Interview by Zarina Holmes. Edited by Salina Christmas
Photo editor Zarina Holmes speaks to a war veteran, her father, about war trophy photos – and those photographs in the family album.
This article started out when photo editors Pete Brook of Prison Photography, Joerg Colberg of Conscientious, and David Campbell, Honorary Professor of Cultural and Political Geography at Durham University, discussed on Twitter about the “Kill Team” – the group of rogue US soldiers who went around killing innocents in Afghanistan, and the trophy photos that they amassed.
The Twitter conversation focused on the issue of photographs being used as war trophies. I said to Colberg that I grew up with photos of dead enemies killed in combat, which my father kept.
For three decades, between the 1960s and the late 1990s, my father served in the Malaysian army, with the majority of the time being spent in an elite regiment. This regiment carried out a special task of finding and neutralising communist terrorism threats. For years, he explained little about the photographs, which he kept in a family album. I grew up with them. I never questioned them until a few weeks ago, when I finally had the courage to ask him about it. So over Skype, we had a chat. He took them out from his scrap book, and explained them to me, one by one.
He allowed me to publish some of the old photographs for my article, which he re-photographed using his mobile phone.
First, I asked him about the picture of the seven men in the body bags. ‘Who were the dead men?’
Q. Who were the dead men?
I joined army at 20 years of age. 15 May 1962.
This was taken on 6 March 1967. These dead bodies were carried to the helicopter landing zone at the top of a mountain in [Borneo]. It was an ambush made on the communist guerillas. We were in the state of emergency, facing many threats from the guerillas. They got their ideology from Peking. [He showed the photo] The bodies were arranged in body bags. Sometimes, we didn’t have any body bags in the jungle. These men were shot by the commandos. We got seven of them that day.
The people who were shot were armed, and they shot back at the armies. That was why we neutralised them.
Q. Who took the photograph?
The photos were taken by the army intelligence photographers.
Q. Did the military take pictures of the dead colleagues?
No. Just the enemies.
[He showed a photo which depicts him and his colleagues standing by the wreckage of an Aloutte gunship helicopter, commonly used during the Vietnam War by the US Air Force.]
This was in 1963. The helicopter crashed before my eyes. The tail got stuck on a roof of a nearby building. This was during the Confrontation (Ed: a period of military stand-off between Malaysia and Indonesia from 1962 to 1966, when Indonesia was under a strong influence of the Indonesian Communist Party, the PKI).
It was taken at [location not disclosed]. It was the Royal Malay Air Force helicopter. The pilot, a Major, died. But the Brigadier General survived. Shortly afterwards, the platoon commander took this photograph. I was a wireless operator then (in the Signals division).
Q. How did you feel witnessing this crash, and the combats?
[He ignored my question]
Q. Did you ever killed anyone?
[I did not pursue this further]
I was not involved with these combats. They were joint operations.
Q. Were there any other combats you were involved in?
Yes. In [location not disclosed] in 1976. We neutralised five men from the communist group. It was in [location not disclosed], 40 kms away [from the military camp where we grew up as children].
Q. So you were still involved in combats even after I was born?
Q. What was the situation like for you in the early days?
[He showed the photo of an oil refinery in Singapore]
This was in 1965 (the year Singapore gained independence from Malaysia). We had a threat from the “Gestapo” of Indonesia, so my regiment was sent to protect the oil refinery at [location not disclosed]. After the handover, we withdrew our troops and my regiment was sent to [location not disclosed], another communist terrorism hot spot.
Singapore broke away in 1965. When it happened, we were transferred from the Temasek camp in Singapore to [location not disclosed].
Q. Please explain what the Emergency State (1960s to 1969) was about.
The communists ceased their terrorist activities in 1980s (Ed: they officially surrendered in 1990, and were subsequently pardoned by the Malaysian and Thai governments). I joined the army around the Emergency period. We received threats from the Parti Komunis Malaya (PKM), led by Chin Peng in [location not disclosed], PKI, and “Gestapo Indonesia”.
From 1962 to 1963, I was posted in Borneo with [the elite regiment].
The communist party caused a huge unrest in the country. They attacked the civilians. In the 1950s, they attacked a police station and killed the policemen, and burned down the place. They got weapons mostly from China.
Q. From Russia, too?
Q. When did the land mines, or booby traps, come about? I remember your regiment being involved in the clean-up exercise.
The booby trap was a concept that started in the 1970s. The guerillas got the idea from the Vietnam war. Members of PKM based in Thailand got the exchange of knowledge from the guerillas in Vietnam (the Viet Cong).
[He showed the photo of a dead body being tied on a long pole and carried away, like a hunt].
Q. What happened to the bodies of the dead enemies afterwards?
We kept the bodies as evidence. They would be taken care of and sent to the police. The post mortem would be handled by the forensic team to confirm that they were communist terrorists – not civilians. After that, the authorities would try to locate the next-of-kin for the dead people to get proper burials. We had to obey the United Nations law.
Q. Were the communist guerillas only of Chinese ethnicity?
No. They were both of Chinese and Malay ethnicities – and also Indonesians. For example, Rashid Maidin and Abdullah Che Dat. These ‘veterans’ now reside in Thailand.
Q. How did you feel about the combat situation? Were you sad or satisfied that the enemy had been defeated?
When I was young, the fight roused my ‘spirit’. I had to defend my country. My team defended my country from the enemies.
The terrorists had to be killed because they were cruel to the people. The military was also their main target.
Q. Why do you keep the photographs?
I have a sense of belonging to the unit and the country. The soldiers are very loyal to each other, and to the unit. Everyone had to keep the photos of the dead enemies in their scrap books.
Q. What do you think about the American “Kill Team” taking the photos of the innocent victims whom they murdered?
It’s bad to do that to fellow human beings. If they’re not armed, it’s wrong to do that.
What the Kill Team did was uncivilised. Furthermore, they did not respect the bodies of those victims, and the families of the dead. Even the communist guerillas had families.
Q. The photos were in our family album, kept among our other lovely keepsakes. Don’t you find that a bit unusual?
The photos were shared amongst members in the unit. It is my scrap book. I keep them for my own memory. It’s a history of my life. And your life.
Q. Are those photos a war trophy?
No. It’s not a trophy; it’s just my history. [He paused] Are you sure it is ethical to show these images to the public? I’d allow you to publish them purely for academic references. To show the younger generation how difficult it was to defend the country and preserve the peace.
I think these images are too disturbing to show to the public. Are you sure about this?
[I replied: "Don't worry. I have seen worse at the World Press Photo."]
Q. What do the photos mean to you? Triumph? Victory? A reminder of a difficult time?
It’s part of my history, but not for a trophy purpose. It is just as scrap book. A reference.
I put it in the family album as a lesson for the family to not betray the country. This is what could happen to traitors.
It was an important time, a special time of my life that I want to share with my family.
It’s my scrap book. We shouldn’t be afraid of pictures of dead enemies. You should never betray a just and fair leader.
Q. Do you think it’s morally right to keep photos of dead enemies?
Is it respecting human rights for you (as a photo editor) to publish these photos? [Referred to the photo of the dead man tied to a stick, being carted away by soldiers] He looks like a hunt being carried home. Wouldn’t this upset his family?
This man was carried to the top of the mountain to the helicopter landing zone.
Sometimes, we didn’t bring the body bags. At [location undisclosed], it took me three hours to carry a body out of the jungle. It was too difficult to winch them out with helicopters. You would have to chop down the trees. That would take time, while the body decomposed. We had to be quick and practical.
Q. You served the army for more than 20 years since you very young. What is your opinion of the war now?
Young people are not very sensitive anymore, or understand why the war happened. Because they don’t know the history. It is important to learn history.
Zarina, I was just doing my task, and did my duty as a citizen.
Zarina Holmes’s father is now a lawyer, doing a PhD in Law. Holmes is a photographer and photo editor based in London. She has never documented war.
Mike Harris, @Di9it8 on Twitter (3 May, 2011):
My father never spoke about his experiences http://flic.kr/p/9qiwqe
Brenda Burrell, @brendadada on Twitter (3 May, 2011):
My father wouldn’t talk about his pictures. Kodachrome slide c1959 Cyprus http://twitpic.com/4sslqo.
My father also put photos of his time in Korea in the family album. I guess it’s where we all used to put our pictures. Me: “Dad, why are they building this huge big hospital, nobody is ill?” Him: “Don’t worry, there will be soon.” Cyprus 1958. My father used to sob uncontrollably about his time in Korea, but there are so few words. Must write it down. You’re so fortunate/generous to share your father’s pictures with us. Most privileged, thank you.