.

On 13 May 2005, A civilian, Tarmizi Zakaria (22), was shot dead by SGI posted at Krueng Raya.

On 15 May 2005, at 14.15 .pm TNI Yonif 330 Kostrad posted at Kuta Baro, Idi Tunong led by !st Seargeant Gatot and 2nd Seargeant Endri Nokian (deputy) attacked TNA in Seuneubok Drien.East Acheh. The TNI fired in all directions while combing the area killing one civilian, Ishak Hasan, 32.

On 15 May 2005 at Dua, Bandar Alam East Acheh, SGI and Koramil launched a night surveillance. On their return, they fired weapons in all directions taking the life of a woman, Aminah Usman, 40. who died in her house with 2 gunshots in the chest

TNI Marine Battalion 8 posted at Dusun Matang Aron Paya Lipah, Peureulak Teungoh led by 1st Sergeant Poniman was operating in Blang Balok. In its operation, the Marines fired weapons in all directions killing one innocent local, Muslem A. Latif, 25. of Blang Balok, Peureulak Teungoh

17 May 2005 at 17.00, TNI Yonif 330 Kostrad posted at Blang Rambong led by 1st Seargeant Tatang launched a Search and Destroy Operation. The TNI has tortured to death an old woman, Aminah Dawod, 60 resident of Buket Kareueng Seuneubok Buya, Idi Tunong. She was accused of giving protection to GAM.

On 18 May 2005, Police Intelligence from Sigli Police Hqs shot dead one civilian, Muzakkir, 24, on a mainroad in Gronggrong, Pidie.

prosecute those indicated by the investigation
immediately ratify a ceasefire
withdraw all military personnel from Acheh

Yours sincerely

Copies sent to:

Mr Mike Smith, Chair of UN Commission on Human Rights 1503@ohchr.org

H.E Mr.REZLAN ISHAR JENIE, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Republic of Indonesia to the United Nations indonesia2@un.int;

My article onRumour & Reality in Timor has just been published on New Matilda. You’ll need to be a subscriber to check it out. Or you can sign up for a free one-month subscription. When the copyright returns to me in ninety days I’ll post a longer version here. Email me if you would like more info on the background to this story: miriam(at)tsd.net.au

When the tsunami struck Indonesia on the 26th December, Aceh had been closed to foreign journalists for two years. Two days after the disaster the Indonesian government opened the province to international media, with some strict conditions. Jakarta-based foreign journalists were allowed to go straight to Aceh upon obtaining a permit, but others had to first submit an application which could take up to two weeks to process. All foreigners were required to register with the government before entering Aceh so their movements could be monitored.

On December 29th Michael Lev from the Chicago Tribune was among the first journalists to arrive in the town of Meulaboh in Aceh. After reporting for only 40 minutes, Lev and his Indonesian translator Handewi Pramesti became the first journalists to be arrested after the tsunami. The two men were detained by Indonesia’s special force Kopassus for a total of 28 hours, and were flown to Medan before they were released. It is unclear what rule or regulation the journalists breached, if any. Lev said “we were never explicitly given a reason for being held, other than the fact that the military didn’t want us in Meulaboh, and didn’t want to let us go.”

If Lev had waited another two weeks he could have taken his captors on the road with him. On January 11th Budi Atmadi, chief of relief operations, announced that all foreign journalists travelling outside Meulaboh or the capital Banda Aceh must seek accompaniment by a military escort.

Indonesian media law is complex and contradictory. Recent legal reforms have introduced some protections for free expression, but most of the Soeharto-era laws are still in force – including sections that punish criticism of public officials with heavy jail terms. In Aceh this situation became even more restrictive when the government introduced martial law after peace talks broke down in 2003. Under martial law the local military commander was given the authority to censor, ban or close publications. Indonesian journalists were required to obtain a license to report in Aceh, and some were harassed, arrested, or physically assaulted for critical coverage.

Because martial law is still in force, it is difficult to understand the real balance of power between the provincial administration, the military, and Jakarta-based officials such as the chief of relief operations. Inconsistent enforcement means that journalists don’t really know what they can get away with. Michael Lev was first told that he was to be deported, but was then released by a military intelligence officer. “The whole situation was handled informally and arbitrarily by high-ranking generals” said Lev.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters without Borders, and the International Federation of Journalists have taken up the case of Michael Lev and Handewi Pramesti and publicised the incident through their networks. These groups, together with other organisations such as ARTICLE19 and Human Rights Watch, have lobbied the Indonesian government to drop all restrictions on reporting in Aceh. They have also urged the United Nations and other international bodies to put pressure on the Indonesian government to respect freedom of expression. Although the permit system and military escorts have not been dropped, the groups’ efforts may have had some influence. Media organisations have been ruled out of the upcoming ‘purge’ on April 27th, when foreign NGOs will have to pass a controversial government ‘screening’ process to be allowed to stay in the province.

Sources

Reporters without Borders, ‘Army steps up restrictions on foreign journalists in Aceh’, 27.01.05

CPJ Press Release, ‘Two journalists detained by military; three others prevented from reporting’, 14.01.05

Lev, Michael, Asia Pacific Media Network, ‘Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent detained, removed from Aceh city’, 14.01.05

Siboro & Saraswati, the Jakarta Post, ‘Government to screen foreign NGOs in Aceh’, 22.03.05

Aceh Kita, ‘Indonesia to limit foreign humanitarian organizations in Aceh’

I’ll never be a foreign correspondent. I seem to be getting the foreigner thing down pat, but fourteen months and three group emails after leaving Sydney, it’s looking like correspondence isn’t one of my strong points. Probably a good thing. Should cut down by around 300% my chances of being shot at, deported, or turning into a drunken chain smoker.

In not particularly chronological order, here are a few random things that have happened since I last wrote:

- I had some leave over Christmas - which left me free to spend a week on Atauro - an island I had gazed at all year from Dili harbour. I was thinking about staying there forever to read, swim with the pretty fishies, drink coconuts & eat pawpaw - until a bout of salmonella and a passing cyclone dampened my enthusiasm for isolated tropical paradises.

It took three tries before Atauro let us go. On the first attempt our overloaded fishing boat turned back after two hours battling 3-4 meter swells. Still can’t decide who was more unimpressed - me, or the live chickens tied to the front mast. You don’t know the meaning of disgruntled until you have gazed into the eyes of a cold, wet chicken waiting for its next drenching. Amazingly they managed to look more pissed off than the 80-year old filmmaker sitting next to me, who grinned his head off, holding onto the mast as waves crashed over us. The guy even threw up cheerfully.

We eventually made it back without any men, women, chickens, or 80-year old filmmaker’s crutches washing overboard, so I didnt have to put my contingency what-if-we-sink plan into action (lucky really, since it involved swimming around with my mobile above my head looking for a signal to sms channel 9 & vote myself off the island). We waited a day for the swells to go down, & amused ourselves by writing ‘how about a lift?’ in 10-foot letters on the beach - just in case any UN helicopter pilots felt like picking up hitchhikers on their way back from rice deliveries. The following morning a campful of salmonella sufferers woke up at 3am to catch the boat over the reef at high tide. The boat, however had other ideas. The boat (complete with chickens) arrived at 4am, so we got stranded on the coral reef & walked back to shore. Living in Timor has made me a lot more relaxed about time. We finally made it back to Dili at 4pm on the 24th December, happy that visions of spending Christmas day in a low-budget version of Survivor had been averted.

- I finally managed my first grammatically correct sentence in Tetum. Up on stage at a protest about Australia’s policy on the oil & gas in the Timor Sea. Better late than never I guess. I was then very surprised to find bits of my speech on TV TL & the front covers of both newspapers. ‘Australian activist apologises’ (sorry being one of the few words in my tetum vocab…& the one I thought least likely to come out of the mouths of any of the more official representatives of my country). A few people recognised my name from the coverage, & asked me whether I wasn’t scared that my government would arrest me or stop me returning to Australia. I don’t think Howard’s resorted to detaining protesters yet, but then I’m a little out of touch with Australian news. Actually, now that I think about it the idea kinda appeals. I could become an Australian asylum seeker getting turned away from Timor - nice, as long as they didnt decide to keep me on Atauro while they processed my claim. Not a totally unforseeable outcome actually, since Timor’s new Immigration & Asylum law reads like a Ruddock wet-dream. Foreigners can be deported for pretty much anything involving political expression or participation. Of course, that means I could legally have been deported from three countries in the last three months - four if you count the time I tried to contact the publishers of banned books in Singapore & freaked out a backpacker with my observations on how Singapore was a little like Brave New World on speed… Still. At least I didnt get kidnapped, shot at, or arrested, much to my mother’s surprise.
In April I said goodbye to my job at Internews. I got a big tais cloth, and a speech from an MP I used to hassle from time to time, who decided to invite himself to the staff farewell & pay me backhanded compliments - like that he knew I must be a very hard worker because every time I saw him I gave him piles of documents to read. (I think this might have been a reference to all the times he’d tried to convince me that no law would ever get past the council of ministers if it was more than a few pages long - because none of them would get around to reading it. I wonder if this same principle is at work in the Australian legislative process).
- I spent two and a half months gallivanting around Indonesia & Malaysia. Half-holiday, half a DIY course in feature writing & self-indulgent research on everything I’m interested in - like creative activism & political arts projects & unusual media. I interviewed dozens of people involved in independent/community/alternative media in Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Denpasar and Kuala Lumpur (didn’t really get out of the cities much). Now I’m procrastinating over my self-appointed story deadlines (the problem with being my own supervisor is that my sense of timing is about as reliable as an Atauro fishermans - see above). Head full of ideas & people I want to meet again. I’m still amazed by how many complete strangers went out of their way to help me find stories, meet people & have fun. In Bali I stayed with the owners of Latitudes magazine, in Jakarta a bunch of activists helped me fill my schedule with protests, performances, & boozy political arguments, in Bandung I stayed in an amazing small bookshop/media arts centre, in KL my home was an independent art studio in Pandan Indah.

Travelling by yourself is a headtrip, especially when you can’t rely on the convenient label of tourist to instruct you on how you should be spending your endless free time. Instead of significant piles of stone, all the sights I saw were indy bookshops & arts centres & protests & NGO offices. I spent a lot of time in cafes, doodling with ideas on the spunky new laptop I bought myself in Jakarta. It is shiny & powerful & smooth - the exact opposite of its owner, dragging thonged feet from street to street & hacking up Jakarta’s smog from my lungs. (I havent worn shoes for a year. I almost forget that covered footwear existed, until I got turned away from Raffles for the lack of it by a very polite man in a very white suit.) A friend told me that someone was making a post-apocalyptic movie set in Jakarta. This makes a lot of sense. In Jakarta you get the feeling that a nuclear holocaust would bring nothing more than a temporary break in traffic. The sun never actually rises there - at some point the sky changes from fluorescent brown to dirty grey, & you figure its daytime - although you’re never really quite sure.

I’m finally homesick! I was on the bus from KL to Singapore (which is not so much a country as a giant shopping mall), staring out the window at dramatic scenes of palm-covered mountains lit up with lightning, and all I could think about was how much I wanted to see a dirt brown aussie paddock - complete with barbed wire, half-dead eucalypts, & cowpats. I must be mad.

A friend sent me the following article. It provides an excellent backgrounder to my next project - travelling through East Timor, Indonesia & Malaysia profiling independent and community media makers.

Doors close on free press
Guardian Online, Thursday January 1, 2004

A former Vietnamese journalist, Nguyen Vu Binh, who used the internet to criticise his country’s government is sentenced to seven years in a trial closed to foreigners. Zaw Thet Htwe, the editor-in-chief of Burma’s First Eleven Sports Journal is sentenced to death for alleged treason after he published a story about the reported misuse of an international donation to promote football in the military-run nation.

One of Indonesia’s most prominent news magazines, Tempo, is being constantly victimised by the courts after it wrote several critical articles about a powerful businessman with close ties to the ruling elite. Meanwhile a senior editor at the Rakyat Merdeka newspaper is sentenced to six months for approving
headlines that, amongst other things, likened President Megawati Sukarnoputri to diesel fuel.

The Philippine press appears free, but more journalists are being killed than ever before and few thorough investigations have been made into their deaths.

Meanwhile in Thailand, the creeping authoritarianism of the prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, and his party cronies is taking its toll. They are steadily increasing their control over the country’s media - with the latest conquest being interests run by a cabinet minister taking a controlling stake in one of
the most critical news organisations, the Nation Media Group.

There has been little to cheer about elsewhere in the region in the last few months. The new Malaysian prime minister, Abdullah Badawi, has put his own people in charge of the sycophantic mainstream media while the most critical news outlet, the website Malaysiakini has an unresolved year-long police
investigation hanging over it.

Despite government claims of a new openness, few Singaporeans are brave enough to speak out. One young filmmaker who made a movie about teenage gangs was dumbfounded to have it banned for reasons of “national security”, while almost everyone I interviewed on a recent trip to the island republic pleaded to be quoted in a positive light as they feared Big Brother’s seemingly ubiquitous reach.

Lin Nuemann, a regional adviser to the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists, says his organisation’s forthcoming annual report is going to be pessimistic about the state of press freedom in the region. “What we’re saying is that virtually every place is getting worse,” he said. “Although you can’t really say Burma is getting worse, because it’s not got far to go.”

This is all a far cry from the optimism that swept the region six-and-a-half years ago following the Asian financial crisis that mushroomed into political turmoil in several places, most notably Indonesia.

The crisis prompted a sweeping liberalisation of the press in Indonesia and significant moves elsewhere. But that momentum has dissipated and is now going into reverse. The open window that allowed a fresh wind to blow through the region’s media is being steadily closed.

In a recent survey of global press freedom in 166 nations, Reporters Sans Fronti貥s ranked south-east Asia’s media as follows: Cambodia (81), Thailand (82), Malaysia (104), Indonesia (110), the Philippines (118), Singapore (144), Vietnam (159), Laos (163) and Burma (164). “The elites are regrouping and there’s much less patience for a vibrant free press now,” Mr Neumann said.

The CPJ is most disturbed about Indonesia, according to Mr Neumann, where the pendulum appears to have swung most dramatically. “You have a combination of military and national security pressures and a not very well-organised court system,” he said. “If it means an organisation like Tempo gets scared then you know the situation is serious.”

What’s worrying analysts and diplomats around the region is that with elections due in Indonesia (both parliamentary and the first ever direct presidential poll), Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines this year and a probable change of prime minister in Singapore, the room for alternative opinions to receive a fair airing is becoming increasingly limited.

The status quo is almost certainly going to remain, if not become more entrenched, in Malaysia and Thailand. Meanwhile the gun culture is so strong in the Philippines that no one will be surprised if journalists start to pull punches. Indonesia is a different situation, where anything could happen,
although journalists know that no one will be on their side in the likely event that the politicians start playing dirty as the stakes mount.

Little change is expected elsewhere. Amnesty International is unsurprisingly gloomy after its recent, second, visit to Burma, while organisations such as Forum Asia are not holding out much hope for reform in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Email
john.aglionby@guardian.co.uk

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

Dylan Thomas

I think of these lines sometimes when I see Timor, struggling to rise under the weight of centuries of history. No one should have to carry that much history on his back. The evening before the anniversary of the Santa Cruz massacre I asked a friend if he had gone to the rally in 1991 – no, he was sick that day. His friend called him, asked him if he was coming, and he said, no, I’m not well, better just to stay home. And he never saw that friend again. I think about days when I’ve missed rallies – No Tom, I’m not coming to the bridgewalk, if I don’t hand this assignment in tomorrow I’ll fail. I wonder what I would have done if our army shot Tom and two hundred others that day for the crime of standing around in public saying how nice it would be to respect human rights for a change.

The sense I get from people in Timor is like the stories people tell of the last world war – the living hell of it, the way that it invaded every aspect of your life. I think that maybe these people will have the same invisible thread that binds them together, and separates them from the rest of the world. Like old men in retirement homes who have their own world of trenches, Spitfires, M1s, that can never be shared with the young. Except, I think, except, that when those old men were young soldiers they knew they were heroes at home, had green fields to dream of and Doris and Betty and Barbara waiting to tell them how proud they were. Students out getting themselves shot on the streets, guerrillas in the forest – they could only face years of unrelenting fear, fear that invaded your house in the middle of the night wearing black ninja clothes & sneering at you in your own language. No warm untouched homeland for the independence fighters of Timor. They are living in the wreckage even now.

The enemy has fled, and there’s not a whisper of reparations. Times have changed, and now economic necessity dictates to the Ramos Hortas of the world that they not make too much fuss about the need to try the perpetrators of crimes against humanity. Half of those perpetrators still hold office in the Indonesian army, and their host is a neighbour and a trading partner, so not a word of International Criminal Courts if you please.

Could they have the right idea, these diplomats? Humanity was so sinned against last century that there’s probably enough material for court cases to last well into the next. Any number of hands that signed the papers of destruction have turned since to other kinds of work. Who am I, who talk of the need for our own justice system to focus on rehabilitation rather than retribution, to be baying for the punishment of certain TNI generals? Turning the other cheek can be refreshing when you compare it to bending over backwards… which I’ve seen a lot of in my own country of late.

Still, when Xanana took himself to Bali to embrace Wiranto in a photo-opportunity of absolution, I found my disappointment a little hard to swallow. Pragmatism is one thing - but actively supporting a presidential candidate who had command responsibility for years of massacres? My disappointment was shared by many - friends who lost family members to the TNI find it hard to forgive those who have never acknowledged their own culpability.

I think that I will never really understand what it is like to be Timorese, never really know. Just like I will never have organic knowledge of what it is like to be working class, or black, or a man. And I wonder what is this western middle-class obsession with otherness, with collecting the experiences of people on the other side of the world with a focus of attention that we would never waste on our own suburbs. Why don’t I write about Randwick, about Randwick Man, who squats in the streets wearing five jackets at once, unwashed hair matted like a saddhu, smoking rollies and not looking at anyone? About the woman carrying far too many groceries for the frailness of her back, home to Kynaston Avenue?

Knowing. I’ve been reading Janet Frame’s The Carpathians, and I worry that there’s something of myself in Mattina Brecon, a privileged woman wandering the world in search of memories and authenticity. A naive desire ‘to know, to really know’ the people in the places she visits, and just as strong a desire not to know the people sleeping in the alleyway of her apartment block in New York. The parallel makes me uncomfortable. But then – what can you do if you’re born with all the head starts the world can provide – shut your eyes & turn into America? Moan that no one really understands you & what’s the point of it all anyway? Indulge in existential crisis & question the meaning of meaning? Bemoan the fact that you can’t figure out what you want to do with your life? Develop expensive drug habits?

I come from a generation who were told to eat their greens because there were children starving in Africa. Most of us remember asking at some point why we couldn’t post our lima beans to Ethiopia, if the kids there wanted them so much? How would eating crappy vegetables keep them from starving? I’m starting to think that, metaphorically at least, that’s not such a stupid question. Maybe it does help – maybe by treating our own privileges with respect we at least become aware that we have them. And then, maybe it doesn’t. Maybe if you live in a parallel universe you would do well to remember it - and refrain from insulting those on the wrong side of the development tracks with the idea that your own minute sacrifices are somehow an act of solidarity. Or worse…travelling there yourself to bestow leftovers of western wisdom like so many food packages.

What am I saying here? I dont know. I remember chilling out with a friend in a park in Jaipur, India. We were approached by a student, who sat down next to us for a chat - an effortless violation of all Western notions of privacy and conversational foreplay. He started to ask us the usual twenty questions - where were we from, how long had we been in India…

…what did we study?

Comparative Development

A straightening of the spine. A slow intake of breath.

GO DEVELOP YOUR OWN COUNTRY.

Two startled Aussie backpackers, protesting that they were just trying to learn, had no intention of trying to develop his country, or anyone else’s for that matter.

…several years later, as I sit in my air-conditioned office, I have to ask myself whether the man in the park would approve of what I am doing with my time - and with USAID’s development money. It’s still an open question.

This is an extract from my last group email home. I’m currently working in Timor Lorosae for an international media-training NGO (East Timor has a new name based on its national language - Tetum. Lorosae means ‘east’ but is based on the words for the rising of the sun. Seems appropriate for a new country). I started out with four months at the daily newspaper The Timor Post and am now working on media law issues.

I’m at something of a loss on how to describe my year since May. It’s not the sort of story that falls naturally into an inverted pyramid (that was for all you media/comms students … yes, I can now regurgitate journalism 1001 on demand. Not sure if that is a perk or an occupational hazard). I spent a total of four months working full-time with the Timor Post (well, approximately full time. As long as you don’t include all the hours spent daydreaming, having long lunches, gossiping with the journos, or composing rap lyrics in my head). After spending a few weeks helping organise a conference on media law in Timor, I’m now (temporarily) my NGO’s media law girl. I’m still a bit uncomfortable with my lack of experience. And I’m thoroughly itchy about getting paid almost as much as a UN Volunteer – which of course means that now I really cant get away with pretending to be slumming it. If there is a Man out there in the vast international gorgon that is my NGO (I’m not including its name because I just discovered that’s against HQ policy) , then I’m probably working for him. But I’m enjoying this work. Every now and then the theoretical pointlessness of nine-to-five desk jobs in general gets me down, but then some politician or other gets caught with his commitment to press freedom around his ankles, & my work seems meaningful once more.

Apart from the heat, and the palm tree I can see out my window, my office at the moment is indistinguishable from any fluorescent-lit box in Sydney. But I can feel the difference - like a warm glow at the base of the spine. Dili is dusty, steaming, semi-destroyed, with pigs in the streets, demonic traffic, & architecture that reminds me of a cubist sculpture rolled in white paint and dipped in mud. Sometimes it is easy to imagine that it was a cyclone – not militia violence – that flattened this town in 1999. The whole town has an air of being too concerned with the business of recovery to worry about things like grass, gastronomy, or aesthetics. But somehow Dili reaches its dirty fingers into my mind & untangles the knots & snarls it finds.

In case my continued absence hadn’t already made this point - I really don’t want to come home. Why was it that everyone else but me knew I would be here for longer than three months? I can’t quite describe the sensation. Imagine a feeling almost entirely unlike homesickness and you’ll probably be part of the way there. My lack-of-homesickness started as a polite whisper in the back of my mind & is now yelling with more enthusiasm than a guest on Jerry Springer. My desire not to move back to Sydney could probably get work as an aggressive personal trainer - to one of those masochistic rich people who wear designer sweatbands and don’t breed out of the captivity of large cities.

Dili is polluted, and the ecologically healthy habit of growing vegetables in raw sewage only slightly reduces this fact (in Dili, only the brave are vegetarian). It’s messy, smelly & doesn’t have any good cafes – and now that the wet season is approaching, I’ve finally learnt that there are limits to my love for humidity. That limit kicked in at around the point where I started to think I could actually feel the weight of suspended water in the air adding to the air pressure. It’s like the universe suddenly discovered a newer, wetter form of gravity.

But for me Dili has been: riding everywhere on a bicycle; doing yoga in the mornings & meeting up with people to play frisbee on the beach in the evenings; practicing Taikwando on my roof at sunset; & having long Sunday brunches at friends’ houses. In the absence of a decent library or bookshop I’ve been writing more than I have in years. In the absence of decent music I meet up with friends for jam sessions that last for hours.

I could (and probably should) have made all those things happen back home with the aid of a tightropewalker-esque sense of balance. But, despite my childhood wish to join the circus, the balance of tightrope walkers seems to be eluding me. So in the absence of balance, and the frustrating persistence of gravity – I’ve become somewhat attached to a new form of artificially-induced relaxation. I’m addicted to the influence of place. Being so focused on the work of reconstruction & survival, Dili is not the sort of city that goes out of its way to entertain visitors - the construction of cinema’s, funky cafes & nightclubs is further down on the list of priorities than roads, schools, & hospitals.

I once listened to a lecture by English Professor Bruce Johnson that talked about the importance of writing as a way of reminding us that we can be cultural producers as well as cultural consumers. We have become so used to living in a ‘productised’ world that we can find it hard to think of anything - even how we ’spend’ our free time - except through our identity as a consumer.

I feel like I can live a more balanced, relaxed life in East Timor - a poverty-stricken, post-conflict society where you still cannot safely catch a taxi by yourself after dark - than I can in Sydney. And I think that maybe this is because the absence of opportunities for a consumption-based lifestyle has allowed me to rediscover the ability for DIY culture. Sans packaging, ticketing, or options for lay-by purchase. To plagiarise EE Cummings, I have escaped ‘the Land of Just Add Water and Serve.’

In this place my mind trails behind me in a haze of philosophy. This is mainly due to the fact that nearly everyone I have met here – from taxi drivers and waiters to politicians, journalists & business people – GIVES A SHIT about the place they live in. They think about their city & their country. They think about its future & its past. They think about its environment, its schools, its laws, its economy, its media, its culture, its identity, even (gasp) its politics. Heaven. I wonder if this kind of energy can be attained any other way. Do you need to lose a quarter of your population to an illegal occupier before you realize that every decision we make as individuals has a wider impact? That democracy is a precious, fragile thing that must be guarded vigilantly in order to be maintained?

Being thoroughly happy where I am, I have of course started to spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about where I will go next. And I’ve been thinking that maybe the next thing I want to do is spend six months travelling through South-East Asia interviewing & profiling people involved in independent & community media. I think maybe it might be kinda interesting to contrast Australia – where independent media makers talk about the ‘death of investigative journalism’, with Asia – where a few very brave people talk about the death of investigative journalists. Between a country just about to remove its last legal protections against monopoly of the media – and countries where they are just beginning to find ways of getting around the laws that ensured government monopoly of the media. Not sure what I’ll do with all that writing - maybe whack it together on a useful website, or use it as the basis of a thesis. If anyone wants to put me on assignment (pick a country, pick a medium) - then let me know. See my posts under ‘ideas & projects’ for more on this.

href=”http://www.easttimorpress.com”
href=”http://www.internews.org/regions/seasia/easttimor.htm”>

27.06.03 - Victims hearing in Cailaco. serious crimes:

“This is what they did to my hands. They put stones between my fingers, and then they took two hands, and crushed them, like this. They broke my fingers. I still can’t use them properly.” His hands were shaking so much he could no longer hold the microphone. One of the women from the local truth & reconciliation branch brought a glass of water, and held the mic for him. The other victims had started their stories with context, ‘I was at my house and the TNI (Indonesian army) came at midnight…’, ‘It was 1999 and the militia came to Cailaco, so my family and I hid in the forest.’ Not this one though. There was something about the way he went straight to the most traumatic part of his story, and then had to stop, that made even the hardened staff of the Serious Crimes Unit sit up & pay attention.

The victims hearing in Cailaco was the first time I had seen any Timorese person express emotion about their experiences. On my first day at the Timor Post I met a fiery district reporter from Ermera who told me, briefly, that before becoming a journalist he was a member of the resistance, & had been arrested and beaten by the Indonesians. At a party in a beachside restaurant, I was in the middle of a fascinating discussion about the perils of dating feminists when the conversation suddenly turned, and my friend began to tell me, calmly, about the time militia members shot his brother in the throat in 1999. He jabbed his finger at his throat to illustrate the point, and his face was unreadable.

Given that around half of Timor’s intellectuals were tortured by the Indonesians at some point, I probably shouldn’t be surprised by this sort of story. But no amount of abstract knowledge can prepare you for the moment when you look at someone and think, f*ck, how the hell did you manage to stay sane? How do you go to work, and look after children, and work on your masters thesis, and sit around laughing and playing bad guitar (often all in the one day)? When does history tap you on the shoulder and say, okay mate, that’s enough – its time for your breakdown now – feel free to fall apart?

Timor moment…I hear the sound of laughing in the corridor & wander out to find the head of the Circulation Department giving a slapstick rendition of the time the Indonesian police threatened him when he worked at the former national newspaper, Suara Timor Timur. “Hey you – you’re pro Independence!” he says, in gutteral tones, holding an imaginary gun under his chin…to roars of laughter from the journos, hanging out in the foyer on plastic chairs. Raucous.

For my first three weeks in Timor I stayed in Santa Cruz - I only realised at the end of the second week that the cemetery up the road was the site of the Dili massacre in 91. Now I pass it every day on the way to work. Its strange - Dili feels so normal somehow, I’m almost disturbed by how comfortable I feel here. And yet on every block there’s a burned-out building, and everyone has a story of survival. People play guitars on the rooftops of ruins, hang out chatting on charcoaled verandas in the evenings. It’s amazing how quickly you get used to it, how easy it is to forget how all that happened. And then out comes the history, bubbling to the surface like the methane in the drains.

You will say - history is tall, has whiskers,
And stoops when he wheezes ‘good day, young lady’
I’ll turn: History has a face like an old man & the sea
His tears are yellow, his eyes red,
staring into nothing when the storm comes.
History holds a microphone with shaking fingers, says
‘this is what they did to my hands’
he receives a ceremonial sash, and history is buried
alive, under frangipanis in a ceremony of remembrance

History is alive and waves by the wayside as we sashay
by in trucks stocked chock-full of reconstructed lives
to be delivered, in instalments, to his waiting children.
History swallows dust along with the best
of intentions
which have a mild diuretic effect.

“First there was Portuguese time. Then there was Indonesian time. After 1999, we call it UN time”
“So when is Timor time?”
“I don’t know. Maybe now I think.”

I am breaking all the rules of good journalism. A good journalist does research and finds reliable sources. A good journalist is objective, fair and balanced. A good journalist does not quote people without their permission, or use unsubstantiated information. But given the fact that I’m not a journalist, & this site is more like an extended letter home than a media outlet, I figure I’ll get away with it.

I am writing this from the gravy train on the wrong side of the development tracks, in the country formerly known as Timor Timur. I’ve joined an army of NGO workers, volunteers, UN employees, tanned ex-pat bar managers, and international soldiers in an ever-shrinking international community. Sometimes Dili’s ex-pat scene has the feeling of a house the morning after a big party - a few hungover stragglers eating leftovers or mopping up the mess. Now that the media spotlight has moved on & the UN presence faded, I think it has become a little easier to see the huge impact that an ‘international rescue’ has on a country’s culture, economy, and politics. When I watch the last dregs of media hype about Iraq, or think back to post ‘Operation Infinite Justice’ Afghanistan, I can’t help making comparisons with Timor - and wondering who will be left in Iraq to do the metaphorical dishes in three years time. Timor, at least, has the advantage of a small population, a picturesque landscape, an eloquent and popular president. And of course the significant bonus of not being Muslim – in these times that makes people feel so much more comfortable about a place. No matter how secular we think we’ve become, the fact is that most westerners feel far less alienated in a country with a Christian background – it’s right up there with flushing toilets in the hierarchy of comfort factors.

It’s easy to get comfortable in Dili – so many bars catering to ex-pat tastes, supermarkets full of imported food, mobiles in every ex-pat hand, air conditioned offices for every ex-pat body – well, at least the US-funded bodies. The bodies belonging to people who don’t work for the UN, the World Bank, or rich NGO’s are easy to spot – they’re the ones with the big dark sweat patches on their backs as they cycle or walk around town. On my first day here I spent more time in air-conditioned cars than I had in the last five years. Sometimes I wonder if there’s identical bars in Baghdad, full of Aussie ex-pats swilling gin and tonics like they need the quinine, & watching the footy like they never left home.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m just cynical by way of self-protection. Or perhaps it’s the principle of the thing. I understand that the West is richer than the rest. I understand that the rapid recovery & development of a decimated economy requires foreign aid, and that the population of Timorese people with skills in the administration of development projects is (so far) smaller than the number of projects that need to be implemented. I understand that internationals will therefore be brought in, and that in order to attract them you may have to offer them wages that are roughly comparable with what they’d earn in their own country. But if you are going to be working in the ‘developing’ world earning 5, 10, 20 times as much as a local policeman or teacher earns in a month, then for god’s sake (says the voice in the back of my head), at least have the decency to feel uncomfortable about it. I’ve always been suspicious of the ‘it is the way it is so why think about it’ mentality – I’m concerned that if I stopped thinking about it I might start to see it as natural, inevitable, that I am paid more & live in a better house than my Timorese co-workers. I’m concerned that I could become like the UN employees who receive 95 US dollars a day just as a living allowance on top of their wage. Employees who almost went on strike last year because the UN, in an attempt to cut costs, proposed reducing their very ample wages by $30 a month.

I know that compared with say, the US government, the UN is a paragon of all lefty virtues, but some of the behaviour I’ve come across here has been profoundly disturbing. An Aussie volunteer was sitting at a table with a few NGO workers, one of them Timorese, plus one of the highest UN officials in the country. This worthy fellow leaned across the table & said to the Timorese bloke, “You - you’re just another fucking lazy Timorese, just like the rest of them…(to the rest of the table) Huh – put him in his place didn’t I?” No shit. This happened. And we wonder why Westerners aren’t universally popular and admired in the developing world.

Timor has to have the most fascinating graffiti of any country I’ve visited. It’s a bit of a step up from the Shazza loves Dazza classics at my local bus stop. Some of the efforts from 99 are still around “Welcome Interfet, militia No Way”, “we love you multinasional force”, “freedom from brutality”, “thankyou Australian Army.” You’d think they were written for a UN PR brochure. For me, the fading painted love-letters to the international community act as a constant reminder that we have a hell of a lot to live up to. We have an obligation to get the combination of hands-on support and hands-off facilitation just right. I’m not sure that we’ve reached that balance yet. But then, it’s a little hard to balance when you’re full of G&Ts.