A photo-enriched commentary on the food production conditions in this Island-State-'Seized Property' area snuggly located in Eastern Indonesia.

As you look through these photos, ask yourself what you would do if you were forced to live under these conditions.  I think too many of us in the West take our freedom for granted.  In fact, that very phrase 'take our freedom for granted' has little punch in our Western world exactly because of our lack of understanding of just how much so many suffer under despotic regimes like that of Indonesia and Burma.

What would you do if some ignoramous of a soldier came up to you today and said you cannot go out for beers tonite or any other nite for the next 3 months; you cannot visit or call your friends or family.  You cannot go to work but you still have to pay your electricity bills and feed your kids.  Each time that you try anything, someone you know will be killed.  How many nights would you lie awake plotting your revenge or your escape from the situation?

I reprint the first  paragraph from my field report on the Timor investigation:

The first sentence spoken to us by our first interviewee was repeated to us several times by each subsequent interviewee over the entire course of our effort in Timor: The political situation directly affects food security.  One simply could not discuss food production without engaging in a discussion about the presence of the military and the effects that presence had on the villager’s ability to produce adequate food.  The violence and oppression told to us over the course of each interview drew a picture of systematic and sustained destruction of Timorese self-reliance.  In East Timor, then, food security is an issue of re-building an agricultural production system that over the course of the last two decades has been murdered, raped, burned, tortured, disenfranchised, divided, exiled, neglected and otherwise kept from taking root.

And now on to the pics.  Some of them are made up of several photos taped together - so you may have to scroll left-right.  Again, they are grainy - only because I have reduced the resolution for those of us who have less than ultra-modern computer systems (otherwise we would be waiting for ever to load the pics).  Please send me an email to let me know what you think - or leave a comment in the guestbook!

As mentinoned earlier, there are some photos that are morbid.  I don't want to get email saying something to the effect that 'you posted horrible pictures' and other such stuff.  The viewer can select from amongst the available pictures from the list below (the morbid photos are indicated with a captial 'M' beside the selection) or jungle-vine through the collection.  I have given the viewer the choice of skipping the morbid pictures as they jungle-vine through the collection and the option to view or not to view is clearly laid out.  Frankly, I think these pictures offer a very clear view of the kind of horrible things despot regimes are doing the world over - the photos are educational and should be skipped only if you think you can't take the heat.