Answered by Fire
Encyclopedia
Answered by Fire is a two-part mini-series based on the 1999 East Timor
conflicts that led to East Timor's independence. The mini-series was based on "Dancing with the Devil, A personal Account of Policing the East Timor Vote for Independence", which was written by David Savage, an Australian Federal Police Officer, who was based in Maliana during the vote, and where the fictional "Nunura " is based, and who returned to East Timor to lead investigations into the Crimes Against Humanity committed there. The book is Published by Monash University Asia Institute, Melbourne. David Savage was a technical and script consultant during the filming, and played a minor role. It stars David Wenham
, Isabelle Blais, and Alex Tilman. It is a co-production between ABC
in Australia
and CBC
in Canada
, and was shown in Portugal
on RTP as Timor: A Ferro e Fogo (literally "Timor: By Iron and Fire") with Portuguese
subtitles. It has also been shown on the Australia Network
, which is available in Indonesia
via satellite
and cable
, as well as other countries in Asia
and the Pacific, and ION Television in the US. It was released on DVD
in Brazil
as Resposta à Bala (literally "Answered by the Bullet") with a dubbed
soundtrack in Portuguese
.
The miniseries was filmed in areas of Queensland, Australia. Many of the extras and some of the minor characters were East Timorese locals, who had been living in the regions affected by violence during the crisis. Some found themselves disoriented by the accuracy of the sets and locations for their resemblance to areas of East Timor.
The mini series won 2 awards from Australian Film Institute (AFI).
and Australia
, working on behalf of the UN in order to arrange and run the vote for independence in East Timor, against strong and violent opposition from pro-Indonesian militia forces in 1999. As the vote gets closer, violence escalates, and finally the UN team is forced to pull out of their base of operations as the threat becomes too high.
), an Australian Federal Police
officer is sent to East Timor
as part of the (UN Assistance Mission in East Timor) UNAMET, to oversee the registration of East Timorese voters and run the independence ballot. However, from the onset, it is obvious that many groups at a community level are attempting to subvert UN authority, taking advantage of the unarmed status of the Officers, and their corrupt ties and influence over both the Indonesian Military and the East Timorese Police. Joining Waldman is Julie Fortin (Isabelle Blais), a Canadian RCMP
police officer and Ismenio Soares (Alex Tilman), a Timorese university graduate assigned to translate for the UN team.
It is obvious early on that not all is well in the troubled region, with massacres of entire families leaving no doubt in the mind of the UN officers that the Pro-Indonesian Militia are attempting to subvert the independence proceedings via strong-arm tactics over the population. The list of voters seems to be becoming a death-list, scaring more and more from registering themselves. Travelling from their compound in Nunura, the UN team frequently are confronted, although on August 30, 1999 the registration count confirms that almost 90% of the total population has successfully registered to vote. Later, in September, the vote goes ahead, with a 78% majority favouring an independent East Timor. Immediately the violence begins, with Indonesian Military and militia carrying out a scorched earth campaign, removing 'vital assets', the UN team is forced to evacuate. However the evacuation forces the UN to abandon many of its indigenous supporters, including Ismenio and his family who are known by the militia to be independence supporters.
is no better off than that in Nunura, being bombarded with molotov cocktail
s and rocks through the night. Refugees from the surrounding city flee and make camps outside, in an attempt to defend themselves against murderous mobs who now control the streets. In one attack the refugees attempt to enter the compound but are stopped only by their own sheer weight in numbers, some climbing the barbed wire fences in order to escape the militia. Eventually the UN is forced to pull back to Darwin, leaving all behind to face the militia alone.
Ismenio is found in a church in Nunura by militia, who after removing him from a crowd of locals, massacre all inside and burning the church, an event bearing much resemblance to the Liquiçá Church Massacre
. Ismenio is taken to his former home, where he sees his father murders and his sister raped by a contingent of military and militia figures. Ismenio escapes when his home is burned down, and steals ID papers from his cousin, who is working with the militia. He travels to West Timor to rescue his sister, who he takes back to East Timor. On the way though, they are forced to hide when a truck of soldiers arrives, the soldiers capturing them.
In Australia, Waldman is racked with the guilt of having to leave so many behind, his feelings compounded by the 'life goes on' attitude many Australians had toward the East Timor crisis. After his friend committs suicide from the guilt of failing his East Timorese friends, he returns to Nunura after the Australian Government gains the approval of the UN Security Council, and the Australian Defence Force
leads INTERFET
to stabilise the territory. In Nunura he meets Julie Fortin, who is desperately searching from Ismenio. However Ismenio was captured by INTERFET soldiers, and is released by Waldman.
The grim process of locating victims of the campaign begins, with the bodies of those burned in the church found submerged in a lake. Eventually the body of Ismenio's father is recovered, buried in a shallow grave. However upon capturing one of the few militiamen who did not escape into West Timor, Waldman is able to trick him into bringing one of the main militia leaders out of hiding, bringing him to justice.
The final card tells us of the numbers of militia who are still granted asylum by the Indonesians, not pursued by the Australian Government in an attempt maintain the uneasy relationship between the two nations.
East Timor
The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, commonly known as East Timor , is a state in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco, and Oecusse, an exclave on the northwestern side of the island, within Indonesian West Timor...
conflicts that led to East Timor's independence. The mini-series was based on "Dancing with the Devil, A personal Account of Policing the East Timor Vote for Independence", which was written by David Savage, an Australian Federal Police Officer, who was based in Maliana during the vote, and where the fictional "Nunura " is based, and who returned to East Timor to lead investigations into the Crimes Against Humanity committed there. The book is Published by Monash University Asia Institute, Melbourne. David Savage was a technical and script consultant during the filming, and played a minor role. It stars David Wenham
David Wenham
David Wenham is an Australian actor who has appeared in movies, television series and theatre productions. He is known in Hollywood for his roles as Faramir in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Carl in Van Helsing and Dilios in 300 and Neil Fletcher in Australia...
, Isabelle Blais, and Alex Tilman. It is a co-production between ABC
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and CBC
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and was shown in Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
on RTP as Timor: A Ferro e Fogo (literally "Timor: By Iron and Fire") with Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
subtitles. It has also been shown on the Australia Network
Australia Network
Australia Network, originally Australia Television International and later ABC Asia Pacific, is a free-to-air international satellite television service operated by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation since 2006. The television and online service broadcasts 24 hours a day on 7 days a week, to...
, which is available in Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
via satellite
Satellite television
Satellite television is television programming delivered by the means of communications satellite and received by an outdoor antenna, usually a parabolic mirror generally referred to as a satellite dish, and as far as household usage is concerned, a satellite receiver either in the form of an...
and cable
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
, as well as other countries in Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
and the Pacific, and ION Television in the US. It was released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
as Resposta à Bala (literally "Answered by the Bullet") with a dubbed
Dubbing (filmmaking)
Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be...
soundtrack in Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese is a group of Portuguese dialects written and spoken by most of the 190 million inhabitants of Brazil and by a few million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Japan and Paraguay....
.
The miniseries was filmed in areas of Queensland, Australia. Many of the extras and some of the minor characters were East Timorese locals, who had been living in the regions affected by violence during the crisis. Some found themselves disoriented by the accuracy of the sets and locations for their resemblance to areas of East Timor.
The mini series won 2 awards from Australian Film Institute (AFI).
The story
The story is a fictionalised account of a team of international observers, primarily police from nations such as CanadaCanada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, working on behalf of the UN in order to arrange and run the vote for independence in East Timor, against strong and violent opposition from pro-Indonesian militia forces in 1999. As the vote gets closer, violence escalates, and finally the UN team is forced to pull out of their base of operations as the threat becomes too high.
Part 1
Mark Waldman (David WenhamDavid Wenham
David Wenham is an Australian actor who has appeared in movies, television series and theatre productions. He is known in Hollywood for his roles as Faramir in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Carl in Van Helsing and Dilios in 300 and Neil Fletcher in Australia...
), an Australian Federal Police
Australian Federal Police
The Australian Federal Police is the federal police agency of the Commonwealth of Australia. Although the AFP was created by the amalgamation in 1979 of three Commonwealth law enforcement agencies, it traces its history from Commonwealth law enforcement agencies dating back to the federation of...
officer is sent to East Timor
East Timor
The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, commonly known as East Timor , is a state in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco, and Oecusse, an exclave on the northwestern side of the island, within Indonesian West Timor...
as part of the (UN Assistance Mission in East Timor) UNAMET, to oversee the registration of East Timorese voters and run the independence ballot. However, from the onset, it is obvious that many groups at a community level are attempting to subvert UN authority, taking advantage of the unarmed status of the Officers, and their corrupt ties and influence over both the Indonesian Military and the East Timorese Police. Joining Waldman is Julie Fortin (Isabelle Blais), a Canadian RCMP
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...
police officer and Ismenio Soares (Alex Tilman), a Timorese university graduate assigned to translate for the UN team.
It is obvious early on that not all is well in the troubled region, with massacres of entire families leaving no doubt in the mind of the UN officers that the Pro-Indonesian Militia are attempting to subvert the independence proceedings via strong-arm tactics over the population. The list of voters seems to be becoming a death-list, scaring more and more from registering themselves. Travelling from their compound in Nunura, the UN team frequently are confronted, although on August 30, 1999 the registration count confirms that almost 90% of the total population has successfully registered to vote. Later, in September, the vote goes ahead, with a 78% majority favouring an independent East Timor. Immediately the violence begins, with Indonesian Military and militia carrying out a scorched earth campaign, removing 'vital assets', the UN team is forced to evacuate. However the evacuation forces the UN to abandon many of its indigenous supporters, including Ismenio and his family who are known by the militia to be independence supporters.
Part 2
The UN compound in DiliDili
Dili, spelled Díli in Portuguese, is the capital, largest city, chief port and commercial centre of East Timor.-Geography and Administration:Dili lies on the northern coast of Timor island, the easternmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands....
is no better off than that in Nunura, being bombarded with molotov cocktail
Molotov cocktail
The Molotov cocktail, also known as the petrol bomb, gasoline bomb, Molotov bomb, fire bottle, fire bomb, or simply Molotov, is a generic name used for a variety of improvised incendiary weapons...
s and rocks through the night. Refugees from the surrounding city flee and make camps outside, in an attempt to defend themselves against murderous mobs who now control the streets. In one attack the refugees attempt to enter the compound but are stopped only by their own sheer weight in numbers, some climbing the barbed wire fences in order to escape the militia. Eventually the UN is forced to pull back to Darwin, leaving all behind to face the militia alone.
Ismenio is found in a church in Nunura by militia, who after removing him from a crowd of locals, massacre all inside and burning the church, an event bearing much resemblance to the Liquiçá Church Massacre
Liquiçá Church Massacre
The Liquiçá Church Massacre was an atrocity that occurred in the war torn country of East Timor, in April, 1999. It was the first case to be heard by the Second Special Panel.-Events and Aftermath:...
. Ismenio is taken to his former home, where he sees his father murders and his sister raped by a contingent of military and militia figures. Ismenio escapes when his home is burned down, and steals ID papers from his cousin, who is working with the militia. He travels to West Timor to rescue his sister, who he takes back to East Timor. On the way though, they are forced to hide when a truck of soldiers arrives, the soldiers capturing them.
In Australia, Waldman is racked with the guilt of having to leave so many behind, his feelings compounded by the 'life goes on' attitude many Australians had toward the East Timor crisis. After his friend committs suicide from the guilt of failing his East Timorese friends, he returns to Nunura after the Australian Government gains the approval of the UN Security Council, and the Australian Defence Force
Australian Defence Force
The Australian Defence Force is the military organisation responsible for the defence of Australia. It consists of the Royal Australian Navy , Australian Army, Royal Australian Air Force and a number of 'tri-service' units...
leads INTERFET
INTERFET
The International Force for East Timor was a multinational peacekeeping taskforce, mandated by the United Nations to address the humanitarian and security crisis which took place in East Timor from 1999–2000 until the arrival of United Nations peacekeepers...
to stabilise the territory. In Nunura he meets Julie Fortin, who is desperately searching from Ismenio. However Ismenio was captured by INTERFET soldiers, and is released by Waldman.
The grim process of locating victims of the campaign begins, with the bodies of those burned in the church found submerged in a lake. Eventually the body of Ismenio's father is recovered, buried in a shallow grave. However upon capturing one of the few militiamen who did not escape into West Timor, Waldman is able to trick him into bringing one of the main militia leaders out of hiding, bringing him to justice.
The final card tells us of the numbers of militia who are still granted asylum by the Indonesians, not pursued by the Australian Government in an attempt maintain the uneasy relationship between the two nations.
External links
- Program summary by ABC TV
- Fire in their hearts, The AgeThe AgeThe Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...
, 18 May 2006