Our Washington trip began at 5am in the morning at Penn Station where we boarded the AmTrak to the nation’s capital. With the sun rising in the background, we interviewed the Governor on the train about what he had achieved in New York and was looking forward to in Washington. He had heard that the Australian Government had just signed a $100 million agreement with the Indonesian government designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by preserving peatland forest in Kalimantan. In their announcement, the Australian government said the deforestation and burning in Kalimantan is the largest single source of Indonesia’s greenhouse gas emissions. The Governor was baffled as to why the Australian government hadn’t thought to support his forest protection program, given that he is the first Governor in Indonesia to declare a moratorium on logging.
On the train, we also interviewed Thomas Fricke, a US businessman travelling with the delegation. Thomas has major business interests in Aceh, mainly in sustainable biofuel from palm oil. He is working in conjunction with RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) and hopes to get other US businesses interested in investing in Aceh’s economic renewal.
The first meeting in Washington was with The Hon. Jim McDermott, a Representative in Congress from the State of Washington. Jim is a very warm, jovial and friendly democrat who is openly impressed with Irwandi’s past and style of leadership. He allowed us to film their entire meeting.
However, he gave the Governor, and more particularly his wife, 
a bit of a shock when he opened the meeting by saying: ‘so sorry to hear about the earthquake in your province this morning and hope the approaching tsunami won't be as bad as the last one'. As we’d been in transit for the past 4 hours, none of us had heard anything about it. Irwandi went white and so did his wife. Everyone starting frantically phoning and texting, but it turned out the earthquake was further south in Sumatra (near Jambi) and the resulting wave was just a metre high - not really a tsunami. Huge relief all round. After the meeting we heard that there had been two further earthquakes that did cause loss of lives and significant damage, but again these were further south on Sumatra Island.
We stayed too long with McDermott and then got lost in the bowels of one building only to find we were in the wrong place. We hurtled down more corridors asking the cleaner for directions, and arrived almost 40 minutes late - for Senator Leahy's chief of staff. Senator Leahy heads up the Foreign Appropriations Sub-Committee which is responsible for billions of dollars in funds for international aid and development projects. His chief of staff told us that Leahy is particularly concerned about the fate of the orangutans and is very keen to support anything that will prevent further habitat destruction. For this reason, he was very pleased to hear about the logging moratorium in Aceh and the Governor’s commitment to sustainable palm oil.
The delegation is being transported around Washington by three diplomatic vehicles (8 seater vans) provided by the Indonesian Embassy. After the second meeting the Governor invited us to join them for lunch. I was too exhausted to eat, but this was a good chance to build our relationship with the various members of the delegation. One of the more colourful characters accompanying the Governor is Willam (Billy) Nessen, an American who embedded himself with GAM during the fight for independence and filmed some of the fierce battles with the Indonesian army and the tragic consequences of the war. This footage became the core of the documentary film “The Black Road” which he made in conjunction with SBS and an Australian production company, Electric Pictures. Billy is willing to provide us with extraordinary photos and footage of GAM during the struggle to include in our film.
After the lunch, we were delivered to our budget hotel in the campus area of George Washington University. Our hotel is full of students and activists gathering in Washington for the mass anti-war protest to be held here on Saturday. Felicity and I are sharing a dingy room in the basement with paint peeling off the walls and one very dim overhead light. But the location is great, (not far from the White House and Capital Hill buildings) and the people running it are friendly. And we have wireless internet access in our room!!
The second day in Washington was jam-packed full of meetings. I’m not sure how the Governor and the delegation are keeping up the pace. And to make it harder, Ramadan (the fasting month) began yesterday. This means they will not eat during daylight hours. Our sound recordist, Handi is also fasting. He gets up at 5am to eat, and then does not eat or drink anything again until after sunset. How they will keep going with the punishing schedule they have set for themselves over the next 10 days is a mystery to me. The Governor explained to me today that Ramadan is a time to think about those who do not have the advantages we have, and do not have food or shelter. It is a time to remember those in need and to be humble. The more time I spend with him, the more I am inspired by Irwandi’s style of leadership and personal ethics. He lives his beliefs and puts his words into action, while remaining humble and under-stated about himself and his lifestyle. These are not qualities we see too often in most Western leaders.
The Governor gave a speech entitled “My Vision of Aceh: our hopes and concerns” at the Cosmos Club yesterday to an audience of around 200 people. It was an inspiring speech followed by a vigorous question and answer session. The audience included academics, human rights and environment organizations, the business community and some of the US Aceh community. Most had never met the Governor before, but from the discussion afterwards it was clear that he had surprised and impressed the crowd with his remarkable personal history, his frank and forthright style and his post-conflict leadership and environmental vision.
That afternoon we went with the Governor to meet the President of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick. It was a bit like meeting a president inside a palace. The World Bank building is large and ornate, and the security is extreme. It is a testament to Felicity that we got into the building at all, let alone right into Zoellick’s office with the camera rolling. He only let us stay for 2 minutes, but it was enough. We had the story. Zoellick’s staff told us that he usually only meets with heads of countries and meeting with a Governor from a remote province of Indonesia was highly unusual. Irwandi’s reputation and the devastation of the tsunami had both helped to secure the meeting. Zoellick promised to continue the World Bank’s support for Aceh which to date has been in the order of many hundreds of millions of dollars.
Today we accompanied the Governor to what was described as a ‘personal meeting’ with Paul Wolfowitz. This is the man who recently resigned under a dark cloud as President of World Bank (Zoellick’s predecessor) for awarding a preferential salary to someone he was dating while attempting to clean up the corruption giving the World Bank a bad name. Wolfowitz is also known as one of the architects of the war in Iraq when he was the Deputy Secretary of Defence in the Bush administration. So why was Irwandi paying him a visit? Wolfowitz was Ambassador to Indonesia from 1986 - 98, loves the country, speaks fluent Bahasa and has visited Aceh. He was also the first international figure to congratulate Irwandi after he was elected Governor. Now Wolfowitz is taking a personal interest in carbon trading. He met Dorjee recently in Melbourne and was extremely impressed by his proposal. In fact, his son almost joined Dorjee’s company. However after weighing it all up, he decided to join a carbon trading company based in Jakarta. Wolfowitz offered to give whatever help he could to Dorjee and the Governor to assist the Carbon Conservation project in Aceh. He allowed us to film the entire meeting which I did with conflicting emotions. I do not support what he has done in the past, but I have to admit he is a charming and pleasant person, and I share his admiration for the Governor and his desire to see the carbon trading scheme work in Aceh. This is another example of the contradictions inherent in so many of the characters in this film, and in fact in human nature. I do not think there are good guys and bad guys in the world. I think people operate on good or bad impulses and have the potential to cause great harm or great good by their actions. This is emerging as one of the underlying themes of this film.
Tonight we blog, rest and write up the expense report. Tomorrow Felicity will go and film the anti-war protest which will front up to both the White House and Congress. Handi and I will accompany the Governor to a Kundori (traditional Acehenese ceremony) at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It’s about 2 hours drive from Washington. On Sunday morning we head for San Francisco where we meet up with Dorjee. Our first event there on Monday is a full day devoted entirely to the issue of carbon trading.
This evening in our hotel I met a couple who have come to Washington from Vermont to join the protest march tomorrow. They gave me one of their great T-shirts. Meeting this couple on the same day as filming the interview with Wolfowitz brought home to me the complexity and rich irony that I so often encounter as a documentary film-maker.
