Children of the Crocodile: The Australia-East Timor story
Passengers Gallery at the Australian National Maritime Museum, Darling Harbour, Sydney
9.30am-5pm Monday-Sunday until 2007
Visit <http://www.anmm.gov.au>
Children of the Crocodile is an exhibition exploring the historical relationship between Australia and East Timor.
Developed in collaboration with the East Timorese community and solidarity groups in Australia, the exhibition includes graphics by photographer Ross Bird, poetry by East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao and a crocodile lantern by artist Carmelita Gomes.
The exhibition includes a copy of one of the infamous letters air-dropped as Australian troops left East Timor during World War II. The letters promised, "Your friends will never forget you". Fifty-thousand East Timorese died under Japanese occupation.
Also on display is one of the original radios used by Australian-based supporters of Timor's independence struggle to contact FRETILIN fighters in East Timor after the 1975 Indonesian invasion. A large cross carried by Melbourne demonstrators after the 1991 Dili massacre and a cassette tape of Liberdade by Melbourne band the Dili Allstars also feature. These tapes were smuggled into Dili to East Timorese activists by Australian students and encouraged people to vote for freedom in 1999 ballot.
Love letters between Australian solidarity activist Kirsty Sword and Xanana Gusmao highlight the period of Gusmao's imprisonment. Sword, who fell in love with and eventually married Gusmao, smuggled correspondence between the political prisoner and his supporters.
An excerpt from Marsha Emerman's documentary Children of the Crocodile can also be viewed, which portrays the horrific rampage by Indonesian-backed militias following East Timor's 1999 independence ballot.
From Green Left Weekly, May 11, 2005.
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