Vale: Max Stahl

Filmmaker and journalist Max Stahl, who filmed Indonesian troops firing on protesters in Timor-Leste in 1991, has died aged 66.

He died on Wednesday in Brisbane after a long battle with cancer.

Born Christopher Wenner in the United Kingdom in 1954, he won many awards for his coverage of wars and conflict around the world.

But his footage of the massacre at Dili’s Santa Cruz cemetery in 1991 during which 270 pro-democracy protestors were killed as Indonesian soldiers advanced on a huge crowd, brought the plight of the Timor-Leste population to the world.

Knowing he would be arrested, he hid the film under a gravestone and it was later smuggled out of the then-Indonesian occupied country.

Stahl returned to Timor-Leste in 1999 and again documented atrocities committed in Timor-Leste before and after they voted to break-away from Indonesia in a violence-wracked United Nations-supervised referendum.

He was one of only a handful of journalists who remained in Timor-Leste after most foreigners fled the country, obtaining footage of the widespread violence and destruction.

Jose Ramos-Horta, a Noble laureate and Timor-Leste’s former president and prime minister, said,”It was the first time our message broke through to the world.”

He said Timor-Leste honours Mr Stahl “as one of the true heroes of our struggle” who “helped to shape our nation forever”.

Stahl worked in front of and behind the camera for over 20 years with television channels in England, France, Germany, Scandinavia, Australia, Canada and the United States of America.

Source: ABC
Photo: Irish Times