Death of a Nation: The Timor Conspiracy

This is the third documentary I've seen from John Pilger and he continues to put out important and quality work. More importantly, he continues to be a voice for the underdog and put domineering oppressive nations on Front Street.

In "Death of a Nation" Pilger brings attention to Indonesia and their attempts to totally annihilate the Timorese people. It seems that after Indonesia got independence from the Dutch they decided to commit some human rights violations of their own, starting in the 60's with General Suharto's elimination of "communists." As Amy Chua, author of "World on Fire" put it, it was an ethnic majority lashing out at a market dominant minority.

But what threat was Timor? None really. Indonesia was feeling itself. That along with some not-so-subtle urging from the west they went on a campaign to usurp East Timor in the name of "defending itself and its interests." Kind of like Israelis today who are constantly "defending themselves" against Palestinians by taking their land and their homes.

"Death of a Nation" does exactly what a good documentary is supposed to do: it informs the viewer of a situation he may know little or nothing about while providing footage and facts to support the content. With so many atrocities that occur worldwide it makes one wonder if humans are in a race to destroy themselves.

John Pilger is an absolute legend, and I don't know how I went through 25 years of my life before I heard of him. He's the perfect journalist- the kind that can give you faith that not everyone in the reporting business is swayed and controlled by, well- the 'business' side of things.

This one is 75 minutes instead of 60, as suggested here? Or maybe I watched a longer cut. Anyway it's very good, and perfectly explained a horrible series of events in a way that you can understand, even if you've never really heard about it before.

Like most of his stuff, it's heavy, sad, and a little visually flat (which holds it back, when critiqued as a documentary), but it's fantastic reporting and a good, in-depth retelling of some tragic events, so recommended for documentary fans with a strong stomach (contains many graphic photos and some pretty horrific eyewitness accounts from survivors).

I just watched this video, as I am in the process of trying to produce a feature film based on the genocide in East Timor. This is by far the most informative video about the subject. Sadly to say,very few people have even heard of East Timor.As I live in politically correct Marin County, Most people don't even care, to know about this subject. I can only hope that they will remember Hitler and What the Nazi's did to the Jews. I think that the world needs to know that this invasion was greenlighted by Kissenger and Ford. If you want to find our more about the subject you can always buy our book at Amazon.com East of Java an adventure/drama soon to be a film by Scott Amour. "Year of living dangerously meets Magnum PI."