Hidden in the wind
By Carmela Baranowska
"There's history remaining in the grass, or hidden in the wind, or tossing behind the waves" — from Eyewitness: Protest Stories from Indonesia by Seno Gumira Ajidarma.
In March 1995, I returned to Melbourne after 10 months documenting the lives of the Karen ethnic minority group in Burma. The Karen have been fighting the world's longest running civil war. There are more than 1 million internally displaced Karen in eastern Burma and more than 100,000 in Thai refugee camps. But even when forced into a corner, the Karen refuse to turn their face to the wall.
Back in Melbourne, I found another political crisis closer to home. East Timorese asylum seekers were also experiencing great fear and uncertainty about their future. The Australian government had refused to grant 1300 of them refugee status.
The East Timorese were regarded as Portuguese, even though the Australian government deems the land and minerals of East Timor to be Indonesian.
Concerned Australians quickly mobilised to form the Sanctuary Network, offering safe houses to prevent asylum seekers' deportation. There are now more than 10,000 Australians in this network. Observers quickly drew parallels between Harriet Tubman's "underground railroad", or the people who hid Jews during World War II, or the sheltering of draft resisters during the Vietnam War.
These events directly inspired my 21-minute documentary Hidden in the Wind. I wanted to make connections, both real and symbolic. "In order to see", according to an East Timorese saying, "one's eyes must truly be open".
Seno Gumira Ajidarma is an Indonesian short-story writer whose work moved me when I first read it a few years ago. His stories, collected in Eyewitness, are about East Timor. However, as a result of censorship in Indonesia, he never mentions the occupied province by name. He represents the dissident Indonesian perspective. In my film I wanted to examine an Australian equivalent.
I also wanted to ask my audience to imagine the impossible: a free and independent East Timor. The Australian government has always told us that this will never happen; sections of the Australian media and business interests have agreed.
Today, 20,000 Indonesian soldiers patrol East Timor. Murder, torture and rape are common. Since 1975, the Australian government has been complicit in this act of modern-day genocide. It is the only government in the world to recognise the illegal occupation of East Timor.
Hidden in the Wind begins sometime in the future. After many years of Indonesian occupation, East Timor is finally independent. The film-maker's archival footage is sought by the new government.
The footage begins in 1997, unfolding around issues of deportation, where the stakes are extremely high. We meet Etervina Groenen, a brave East Timorese woman who works with the asylum seekers. She declares that if the asylum seekers are sent back to East Timor, they will face certain death.
Cliff Morris, a former soldier in the Australian army who fought in East Timor during World War II, speaks next. Morris' cry from the heart recounts the brutal murder of Timorese friends by the Japanese after the Australians left.
That Morris found out 30 years later what happened to those he left behind in East Timor makes his testimony even more poignant. He represents the Australian conscience. "How can you repay people for your life?", he asks.
Dili, 1975. Demonstrations herald independence from Portugal, the old colonial power. People wave Fretilin flags and wait in expectation and hope. "Can you even begin to tell me what happened to these people after the invasion?", the narrator inquires.
Dili, 1991. The Santa Cruz massacre. After the Indonesian invasion in late 1975, people who gather peacefully are shot down brutally, echoes of events in World War II. For the first time, a video camera records the tragedy. An Indonesian soldier shoots at the camera. A demonstrator dies in front of our eyes.
Images of everyday life before the invasion: the beautiful stilt houses which the East Timorese were forced to leave, close-up shots of villagers who were probably killed a few years later. We learn that the Indonesian and Australian governments have signed the East Timor Gap Oil Treaty and that when East Timor achieves its independence, it will recoup millions of dollars in lost earnings as a form of compensation.
Henrique Lay, an East Timorese asylum seeker, revisits the ground where the Australian soldiers trained before they went to East Timor in 1942. The landscape is similar to that in East Timor, and we share the same flora. On the highest mountains of East Timor, you can see the lights of northern Australia.
In a time of great need, it is Australians' responsibility to repay the debt of honour we owe the East Timorese.
Hidden in the Wind will screen in Melbourne as part of the Bridge, and in Sydney at the Asia Pacific Solidarity Conference (see pages 30-31 for details). To obtain or distribute the film, telephone (03) 9534 7026.