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Timor-Leste’s ‘true hero’ cameraman Max Stahl who exposed Indonesian atrocities dies

In this video — one of several made while he was guest speaker at the Pacific Journalism Review’s 20th anniversary conference in Auckland — Max Stahl talks about the betrayal of West Papua. Video: Pacific Media Centre By Antonio Sampaio in Dili Max Stahl has died, almost 30 years after capturing images of the Indonesian

In this video — one of several made while he was guest speaker at the Pacific Journalism Review’s 20th anniversary conference in Auckland — Max Stahl talks about the betrayal of West Papua. Video: Pacific Media Centre

By Antonio Sampaio in Dili

Max Stahl has died, almost 30 years after capturing images of the Indonesian massacre at Santa Cruz cemetery in the Timor-Leste capital Dili, which helped change forever the course of the country’s struggle for independence.

By coincidence, he passed away on the same day as the death in 1991 of Sebastião Gomes, the young man who was buried in Santa Cruz and whose death led to the protest that would eventually end in the Santa Cruz Massacre.

More than 2000 people had headed to Santa Cruz to pay tribute to Gomes, killed by militia connected to Indonesian forces in the Motael neighborhood.

Filmmaker Max Stahl
Filmmaker Max Stahl speaking to the 20th anniversary of Pacific Journalism Review in Auckland in 2014. Image: Del Abcede/APR

The action of the Indonesian military was secretly filmed by Max Stahl and international attention on East Timor dramatically changed.

At the graveyard, the Indonesian military opened fire on the crowd and caused the deaths of 74 people at the scene. Over the next few days, more than 120 young people died in hospital or as a result of persecution of occupying forces.

Most bodies were never recovered.

Born on 6 December 1954 in the United Kingdom and a Timorese citizen since 2019, journalist and documentary maker Christopher Wenner, better known as Max Stahl, began his connection to the country in 1991 when he managed to enter East Timor for the first time.

Hiding among the graves
On November 12, hiding among the graves of Santa Cruz cemetery, he filmed one of many massacres during the Indonesian occupation of the country, with images being circulated  around the world and changing the country’s history.

Filmmaker and digital historian Max Stahl
Filmmaker and digital historian Max Stahl at CAMSTL with an image from his 1991 Santa Cruz massacre footage in Timor-Leste. Image: David Robie/APR

Decorated with the Order of Timor-Leste, the highest award given to foreign citizens in the country, with the Rory Peck Prize for filmmakers and several other rewards, Max Stahl leaves as a legacy one of the main archives of images from the last years of the Indonesian occupation of the country and the period immediately before and after the independence referendum.

The Max Stahl Audiovisual Center in Timor-Lete (CAMSTL) contains thousands of hours of video, including extended interviews with key actors in the Timorese struggle for independence.

The archive was adopted by UNESCO for the World Memory Register and has been used for teaching and research purposes on Timor’s history under the framework of the cooperation protocol established between the University of Coimbra, the National University of East Timor and the CAMSTL

The descendant of a family of diplomats, he was wounded as a war correspondent in the Balkans.

Stahl studied literature at the University of Oxford and was a fluent speaker of several languages, including the two official languages of East Timor — Portuguese and Tetum.

He began his career writing for theatre and children’s television shows and found his calling as a war reporter when he lived with his family — his father was ambassador — in El Salvador where he sent reports about the civil war between 1979 and 1992.

Among other conflicts he covered were those of Georgia, former Yugoslavia and — from 30 August 1991 — East Timor, where he arrived as a “tourist” at the invitation of resistance groups.

“The king is dead. With great sadness, I write to inform you that Max passed away this morning around 04 am.”

— Max Stahl’s wife Dr Ingrid Brucens

Historic resistance leaders
Throughout his long ties to East Timor, where he lived until recently when he had to travel to Australia for medical treatment, he interviewed some of the historic resistance leaders like Nino Konis Santa, David Alex and others.

It would be Santa Cruz, and the 12 November 1991 massacre that would make the name Max Stahl known internationally with the images exposing the barbarism of the Indonesian occupation.

In Portugal, the images eventually made a special impact, both through the brutality of the violence and with the fact that survivors gathered in the small chapel of Santa Cruz praying in Portuguese while listening to the bullets from the Indonesian military and police.

The 1999 referendum prompted Max Stahl to return to East Timor where he covered the violence before the referendum and after the announcement of independence victory and accompanied families on the flight to the mountains.

News of Max Stahl’s death on Wednesday at a Brisbane hospital quickly became the most commented subject on social media in East Timor, raising condolences from several responsible and personalities linked to the cause of the struggle for independence.

In statements to Lusa, former President José Ramos-Horta described Max Stahl’s death a “great loss” to Timor-Leste and the world, and which will cause “deep consternation and pain” to the Timorese people.

“What a great loss for all of us to East Timor, to the world. Someone like Max, with a big heart, with a great dedication and love for East Timor … being taken to another world,” he told Lusa.

Dr Ingrid Brucens, Max Stahl’s wife, and who was with the children in Brisbane, announced his death to his friends.

“The king is dead. With great sadness, I write to inform you that Max passed away this morning around 04 am,” she wrote in messages to friends.

Antonio Sampaio is the Lusa correspondent in Dili

Photos of Max Stahl
Photos of Max Stahl … top left he is wearing the Order of Timor-Leste, the highest honour for foreigners. Images: CAMSTL

CAMSTL video tribute
This video below is the  CAMSTL team’s tribute to the memory of Stahl, who had dedicated 30 years of his life to the people of Timor-Leste. CAMSTL colleagues said on their Facebook page:

“The images and testimonies recorded by the journalist in the 1990s alerted the world to the serious human rights violations taking place in Timorese territory.

“From then on, the country’s independence restoration process gained momentum.

“Today, the journalist’s heroic trajectory ends on the earthly plane, but his legacy will continue to live on in the large archive created and directed by him, the Centro Audiovisual Max Stahl Timor-Leste.

“Dear Max. We will always be together with you in preserving the memory of the resistance struggle and the construction of the Timorese nation.

“We would like to thank Max’s friend José Ramos-Horta — Nobel Peace Prize and Former President of the Republic– for participating in this video.”


This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.


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