NT Writers Festival launches story of Timorese asylum seekers who took fishing boat to Australia
Jose da Costa sought refuge in Australia after fleeing the Indonesian occupation of East Timor in the 1990s. (ABC News: Tilda Colling)
In short:
Jose da Costa was among 18 Timorese asylum seekers who fled Indonesia's brutal, decades-long occupation of the former Portuguese colony.
After arriving in Darwin by boat in 1995, Mr da Costa moved to Melbourne where he met author Vannessa Hearman, whose new book, The Good Sea, recounts his journey of resistance.
The book was launched at the Northern Territory Writers Festival yesterday.
Jose da Costa was born "in the middle of a war".
It was 1976, one year after Indonesia's invasion of the Portuguese territory then known as East Timor.
"My family ran to the bush to hide," he said.
"I was born in the bush."
Over the 24 years that followed, more than 100,000 Timorese would die in a deadly battle for control of the now-independent nation known since 2002 as Timor-Leste.
In the 1991 Dili Massacre alone, more than 250 Timorese protesters were killed in a confrontation with Indonesian soldiers, sparking further mass protests hundreds of kilometres away in Darwin.
After news of the 1991 Dili Massacre reached Darwin, hundreds of locals protested by lying in the streets. (littledarwin blog)
Back across the Timor Sea, as the occupation continued into the 1980s, Mr da Costa's family spent the first three years of his life hiding in the bush before they were captured while trying to surrender to Indonesian troops.
After his family was banned from returning to their home town or growing crops, and even subjected to home detention, Mr da Costa joined a clandestine youth movement fighting for independence while being guided by older activists.
"Some of them were killed, some of them got arrested and put in prison, so our struggle for independence very much was oppressed, crushed,"he said.
Escape on the Good Sea
In 1995, Mr da Costa was part of a group that organised a boat to leave East Timor in search of political asylum so they could continue to push for independence in safety.
He wrote a note to tell his mother he was leaving but could not find anyone he trusted to give it to her.
So, without telling his family, he became one of 18 asylum seekers, including a six-month-old baby, who boarded a small fishing boat — the Tasi Diak, meaning "good sea" — and headed for Australia.
Jose da Costa returned to Darwin with Vannessa Hearman for this year's NT Writers Festival after the pair first met in Melbourne in the 1990s. (ABC News: Tilda Colling)
"It was the most frightening journey at that time," he said.
"One of the most frightening things was we could not swim.
"We didn't have any life jackets, [and] we only relied on a small engine with one piston, so if the machine breaks down that [was] very much the end of our life."
After six nights aboard the small boat, the group arrived in Darwin and the trip remains the only successful crossing between the two countries during the 24 years of Indonesian rule.
'Political mission' detailed in new book
Their perilous journey has now been chronicled in a new book, The Good Sea, the culmination of 10 years of research by author and Curtin University historian Vannessa Hearman.
Vannessa Hearman says she wrote The Good Sea after joining the Australian Timor solidarity movement following the Dili Massacre. (ABC News: Tilda Colling)
"I had become involved in the Timor solidarity movement in 1991 after the Dili Massacre," she said.
"I thought if people are doing this in the name of Indonesia and Indonesian people, me being Indonesian-born, I wanted to do something about this in Australia."
After arriving in Darwin, and a stint in a Western Australian detention centre, some members of the Tasi Diak group flew to Melbourne to live on bridging visas.
It was there amid the Timorese resistance movement that Hearman met some of the refugees, including Mr da Costa, but it was not until many years later that she began to think about the story of their journey in depth.
After reconnecting with Mr da Costa, now a filmmaker, Hearman watched his animated documentary about the boat trip, Jose's Story.
"It was a political mission by the East Timorese resistance," she said.
"I think it's important that Australians remember the history of our relationship with both Indonesia and Timor-Leste — the good and the bad."
The Good Sea was officially launched at the NT Writers Festival yesterday.