Description
On November 12, 1991, Indonesian troops fired on a peaceful memorial procession to the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili, the capital of East Timor. On that occasion, more than 271 East Timorese were killed, and an equal number were disappeared and are believed dead. International journalists recorded the massacre, which subsequently became a turning point in the history of Timor-Leste. According to Max Stahl, who was responsible for the footage, the victims “wanted the world to see... [this was] more important than the fact of their death was that their deaths be meaningful” (Stahl, 2017). These images were smuggled out of Timor-Leste and disseminated throughout the world, drawing attention to the human rights violations in the territory and providing a boost to solidarity movements throughout the world.
In this paper, I argue that the images of 'bodies-in-suffering' were crucial to the East Timorese struggle for independence as an affective technology, in building international solidarity for Timor-Leste. Specifically, I analyse social, political, and artistic manifestations of solidarity in Portugal and demonstrate how the 'bodies-in-suffering' were mobilised as affective technologies within these movements.
