"[An account of a visit to East Timor] I carried with me hand-drawn maps of other, unmarked graves where some of those murdered by Indonesian troops at the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre had been buried; I had no idea that so much of the country was a vast grave, marked by paths that ended abruptly, and fields inexplicably bulldozed, and earth inexplicably covered with tarmac, and villages that are not so much human entities as memorials. Kraras is one of them. It is known as the "village of the widows", because the whole community of 287 people was slaughtered by the Indonesians. In a meticulous hand that carried on from a faded typewriter ribbon, a priest recorded the name, age, cause of death and date and place of the killing of every victim. In the last column, he identified the Indonesian battalion responsible for each murder. I have the document, which I always find difficult to put down, as if the blood of East Timor is fresh on its pages."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
"From the NS archive: We helped them descend into hell", New Statesman (13 September 1999, reprinted 1 January 2024)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Pilger
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
John Pilger
John Richard Pilger (9 October 1939 – 30 December 2023) was an Australian journalist and documentary maker based in London and Sydney.
56 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by John Pilger →
Related Quotes
"The attack on Iraq, the attack on Libya, the attack on Syria happened because the leader in each of these countries w…"
"I have always had a great deal of admiration for Bob Hawke and the work he did as ACTU president; in fact it's a sham…"
"Long before the Soviet Union broke up, a group of Russian writers touring the United States were astonished to find, …"
"Twenty years ago today, in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, a gun was fired close to where I was standing. One bu…"
"It is not enough for journalists to see themselves as mere messengers without understanding the hidden agendas of the…"
"Since Chavez’s death in 2013, his successor Nicolas Maduro has shed his derisory label in the Western press as a 'for…"
"I always say that the difference between the United States and Australia is that US settlers were on a mission from G…"
"[On the September 11 attacks] In these surreal days, there is one truth. Nothing justified the killing of innocent pe…"
"More terrorists are given training and sanctuary in the United States than anywhere on earth. They include mass murde…"
"The consensus, often called "the tolerant society," began to sicken under the Labor Governments of Harold Wilson and …"