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International links forged in adversity

4 March 2009

Vice-Chancellor Professor Richard Larkins (centre) thanks the visiting Indonesian disaster victim identification team at a Clayton campus ceremony.

Out of the furnace of the tragic Victorian bushfires, new bonds have been forged between Monash and Indonesia around the University's pioneering role in disaster victim identification training.

Monash played an important part in setting up the visit by six Indonesian experts to join in the huge, traumatic task of searching for victims among the ashes, and identifying their remains.

The team included two odontologists, Daniel Augustinus and Lisda Cancer, who have been part of Monash forensic medicine workshops held in Indonesia since 2006 to skill its Disaster Victim Identification team and train a range of community workers.

Indonesia's willingness to send the team has been described as a diplomatic triumph which has warmed Australians' attitudes towards their northern neighbour, making it a two-way relationship after the help Australia provided in the wake of the 2004 tsunami in particular.

The warmth was very evident in a ceremony hosted by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Richard Larkins, on the Clayton campus on Friday 27 February for the team, led by Dr Mussadeq Ishaq. It was to leave for home on Sunday.

Monash University's training in Indonesia has been run in conjunction with the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, whose director is the head of the Monash Department of Forensic Medicine, Professor Stephen Cordner.

In thanking the team for their work in difficult times, Professor Larkins said the University's links with Indonesia had become broader than being just another student destination. (There are almost 2000 Indonesian students at Monash.)

The visit to Monash was led by Indonesia's Consul-General, Budiarman Bahar, who has liaised closely with Monash University's director of Indonesian Engagement, long-time staffer Basoeki Koesasi.

The pair were the prime movers in recommending the team's rapid despatch to Australia -- it took only five hours on 9 February, two days after the fires, for approval to come through from Indonesia's President Yudhoyono.

Dr Augustinus told the meeting that the sensation he experienced upon being taken to the fire zone was still vivid.

"When first we were taken to the scene, we were brought to Marysville, and when I saw the houses and the land burned, I can only tell you that it gave me goosebumps," he said. "When I tell people what I saw, it still gives me goosebumps."

He said the group resolved any issues by debriefing in their own way -- "we pray, we talk to each other about our experiences for support."