Scribbles

Saturday January 29, 1994.
Off the coast of Peter I island, Antarctica

For days now, we have been sailing in between icebergs. Each of them has its own micro-weather system. It looks as if each of them is a little island on its own, each with its own private cloud. The white from the ice, and the white from the clouds above them contrasting very little from the grey sea and the grey overcast clouds much further above it all. Everything is a shade of grey and white. No colours, just shades.
We are getting anxious. Today, after two years of preparation, after two years of logistical challenges, fierce discussions with the Russian Antarctic Division on the chartering of their boats and helicopters, we will arrive at our destination: Peter I Island in the Antarctic, appropriately called ‘the most isolated place on Earth’. There have been more people on the moon than on this island. We were to be the first crew ever to remain on the island without a support ship staying off shore. We almost cancelled the trip several times. Problems with funding, cargo shipments, and above all the endless problems with our transport. It looked hopeless just 14 days before we left, as the Russians wanted to cancel the pick up ship. I had to fly over to St.Petersburg and renegotiate the contract with them.
But now, this is all past. Now, we are standing on the bridge of the Kapitan Khlebnikov, a Russian icebreaker converted to a tourist cruise ship touring the Antarctic, looking at the scenery at the edge of the world. Our expedition crew of nine, is almost like one of the many attractions for the sixty tourist passengers on the boat. Over the past two weeks since we left Port Stanley in the Falklands, they have been asking us endless questions about our expedition. The Japanese took pictures of us like we were the 8th wonder of the world..

The weather closes in, a slight fog comes in. The sea closes in too, no more water, the surface is completely covered with ice. Slowly, the Kapitan Khlebnikov pulls itself onto the ice and breaks it apart. The cracking of the ice sounds like fierce artillery shelling as the shelves give in to the mere weight of the ship. Sounds echo bounce off the fog.

Very slowly, as we get out of the grey foggy sky, the grey ice covered sea, out of the grey void, specks of black appear. It takes endless minutes before we realize this is not a mirage in the ice desert, we are not imagining this.. We can clearly see pieces of black rock appearing. We have arrived. As by magic, all of sudden, the fog lifts. In one minute, the bright sun pops through and shows us the island in all its glory, 1,700m high. To the north of the island, a long and wide glacier, hundreds of meters high, spreads out and then breaks off with a straight vertical drop, into the sea. This glacier will be our home for the next weeks.

We are spread all over the ship, sweating in our Arctic weather gear, as we pull crates, drag bags of personal stuff and roll barrels of fuel into the helicopter hanger at the aft of the ship. With walkie-talkies, we coordinate the lifting of our cargo from the ship’s hold. There is nothing on the island, so we had to bring shelters, generators, fuel, cooking gear, food, emergency kits with us, in total about ten tons of supplies.

The two small Mil-2 helicopters are being prepared on the helicopter deck. For months now, we have been telling the ship’s crew they had to ensure the helicopters had a cargo hook system, as some of our crates are just too big to be put inside. The Russian pilots always said ‘No problaam’. They just took off the two side doors, put a huge rope through both and put a big knot in the middle. ‘No problaam’.. I hope not. As they hook on half a ton of cargo below, there is no way to release the cargo in case something goes wrong.

One Mil-2 starts its engine, idling the propellers. Bob and Terry, who have the most experience with glaciers, get in, and are ferried to the island. The lack of perspective, of references, in the panorama, has us underestimate the distance to the island and its height. We are alone in this icy world. Only us, and the island. And one helicopter with our two crew on board disappearing in the void. It takes thirty long minutes before we hear the crackling voice from Terry on the walkie-talkie ‘Khlebnikov, this is Peter I, we have landed’.. Ralph, our expedition leader, answers ‘Ok, we will get the second helicopter in the air. Let’s start to get this show on the road. Mark the landing area for the choppers as we agreed last night’.

For the next hours, the two choppers ferry our cargo and crew. I remain as the last one on board to ensure all the crates are lifted in the right sequence. Emergency survival kits first, in case the landing has to be aborted due to a change in the weather. Then a tent kit, a generator, food and cooking gear, followed by the personal stuff. I tag the crates on my list as they lift off.

The ship’s cook has put up a barbeque on the bow. The tourists took deck chairs to sit and watch all the activity as if it was a spectacle set up for them. A circus of helicopters and cranes, balancing crates and barrels . I guess we are an interesting sight.. After all, this is only the third time ever someone will land on this island… But the tourists are an interesting sight also. Almost surreal. A group of tourists from all over the world, sitting in deck chairs, eating barbequed sausages and lamb, in the middle of the absolutely ‘nowhere’.

After three hours, all of a sudden, there is no more cargo, and it is time for me to go. I wave at the tourists, shake hands with the ship’s captain and first mate, thanking them for a job well done, and get into the helicopter, in between bags of clothes and crates of food. We lift off and join the other chopper which has been circling the ship, waiting for us. It has a big cargo load swinging slowly in a net below. Together, we circle the ship for the last time as a sign of goodbye, and parallel to eachother, slowly fly towards the island.It is at this moment, the music which has been in my imagination for two years now, really comes blasting out. While watching the Khlebnikov shrinking and the island growing, towering almost above us, both helicopters are only two specs in the eternal emptiness of the Antarctic, the soundtrack of ‘The Mission’ plays in my head. ‘On Earth as it is in Heaven’, the title track. You should try it… And close your eyes imagining what I see at that very moment, and feel what I feel. For this expedition, I quit my job and worked for a year. But despite all the preparation, the real work was only to start now. Here and now. We are here to set world records, to set examples on radio operations, to experiment with new technology. From this remote place in the world, we will talk to tens of thousands of people all over the world.

We touch down on Peter I, and I jump out. My boots sink in knee deep snow. The second chopper drops the net, just above the ground. While lifting off, the pilot blinks his landing lights, and rocks the chopper in a short left-right, as to say good bye.

And suddenly, suddenly, after all the hectic activity, the shouting trying to raise our voices above the screaming sounds of the helicopter engines, the frantic to and fro of shifting crates on the boat, suddenly… as the last chopper disappears, there is no sound anymore. Everyone realizes it at the same time. We stop doing whatever we are doing. Bob and Tony with hammers in their hands as they put the plywood for the tent together, Ralph with the craw bar opening the crates. Martin and Tony on their knees, setting up a generator. Suddenly everyone stands up, as if in a prayer. A prayer for the silence which surrounds us. For a moment, only the muffled sounds ‘zwomkrr, zwomkrr’, of our boots in the snow, but then it all stops. There is nothing. nothing. nothing… This is the void… We are standing with a big white mountain behind us, looking over a 250 degrees panorama of the white ice sea, with the Khlebnikov just a tiny speck deep and far away, and the helicopter disappearing towards it. The “voidness” of the panorama, even if it is dotted with huge icebergs, which are only small dots or snow flakes from where we are standing. The grey-white of it all. And the lack of sound as it is absorbed by the huge glacier, and disappears into the thin freezing cold air. This is truly the most isolated deserted place on Earth. There is nothing here. Just us, nine people and some thirty crates. Just us, alone in the world. Alone in the void, in the white grey. This moment, I know, will last in my memory for ever. Of this moment I will tell my grandchildren while holding them on my knee, forty or fifty years from now. This moment, I realize: if there is a heaven, this is how it must feel. This moment, we are in paradise. We all look at eachother. Tears roll over our cheeks. We know we are sharing a moment where it is ‘On Earth as it is in Heaven’.

In Memoriam for my friend Pero Simundza

Zadar, 18.03.1971 – West Timor, 06.09.2000

Date: 25/June/2000 01:58
Subject: update

Hi Pero,

Through the grapevine, I heard you were (finally) reassigned to West-Timor. Good for you!!!!
I should be passing by Timor late summer. Will let you know!
life is busy and interesting…

Peter

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From: Pero.Simundza
To: Peter.Casier
Date: 26/June/2000 07:57:10 AM
Subject: de Pero

Hi Peter,
Long time no see.. How’s life?
I just had the server installed, so now I have my good old e-mail address back, here in Atambua. You probably heard, I got the license and installed my little radio in Batugade, East Timor.

No real electricity power supply there, just the office generator after sunset until midnight. Still, it’s a nice place to relax after the hard working week. Attaching some pictures.
We had a terrible flood in the south of our province, I was there for about ten days in the mud up to my neck, always wet and dirty, got the flu like everyone else (hi-hi).
About 150 people died in one night…so it wasn’t all that fun as you can imagine.
I’m most likely to stay here for at least 7/8 months more…
Working hours are long (typically 12 hrs a day) but it’s OK, team is good, still a lot of things to do.

When are you come over? write me sometimes, hope all OK with you,

73 de 9A4SP a.k.a. 4W6SP – Pero

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To: Pero.Simundza
Date: 25/July/2000 09:04
Subject: coming over

hi Pero,

The pictures you sent surely look attractive. (except the curtains, hi)
I will fly in from Djakarta via Bali on 21st.. maybe we will meet!

Peter

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Date: 26/Jul/2000 07:57
Subject: re: coming over

Hello my friend,
Looking forward to seeing you again,
I should be back in Atambua from 2 weeks leave on 28 August.
Maybe I could fly with you to Dili and back on that day, because the flight lands in Atambua anyway..
73 de Pero, 9A4SP (4W6SP)

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From: Peter.Casier
To: Pero.Simundza
Date: 26/July/2000 09:04
Subject: re:coming over

Hi Pero,
I should be traveling from Kosovo to Pakistan, then Cambodia, Laos and Jakarta. Might have to do Sri Lanka before or after Timor.
Will let you know the exact dates for the visit!
Looking forward to see you too. Has been a while !
73, Peter

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To: Peter.Casier
Date: 26/July/2000 11:04
Subject: coming over

Ooops… Your mission is not going to be all that short my friend..
Like I said, I should be back in Denpasar/Bali on the 27th, to fly to Kupang on the 28th.
i expect to be back in Atambua on 29th (tuesday) with WFP flight…

See You soon I hope,

73 de Pero 9A4SP

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From: Peter.Casier

To: Pero.Simundza
Date: 21/August/2000 21:07
Subject: LATE reschedule:

Pero,
change of plans. This is my new itinerary.
23/8: Jakarta-Kupang
24/8: Kupang-Atambua
25/8: Atambua-Dili
30/8: leave Dili to Cambodia.

Peter

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From: Peter.Casier
To: Friends Email distribution list.
Date: 7/Sept/2000 08:07
Subject: Goodbye to a friend.

Friends,

It is with profound sadness and anger I heard today that Pero Simundza – a UN colleague and fellow ham, was amongst the three UN staff who were killed during a militia assault on the UNHCR office in Atambua, West-Timor yesterday.

The UNHCR office in Atambua was attacked by a vicious militia mob who overrun and trashed the premises and vehicles, stabbed three UNHCR relief workers who were working in the office at that moment, to death. They then dragged the bodies onto the street and put them on fire. Pero was one of them.

Pero worked for UNHCR in Atambua as an international radio operator. He joined UNHCR years ago, in Sarajevo. Later on, he moved on mission to Albania, where I met him in June last year. We spent a most enjoyable evening together, ending with me operating from his station. He stroke me as a young, very enthusiastic, truly passionate person.
Since then, we kept regular contact, sending eachother news from where we were, and where we operated from.

After returning from Albania, he continued working in Sarajevo for a few months after which he was appointed to Atambua, West Timor. He was real happy with his international assignment, close to the East Timor border. He regularly crossed the border to be active from the other side, in a small house where he had arranged his shack. He sent me pictures by Email of his shack and antenna.

I looked forward to meet him during my current Asia tour, which included West and East Timor. Unfortunately, I had to reschedule my visit to Kupang and Atambua by a few days at the last moment, so Pero and I missed eachother by 2 days. He was on R&R when I had meetings in his office in Atambua two weeks ago and I walked passed the radio room he worked in. Last week we exchanged Emails again saying ‘there will always be a next time, people like us always meet again, one side of the earth or another’.

Unfortunately, Pero, I will not be able to keep my promise. You parted from us way too soon, in a senseless death. We all know the risks we face while working in emergency relief activities, but your departure due to inhumane and totally absurd violence shocked many of us.

Farewell, my friend, we will all miss you. Our thoughts go to your family remaining behind.

vy 73

Peter
ON6TT

Associated Press – Wednesday, September 6th 2000.

DILI, East Timor (Associated Press) –
Thousands of pro-Indonesian militiamen and their supporters stormed a U.N. office in West Timor on Wednesday, killing an American and two other foreign U.N. staffers who worked to help refugees and burning their bodies. A U.N. force flew into the Indonesian territory to evacuate remaining workers, officials said.

Witnesses said Indonesian security forces, long blamed for Timor’s continuing tragedy, stood by and did nothing to prevent the killings and the torching of a U.N. office in the West Timor town of Atambua. In addition to the three dead, several foreign staffers for the U.N. refugee agency escaped and three were injured, one of them seriously, police in Atambua said.
The seriously injured staffer was a Brazilian woman who was hacked by an ax-wielding attacker, officials said. The three dead workers were identified as Samson Aregahegn of Ethiopia, Carlos Caseras of the United States and Pero Simundza of Croatia.

West Timor is controlled by Indonesia, while East Timor voted last year to separate from Indonesia and is now administered by the United Nations. Pro-Indonesian militiamen in the region rampaged after the East Timor independence vote, and clashes between pro-Indonesian groups and U.N. peacekeepers have become more frequent of late.

“These were peaceful, unarmed humanitarians who gave their lives trying help those who had lost everything in conflict,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata said in a statement issued in Geneva. “Words cannot express the sorrow all of us at UNHCR are feeling today, and our hearts go out to the families of the victims.”
(…)
Wednesday’s violence began when thousands of armed pro-Indonesian militia members and their supporters stormed UNHCR’s Atambua office. Witnesses said militiamen beat the three foreign U.N. workers to death and burned their bodies in the street. They were the first civilian U.N. staff members to be killed in Timor.
“The militiamen beat them to death inside the building. They then dragged the bodies outside, put on them a pile of wood, poured gasoline over them and set them on fire,” said one witness, who was too frightened to give his name. “It was scary.”
(…)
Before Wednesday’s attack, the United Nations had recorded 193 deaths of civilian workers since 1992, when the organization began keeping civilian statistics. Since 1948, the United Nations has lost 1,412 military peacekeepers, although the figure jumps to 1,654 when U.N. observers and police are included.

Copyright 2000 The Associated Press