Mother's quest for justice brings E. Timor to cinema
Mother's quest for justice brings E. Timor to cinema
By Jennifer Little
AUCKLAND (AFP): In 1991, New Zealander Helen Todd received the
phone call that every parent dreads. Far away in the troubled
Indonesian province of East Timor, her son Kamal had been shot.
His tragic death in a massacre at the hands of the Indonesian
military set Todd on a mission for justice that would span five
countries and take four years.
Her determined efforts culminated in a landmark legal case in
the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights against
Indonesian general Sintong Panjaitan under whose orders the Dili
massacre took place.
The poignant story of her pursuit for justice is the subject
of New Zealander film maker Annie Goldson's acclaimed documentary
Punitive Damage - a Mother's Trial, currently showing at cinemas
here.
As the world focuses on Indonesia's elections, New Zealand
audiences and film critics have been moved and shocked by the
extent of suffering and oppression the film reveals in not-too-
distant East Timor, which forms the backdrop for Kamal's story.
Goldson effectively entwines harrowing footage of the massacre
secretly shot by British cameraman Max Stahl, in which Kamal and
270 other East Timorese died, with numerous interviews and
reconstructions of the subsequent court hearing.
Already selected for film festivals around the world,
including Cannes, Munich and the Canadian International
Documentary Film Festival Hot Docs, the film will shortly open in
Australia.
Deals for the film to be released in other countries as a
television documentary are under way, Goldson says.
A veteran documentary maker whose work has taken her to
Northern Ireland, Guatemala, Nicaragua and the prison cells of
Black Panther activists in the United States, Goldson said she
found Helen Todd's story compelling and wanted to tell it in
full.
At its heart is Todd's exquisitely beautiful half-Malaysian,
half-New Zealand son, Kamal. A gentle idealist who grew up in
Malaysia and attended high school in New Zealand, he became
involved in Asian student politics while at university in Sydney.
His passionate devotion to the cause of freedom from
Indonesian rule for East Timor, which was invaded in 1975, led
him to the capital Dili in November 1991 on his second trip to
the province.
His letters to his family and teachers give an insight into
the horror of life in East Timor, whose plight has been largely
ignored compared with other world trouble spots.
Death camps, mass executions and torture have been all-too
regular occurrences in this former Portuguese colony where
200,000 people are said to have died from killings, famine and
disease since 1973.
The Dili massacre was sparked when a pro-Indonesian militia
turned on students conducting a memorial service for a young
comrade killed in the political unrest.
At the tail-end of the carnage, Kamal was shot in the back by
a military intelligence officer in a deserted Dili back street.
The court case Todd eventually brought in New York was
groundbreaking considering the inequity of the parties -- middle-
aged New Zealander versus General Panjaitan, blamed for mass
killings.
The case, brought on human rights grounds, resulted in a
Boston judge awarding Todd US$27 million, including $16 million
for punitive damages.
Todd, a journalist in Malaysia where she lived for 30 years,
says she pursued justice not just for Kamal but for the families
of the other 270 Timorese killed in the massacre. Although she
has not seen a cent of the money, she says she would give it all
to the Timorese.
Panjaitan, who fled the U.S. to Jakarta when court papers were
served, called the verdict "a joke."
He currently works as a senior advisor on security matters to
President B.J. Habibie.