Disgraced ex-Indonesian army Colonel Purwanto made a grab for the headlines this week after seeing the film Balibó in Jakarta. His admission that “the Balibó Five were not killed in cross-fire but killed to prevent them from breaking the news of the Indonesian invasion of East Timor”, which is the fiction peddled by the Indonesian military for 34 years was not news to anyone interested in the facts of the atrocity that took place in an undefended village called Balibó (October 16, 1975) approximately seven weeks before the bloody Indonesian invasion of East Timor (December 7, 1975).
The latter date is the anniversary of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour in World War Two, which might provide an insight into the pig-ignorant cowboy fantasies of the Javanese warlords who boasted that they would be in Balibó for breakfast, Dili for lunch and Baucau for dinner.
Purwanto was punished for his role in the Santa Cruz massacre by being cashiered, which was surprising since the leader of the assassination squad responsible for the cold-blooded, premeditated murders of Brian Peters, Malcolm Rennie, Greg Shackleton, Gary Cunningham and Tony Stewart was decorated and promoted.
In a repeat performance, Yunus Josfiah again was promoted for his part in the murder of the leader of the Timorese Resistance Army, Nicolau Dos Reis Lobato, in 1979. Josfiah told TEMPO magazine that he had filmed the death of Lobato and liked to sip whisky while watching the film. I wonder if he filmed the death throes of the Balibó Five.
The plot has thickened since Tuesday’s media frenzy. Purwanto has made many conflicting statements in what now appears to be a blatant attempt to provide an alibi for his commanding officer’s part in a deliberate crime against humanity merely to confuse an Australian Federal Police investigation into the Balibó murders.
I wonder what pressure in being brought to force Purwanto to become the fall guy for his senior officers by creating mediocre versions of the murders, none of which are credible.
In a civilised society, justice is not about vengeance, it is about accountability. Indonesian citizens need and deserve accountability. At Notre Dame University a month ago, President Yudhyono was asked to explain his bloody occupation of East Timor — this was a warning not to be underestimated, all over the world because of their brutality, the Indonesian military is known for its Mafia-like crimes.
The courageous Indonesian journalists who defied the ban are facing five years in jail and heavy fines. That’s the story I would like to cause an international media frenzy; what intestinal fortitude, what exemplary courage!
We have an extradition treaty with Indonesia and it is used on other matters, so there is nothing to prevent it being implemented in this case. If you are told that we Australians cannot afford to upset the Indonesians, consider this — Australia gives Indonesia half a million aid dollars per annum and there are 16,000 Indonesian students studying in Australia plus $15 billion a year in bi-lateral investment and trade.
We must have good relations with Indonesians. There will never be a better time to come clean and end a deeply humiliating scandal that will continue to destroy any hope of good will between our two countries.
Shirley Shackleton was married to the late Channel Seven reporter Greg Shackleton, one of five Australian television journalists who were killed in Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor in 1975, known as the “Balibo Five”. Shirley is a well-known campaigner for East Timor leading up to the 1999 independence ballot and beyond. Her memoir The Circle of Silence is a testimony before, during and after Balibo. It will be published next year by Pier Nine.
My full sympathies to the families of the Balibo five, but my question is – why is there such an national obsession around the murder of these people that it is still the subject of movies 20+ years later? Was it such a loss of national innocence at the time? Do other nations pick over the circumstances of their long-dead repeatedly?
My question is – why is it so hard to accept that five journalists, who stayed and allowed the tide of battle to flow over them, became casualties? They were urged by the retreating Timorese to get out but chose to stay.
What made this war front so different from every other battle zone? War correspondents usually do not assume they enjoy protected status in the heat of battle.
It may be tragic, but it seems to me to have been a calculated risk that went badly wrong.
Indonesian simply didn’t want any witnesses to their illegal actions in East Timor and they continually laugh at our efforts to get justice for these Australian journalists. Not a lot we can do other than cut off aid as they’ll continue to rub our noses in it.
Besides they are getting Sukhoi jets and we aren’t!!
What is all this for? Five journalists died – numerous E. Timorese died, probably some Indonesians died, good people die, children die, women and children are raped, the innocent suffer and land is made uninhabitable – this is the nature of war. The deaths of the 5 journalists in the “fog of war” was sad but let’s hear more demands for non violent methods of solving conflict instead of concentrating on a few isolated deaths amongst the millions who have died so futilely over the past 10 years. Turn over the page and seek peaceful solutions to conflict.
So, imagine if 5 Australian journalists were shot dead in Indonesia today, and the Indonesian authorities said it was very sad that some unknown group of gunmen had shot them by mistake (but they were later found out to be plainclothes police), and the Australian government said we should just accept this situation because the relationship between the two countries is too important….
Or if you go to the police to report a murder, and they say, well, ‘people die, children die, women and children are raped, the innocent suffer’, you should just get on with your life…