Bulletin

Issue: March/April 2008

Research

Words from the border – a West Papuan tells his story

Mr Dimara, right, and a friend in West Papua in the 1990s.

Autobiography is a political act, particularly when it comes from a freedom fighter and is the first by a West Papuan.

Dr John Stuyfbergen, a tutor in lifewriting at La Trobe University, is helping George Dimara tell his story so that the rights for self-determination of his people are placed in the public arena.

Born in Biak in West Papua, George Dimara joined the Indonesian Army at the age of 19. With some others he deserted after having been promoted to sergeant and joined the guerilla forces fighting in the jungle. When he finally sought asylum in Australia, he was imprisoned first in Brisbane, then in Baxter detention centre.

Last Christmas he gained refugee status in Australia and is writing the sorry tale of his life as an example of the oppression of his people.

'I think his work gives a very clear and detailed story of West Papua,' Dr Stuyfbergen says. 'He writes about all his family and friends who have been affected by the Indonesian rule.'

The book could be compared to testimonies by Aboriginal people, he says. 'He makes sure that places and names are correct. His work is about making people know what has happened.'

One of the chapters details how he escaped from Black Water refugee camp in 1985 to become a resistance leader. He led a group of 50 to 60 jungle fighters along the border.

'The news of our escape had not only reached the police in Vanimo but also the local population, as it had been broadcast on the news of NBC radio and in the local newspaper, the Post Courier,' Mr Dimara writes.

'We kept resting that day to preserve our energy for the border crossing into West Papua. The younger students kept themselves busy cooking lunch in an old pot, that one of the escapees, Pahiri, had brought with him. We ate rice with fish. Banana leaves served as plates. As the cooking pot was too small to provide all the food at once, we ate in groups of five.

'When everybody had eaten we rested till it was dark and were ready for our next move towards the border villages, Mosu and Utung. To improve our progress we decided to follow the main road. We instructed all the new people how to disappear quickly into the bush and to lay down whenever the sound or the lights of oncoming cars were spotted.

'Having walked for about five kilometres, a police patrol car came suddenly from behind us. In the pitch darkness its big lights could be seen from quite a distance. Our group immediately lay down in the high grass beside the road. However, Pahiri forgot to take his cooking pot with him to the bushes and left it in the middle of the road.

'Luckily, I was laying behind a big rock, which I rolled to the middle of the road, hoping that it would hide the contours of the cooking pot. After a couple of seconds the police car arrived at high speed and passed us by, not noticing us, or the pot in the darkness.' Dr Stuyfbergen worked as a foreign correspondent in West Papua during the 1960s for the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant.

He did his PhD at La Trobe's Centre for Biography and Autobiography on refugee autobiographies. His findings are pertinent to the Damira account.

'We are not necessarily the lucky country for refugees,' he says. 'Most of them didn't want to come to Australia. Their autobiographies express how they live with a dual cultural background.'

He is taking great care with the text to ensure that he does not interpret it from a Western point of view. It is expected to be published by Geromondo this year.