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Anita Levin: Your
first photographs of East Timor were taken in 1974.
What drew you to a country that many people in the
West had barely heard of?
Elaine
Brière: I
was traveling with a friend, following the "hippie
trail," and intending to visit a number of
countries in Southeast Asia. We were looking for
exotic places that were not too westernized - a
reflection of the anti-capitalist sentiment of the
times. While in Australia, East Timor was
recommended to us. We had never heard of it as very
few westerners had traveled there. We arrived by
small plane and landed on a dirt airstrip in, what
seemed like, the middle of nowhere. We found a
beautiful country with its indigenous culture still
fully intact. East Timor had been a Portuguese
colony for many years but the colonization had
little impact on the people's way of life. There
was a trading post in the capital, Dili, but the
Portuguese had not really penetrated the interior.
The Timorese had a long history of resisting malai
(foreigners). We only stayed for two weeks, but had
I known then what I learned later in my travels, I
would have stayed much longer. I didn't fully
appreciate the beauty and specialness of the
country and people until we had moved on to
Indonesia and Thailand, where western influences
were so much greater. In these countries, the
people had, for the most part, lost their old way
of life - the economic base had changed, and the
people seemed to have lost a sense of confidence in
their traditions. East Timor had remained much more
isolated and had fully retained its own culture and
subsistence farming economy.
AL: Can you briefly describe the illegal and brutal
occupation by Indonesia and the effect it had on
the people of East Timor by the time you were able
to return in 2000, twenty-six years
later.
EB:
When I was there in
April 1974 the Carnation Revolution had just taken
place in Portugal and the imperialist
Salazar-Caetano government had been overthrown.
This was a big turning point for the people of East
Timor, as they thought they would regain
independence. However, on December 7, 1975,
Indonesia launched a brutal land, sea, and air
invasion, which, by their own definition, was
referred to as the "blitzkrieg." Their slogan for
the invasion was "Breakfast at Dili, lunch at
Baucau"! The terror tactics used and the sheer
brutality of the invaders was beyond imagination.
Some of the people fled from the city to the
hillsides but many stayed and were wholly
unprepared for the level of violence that ensued.
There were no military targets; there was just
indiscriminant killing. The troops ran amok,
gunning people down in the streets and lobbing
grenades into the houses. When the people would
offer food to the troops to placate them, the
Indonesians would take what was offered, then kill
them. The troops were poorly paid and their reward
for service was what they could plunder.
Indonesia justified the invasion to the West by
portraying it as an anti-communist campaign. East
Timor's ruling, populist, Fretilin party did have a
Marxist element to it, but that was quite common in
those days. The people of East Timor had
historically worked on a co-operative model of
agriculture. There had been a brief civil war
before the invasion but there are always quibbling
elements during the formation of a new independent
state. In fact, Indonesia had fomented unrest by
bribing one of the political parties to attack
Fretilin. Indonesia invaded on the pretext of
stopping a civil war, but this brief unrest had
been over for months. Fretilin was running the
country very competently, and overseas aid
organizations had given the government very high
marks for their progress.
The invasion bogged down very quickly after Dili
was devastated. The troops couldn't get beyond
Baucau into the interior. Though they had an
overwhelming advantage in terms of firepower, the
Timorese managed to fight back, using spears and
outdated weapons that the Portuguese had left
behind. By late 1976, there was a standstill. US
president Carter then lifted an arms embargo
against countries in conflict to make a special
sale to Indonesia. It received sixteen
counter-insurgency aircraft (the type used in
Vietnam) that could fly very low and proceeded to
drop defoliants and cluster bombs. It adopted a
scorched-earth policy that, of course, was highly
effective. The death toll was enormous. People had
to flee to the mountains; much of the farmland and
forest was destroyed. It was a strategy of
starvation.
No foreigners were allowed in until late 1978, when
the Red Cross was given access to try to deal with
the mass starvation taking place. In the meantime,
Indonesia set about exploiting what little
resources were left.
In 1980 the resistance recouped and attacked an
army base. This led to another campaign of terror,
and so continued the pattern, where, every two to
three years, another offensive was launched. Troops
would march through the villages and countryside,
forcibly recruiting male villagers, thus leaving
fewer and fewer people to plant crops; so the cycle
of starvation continued.
Very little of this information reached the outside
world. There was enormous pressure from human
rights groups to open the borders to outsiders. By
1989, more news started to trickle out, mostly
through Catholic Church avenues. But it wasn't
until the Dili massacre in 1991, where Indonesians
attacked students seeking safety in the churches,
that the Catholic Church became more active. This
became a turning point, when the Pope helped to
focus world attention on the atrocities taking
place. Amnesty International estimated that 200,000
had died by the end of the occupation - almost
one-third of the population.
AL: Your early
photographs have been exhibited in prestigious art
galleries around the world but have been most
widely viewed on posters, newsletters, and
magazines demanding military withdrawal of
Indonesia from East Timor. How did your photographs
come to be used as tools for
advocacy?
EB:
Basically, there
was nothing else available. There were a lot of
anthropologists that had taken photographs but they
were not active in the solidarity movement. It
wasn't until I met Noam Chomsky in 1985 that I
became involved. A friend had referred me to an
article of his on East Timor and when I contacted
him, he told me he would be coming to Victoria,
British Columbia, the very next week. I had no idea
at the time what a high profile he had. I attended
his lecture, met with him, and told him that I had
these photographs. He immediately put me in touch
with the human rights and solidarity networks
working on behalf of East Timor. I started getting
calls from people all over the world. They just
went nuts. They had a real lack of images. So for
about two years, it seemed that all I did was print
up photographs for the movement.
AL: What
approach do you take when creating a portrait
photograph?
EB:
People can be
nervous or hesitant when approached to have their
photograph taken. I try to be complimentary and
tell them how beautiful or interesting they are in
order to gain their confidence. It is an intuitive
approach. The subject has to be put at ease. You
can't spend too long setting up the shot or
adjusting your camera, or your subject will lose
interest.
AL: Which
photographers have influenced your
work?
EB:
I greatly admire
such photographers as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange,
Eugene Smith, Robert Frank and Robert Capa. Their
work was created from the 1940s to the 1960's. This
was the golden age of photography, before
television so greatly affected the work of
photojournalists.
AL: In 1986 you
were a founding member of the East Timor Alert
Network in Canada. How effective were its efforts
and those of other solidarity and international
human rights groups in advocating for freedom in
East Timor?
EB:
There was no
movement in Canada until I got involved. I began
lobbying groups on the west coast, particularly
groups dealing with Southeast Asia, like CUSO,
Canada World Youth, and Crossroads Canada, but I
found a real reluctance on their part to do
anything for East Timor. I would attend their
meetings, thinking they just needed to be educated
on what was happening there. I then learned that
these groups had huge contracts in Indonesia and so
didn't want to rock the boat.
I ran the network in the early years with Derek
Evans from the Canada-Asia Working Group and later,
Maureen Davies, a lawyer from Ottawa. David
Webster, who also worked on this book, became
involved in 1989. I did a lot of speaking on radio
stations, in church basements, and at college and
university events. We also handed out leaflets at
numerous Indonesian social and cultural events.
(Indonesia was a large trading partner of Canada
and held a number of promotional events.) Our
actions drew a lot of attention and certainly
contributed to harming Indonesia's image. There was
no one in Canada at the time to speak up for East
Timor (three Timorese students came here to attend
school after the Dili massacre in 1991). Church
groups would pay my way to go to New York to the UN
Decolonization Hearings every year. The UN was
really the forum that kept the East Timor issue
alive.
I believe that without the worldwide networks
advocating on its behalf, East Timor would not be
free today. The East Timorese continued,
determinedly, to resist throughout the occupation,
but without outside support, Indonesia would have
crushed them. The attention we drew, in a way,
created a holding pattern - it prevented Indonesia
from completely wiping out the East Timor
population, which they would have gladly done. The
international community was watching them. The
cause really touched people's imaginations and
their hearts. Look at this little tiny country. It
was a pure case of victimization. Nothing had been
done to provoke or deserve the devastation that
continued to take place. Even people on the
political right were sympathetic. It became a cause
that carried its own weight.
AL: What was
Canada's political position throughout the years of
Indonesian occupation?
EB:
See no evil. Hear
no evil. Speak no evil. The primary goal of Foreign
Affairs was to not offend Indonesia because it was
a major trading partner - the second largest Asian
trading partner after China. Indonesia was very
sensitive to outside criticism. Our government's
philosophy was one of constructive engagement. No
public criticism was to take place. This was viewed
as counterproductive. Normal relations were to be
maintained while quietly lobbying behind the
scenes. In fact, the Canadian government did little
in terms of backroom negotiations. It was only very
late in the game, when the US changed its policy
towards East Timor, that Canada started to apply
pressure.
AL: How did the
political position of the United States and
Australia influence the occupation?
EB:
They both supported
the occupation. Australia basically arranged it
with Indonesian president Suharto in order for
Australia to gain control over the rich oil
reserves in the Timor Sea. The US experienced a
good relationship with Indonesia and supported its
efforts to colonize smaller countries in the
region. It was a policy that was seen to promote
stability in the region. The US had a major
submarine route through the Ombai and Wetar Straits
just north of East Timor and Indonesia was fully
prepared to keep this route open for the US. Also,
large oil companies in the US have profited
tremendously from their interests in the oil
reserves in the Timor Sea.
AL: Can you
describe the scope of the contributing essays
included with your photographs?
EB:
Originally the book
was going to be composed mostly of photographs with
very little text. When Noam Chomsky sent a new
essay to be included, we developed the idea of
creating a more comprehensive book outlining the
recent history of the East Timor people. Most of
these essays were written by people I have worked
with over the years in our solidarity efforts and
whom I greatly admire. There are also essays by
East Timorese, of course, since this is their
story. They can best describe what took place
during the occupation and explain the current
challenges they face in rebuilding their country.
AL: How did it
feel to return to East Timor after twenty-six
years?
EB:
I was very
saddened, though not surprised, to see the awesome
devastation that had taken place. The core of Dili,
the capital city, was basically burned to the
ground. It was filled with crumbled buildings,
others charred with only the outside shell
standing. The Indonesians had taken their revenge
against the East Timorese for choosing
independence. There was little economic advance,
though this is not surprising, as the Indonesians
did nothing to support development there. It was
easier to get around, though, as the Indonesians
had built tarmac roads for military purposes.
But the East Timorese are a very resourceful and
self-reliant people. Although there are rice
shortages, there is, and always has been,
subsistence farming. Though working with inferior
land that was almost destroyed by the Indonesians,
the markets are full of vegetable, pigs and
chickens. The people are motivated workers,
enthusiastically rebuilding with seeds and
cement.
AL: How would
you describe the difference between the photographs
taken on your return visit and those from your
earlier trip?
EB:
On my earlier trip,
I didn't take as many photographs as I wish I had.
Portraits were my main style at that time. When I
returned I was more mature and experienced. I would
describe most of my later shots as action
photographs. They include more social comment and
depict the reality of the whole situation. People
are depicted in a context that tells a broader
story.
AL: What reaction are you hoping for from the
publication of East Timor:
Testimony?
EB:
I want people to
appreciate the resourcefulness and strength of the
people of East Timor. They have resisted occupation
for many decades, long before the Indonesia
occupation (including Portuguese colonization and
the Japanese invasion during the Second World War),
though this was by far the most brutal. They have
lost a whole generation of people and now have very
young, inexperienced, though determined, people
trying to establish strong economic, social, and
educational institutions. It will take a couple of
generations for this healing to take place.
The West betrayed, and continues to betray, through
its foreign policy, this tiny nation of people who
want only what we in the West have: freedom and
democracy. Indonesia remains a huge military
threat. I wish to remind the world that East Timor
is still out there - is still in our world - and
that they have huge problems to solve. More foreign
aid is required and peacekeeping troops are
necessary to assure their continued independence. I
wish to keep their history alive so that they will
have the opportunity to rebuild and
thrive.
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