The Malaysian High Court has awarded compensation to 29 activists who were wrongfully detained in Malaysia 13 years ago. The group were part of a regional conference, held in the Malaysian capital in 1996, to discuss East Timor's struggle for independence. The forum was attacked by 400 people led by the ruling UMNO party, and police arrested more than 100 people. Tian Chua organised the conference, and is one of the activists who the government has been ordered to pay compensation. He's now an opposition MP and says the High Court's decision is recognition the government's actions were an act of violence.

Presenter: Christine Webster

Speakers: Tian Chua, Malaysian Opposition MP

Webster: Malaysia's High Court has found 29 activists who gathered for a regional meeting to discuss East Timor's struggle for independence from Indonesia were wrongly detained by police for six days. The activists share a total of 250,000 US dollars in compensation. Tian Chua says the government at the time opposed the 1996 conference because it didn't want to threaten its ties with Indonesia.

Chua: I think it's a vindication not so much receiving the compensation, but the recognition by the judiciary that the actions by the ruling parties in breaking down the East Timor conference was an act of violence, it was wrong we believe, and more importantly our efforts in fighting for not only the liberation of East Timor, but asserting the right to freedom of speech and the right for us to assemble and to show solidarity with human rights in other countries has been recognised.

Webster: The detention was for six days, was there ill treatment of the activists by the police involved?

Chua: Well we had been put into a very atrocious environment in the lock-up. For example the cells had been very crowded and we did not have clean water, and there was various inconveniences that had been caused by the detention. I think the question is not so much the ill treatment as such, as I think we can endure that, the whole question was at the time that there was a total suppression of any public discourse on the plight and crisis in East Timor, despite we were neighbours. Any attempt to raise issues on the problem of East Timor has been suppressed heavy- handedly, and that was the context that we were fighting against.

Webster: The incident happened quite a number of years ago now, why did it take so long to actually get compensation?

Chua: Well this probably just shows how slowly our judiciary rectified itself, and this is also part of a long process where Malaysia itself is still undergoing the process of democratisation. The 1996 incident was a prelude to a series of major social transformation in Southeast Asia.

Webster: Why was the second Asia Pacific conference on East Timor so controversial to the ruling UMNO Party at the time?

Chua: Well the entire region at the time was run by military dictatorships and autocratic leaders like Dr Mahathir. They felt that it was part of their responsibility and all we can say solidarity to affect each other. And Malaysia did not want to create any diplomatic tension with Indonesia.

Webster: Do you feel that the High Court could have made more rulings or given you more recognition of what you actually, the activists suffered?

Chua: Yes we were hoping for more powerful position of the High Court. However it seems that the judiciary system it's a cautious position, while recognising the abuses by the police, the court didn't want to admit that there was a government conspiracy.

Activists win suit over East Timor

Agence France Presse - December 22, 2009

Kuala Lumpur – The Malaysian High Court on Tuesday ordered the government to compensate 29 rights activists for wrongful detention over a controversial gathering to discuss East Timor 13 years ago.

The court awarded a total of RM870,000 (253,000 dollars) to the activists, who were held by police in the Malaysian capital for up to six days.

In 1996, they had planned to host the Second Asia Pacific Conference on East Timor to discuss the troubled territory's struggle for independence from Indonesia and the human rights abuses there.

RM30,000 each

"The amount is sufficient to compensate the suffering that you endured during the detention," judge Wan Adnan Muhamad said in his verdict. The judge awarded RM30,000 to each of the activists.

Malaysia had opposed to the 1996 conference, saying it would harm bilateral ties with its neighbour Indonesia.

As the meeting was about to begin in a hotel, 400 people led by the ruling Umno leaders broke down the conference hall doors, flung chairs and abused the participants, the court was told.

Police later moved in to arrest more than 100 people, including journalists, while 40 foreign participants were deported. The activists later filed the suit to claim damages for their mistreatment during the arrest and detention.

'Attack ordered by the government'

Then United Nations special representative to East Timor Jose Ramos-Horta – now the Timorese president – was among the guests invited to the conference but was denied entry to Malaysia, the court heard during trial.

One of the mob leaders, Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, then an Umno youth secretary, had testified in court that the attack was ordered by the government. He is now an opposition MP.

The activists, some of whom are now opposition lawmakers, were jubilant over their court victory.

"We have been vindicated. The court recognised our action was justified and the police had unlawfully detained us," said opposition Keadilan MP Tian Chua, who was an organiser of the conference and was detained for six nights.

Independence in 2002

"This is also a recognition for those who have participated in the East Timor struggle that had been a long journey and gained important achievement later," he added.

East Timor achieved independence from Indonesia in 2002 after a referendum marred by bloodshed and rights abuses at the hands of Indonesian forces and their militia proxies.

Former army chief Wiranto is among a number of senior officers who have been indicted by UN prosecutors over gross human rights abuses during Indonesia's 24-year occupation, which claimed an estimated 100,000 lives.

Balibo 5 killings

Balibo probe still in 'early stages': Commissioner

Australian Associated Press - December 9, 2009

Adam Gartrell, Jakarta – An Australian Federal Police (AFP) probe into the Balibo Five killings is still in its early stages and it's too soon to say if investigators will seek to interview witnesses in Indonesia, commissioner Tony Negus says.

The AFP launched its war crimes probe earlier this year, almost two years after a coronial inquest concluded Indonesian forces deliberately killed the Australia-based journalists to cover up their 1975 invasion of East Timor.

Debate about the killings was reignited this week when a retired Indonesian army colonel appeared to back the coroner's findings, becoming the first senior Indonesian figure to contradict the official explanation the newsmen were killed in crossfire.

Gatot Purwanto – a junior special forces commando at the time when he took part in the assault on Balibo – said soldiers made a rational decision to kill the newsmen but were also provoked by the sound of gunfire from their direction.

Asked if the AFP would seek to interview witnesses like Purwanto, Negus said the probe was still in "its early stages".

"It would be premature to say at all that we could interview anyone in Indonesia at this stage," he said, adding he was aware of Purwanto's comments.

"I'm also aware today that the individual has said he's not prepared to talk to the AFP. So all these things need to be examined in the entirety of the investigation and we'll address those as they come up."

Australia would have to seek Indonesia's permission to interview potential witnesses on Indonesian soil, Negus said.

"We respect the sovereign rights of Indonesia and they would have to allow AFP officers to come to Indonesia to conduct an investigation that would be done with the full co-operation and understanding of the Indonesian national police," he said.

Purwanto made his claims after seeing Robert Connolly's Balibo, the Australian film about the killings that has been banned in Indonesia. Indonesia's national journalist's association is continuing to defy the ban, staging a series of screenings across the country.

Commando refuses to give evidence on Balibo

The Australian - December 9, 2009

Stephen Fitzpatrick – The retired Indonesian commando at the centre of the Balibo Five killings says he will refuse to give evidence to an Australian Federal Police investigation into the incident, since he has no authority to do so.

"I have never thought about (giving evidence), because at the time I was on duty... I was a soldier, so what I did or didn't do at the time was the responsibility of headquarters; they're the ones with the authority to answer such inquiries," Colonel Gatot Purwanto said.

Colonel Purwanto, 62, says the five Australian-based journalists who died in East Timor in 1975 were deliberately killed by Indonesian special forces troops, contradicting the official Jakarta line that they died in crossfire.

His admission follows the AFP's announcement in September that it has begun a formal, criminal investigation into the deaths of the Balibo Five.

Colonel Purwanto says the members of "Team Susi", the advance commando guard sent to the small town of Balibo about dawn on October 16, 1975, knew the five men were journalists because of their camera equipment.

However, he claims the killings, while deliberate, were not on Jakarta's orders.

Indeed, he insists that the man identified by NSW Deputy Coroner Dorelle Pinch as having played a key role in the deaths, now retired information minister Yunus Yosfiah, caused anger among his superiors for the way the men were killed.

Colonel Purwanto said the members of Team Susi opened fire on the house where the Balibo Five were sheltering and filming the invasion, after hearing gunfire coming from its direction.

Colonel Purwanto's evidence contradicts that given in the NSW coroner's court, that one of the five was killed in the town square trying to surrender to the Indonesians, and another was stabbed in the back after trying to escape the commandos.

However, Colonel Purwanto's new evidence includes the line that "on the battlefield, if someone is not your ally, then he could be someone who will kill you, so in that case you must kill him first".

He also said the only acceptable military outcome was to kill the five journalists and destroy their bodies in order to prevent them reporting the Indonesian invasion of East Timor.

Indonesian military spokesman Air Vice-Marshal Sagom Tamboen said Colonel Purwanto was unlikely to face sanctions for revealing military secrets, although his version of events was "counter- productive with our stance but we will just treat it as a source of knowledge to us".

Balibo witness hard to pin down

Sydney Morning Herald - December 9, 2009

Tom Allard, Jakarta – As they cowered in a flimsy shack in a banana grove, the Balibo Five were killed by ferocious volleys of gunfire from Indonesian soldiers and their Timorese allies in a lengthy assault on their hideout, Gatot Purwanto says.

Colonel Purwanto, a junior special forces officer at the time, provided the new details in an interview with the Herald, in which he again denied the 1975 killings of the Australian-based journalists in Balibo had been ordered by Jakarta or his commander, Yunus Yosfiah.

He also revealed that he took a film canister from the dead television newsmen and used it as a doorstop at his Jakarta home.

Drawing a map of Balibo in the Jakarta office of his security firm, Colonel Purwanto depicted the shack on top of a hill, with Indonesian-led forces below.

"We knew there were foreigners in that shack. We had seen cameras but we were not sure they were journalists," he said.

"Then we heard shots come from their direction. Instantly, as a reaction, we shot back. There was 10 minutes of intense shooting. Then we stopped and started again... several times."

When the Indonesians entered the shack, all the men – Greg Shackleton, Tony Stewart, Gary Cunningham, Malcolm Rennie and Brian Peters – were dead, mowed down by the relentless gunfire.

"They were not in one room when we found them. One was in the room, another was outside the shack under a banana tree, another was at the rear of the house," he said.

The families of the journalists vehemently contest this version.

Colonel Purwanto, who later became intelligence boss in East Timor during Indonesian rule, was hard to pin down on the details. At one point, he denied the five had been executed, a word he used liberally to describe their deaths in an interview with Tempo magazine. Yes, they had been captured alive, he said. But, by that, he meant they were surrounded from a distance.

Killed with intent? "I am pretty sure they were not deliberately killed." But then he added: "The boys just opened fire when they heard the shots. They took advantage of it to simply terminate them. After it happened, we thought it was for the best."

The bodies were stripped of valuables and burned for two days to hide the evidence. The men's film was not destroyed, even though it probably would have shown incriminating evidence of the invasion of East Timor.

"I was the one who took it to Jakarta," he said. "I didn't really pay attention to it. So I used it as a doorstop for my house for about a year. I don't remember what happened to it after that."

Wasn't he curious about its contents? "No, I was just a young officer."

Shirley Shackleton, the widow of Greg Shackleton, was incredulous about the account. "I think it is a smokescreen to protect his commanding officer, Yunus Yosfiah so that Yosfiah will be able to say, 'I've got eyewitnesses,"' Mrs Shackleton, 78, told the Herald. (with Ari Sharp)

Indonesian military denies soldier's claim they killed 'Balibo Five'

Jakarta Globe - December 8, 2009

Markus Junianto Sihaloho & Ashlee Betteridge – The Armed Forces on Tuesday shrugged off a former soldier's statement that Indonesian military forces killed the so-called Balibo Five and burned their bodies to conceal evidence the military was active in that area.

Army spokesman Brig. Gen. Christian Zebua said that, for them, it was not proper to remember past incidents, moreover, many people could have many different interpretations over the case. "We also have our own documentation over what happened in East Timor," Zebua said.

Asked whether the military was willing to apologize over the incident, Zebua said the case was closed. "We don't think like that [to apologize]. The problem is over. It's just an old memory," Zebua said.

However, such an attitude was slammed by Komnas HAM commissioner Yoseph Adi Prasetyo, or Stanley, saying that past human rights abuses could not be resolved by simply forgetting them.

"A statement like 'just forget it' can be aired by one side only, moreover by someone who is alleged to have conducted the killing," Stanley said. "For the victims, it is not over because they haven't found a clear perspective from which to see the matter."

Gatot Purwanto, a witness to the deaths of five journalists at Balibo in 1975, told Tempo magazine that a plainclothes unit of Indonesian troops advancing into East Timor in October 1975 – well before Jakarta officially invaded the country in December – admitted the journalists were killed to conceal the invasion from the world.

He claimed that the advancing troops had found the five journalists alive inside a house, but after shots came from the direction of the house, soldiers reacted by spraying it with gunfire, he said. The journalists were later found dead inside. Determined to keep the presence of the marauding military unit unknown, the soldiers burned the bodies.

But the widow of one of the Balibo Five journalists has labeled a his account of events "contradictory" and still maintains that Jakarta officials ordered the "bloody murder" of the Australians in East Timor in 1975 to cover up Indonesia's invasion.

"[Purwanto] seems to be trying to clear his conscience," Shirley Shackleton, the widow of Channel 7 journalist Greg Shackleton, told ABC Radio on Tuesday.

"He says on the one hand they didn't die in crossfire, but then later on he says 'Oh we shot them because shots came from behind them,' but there was no-one there shooting," she said.

In a separate interview on Tuesday with the Fairfax Radio Network, Shackleton said that she welcomed the admission from Purwanto as a "milestone... another nail in the coffin of lies," but that it would not provide closure.

"You don't get closure from things like that," Shackleton said. "Closure is just a new age gobbledegook word, what it really means is 'Please, I can't stand your grief, go away,'?" she said.

TNI dismisses Balibo Five murder claim

Jakarta Post - December 9, 2009

Jakarta – The Indonesian Military (TNI) has insisted the foreign journalists known as the Balibo Five were accidentally killed in East Timor in 1975, despite an admission by a former army colonel that the newsmen were executed by Indonesian soldiers.

Army spokesman Brig. Gen. Christian Zebua told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday that the Army was not involved in the killing of the five journalists as admitted by Col. (ret) Gatot Purwanto to Tempo magazine. "The Army never committed such killings," he said.

Christian said he did not even know Gatot in person. "I don't know him personally, and I don't even think he knew what was happening at that time. The deaths were purely accidental," he insisted.

Separately, TNI spokesman, Sagom Tamboen, told the Post via text message that Gatot did not admit to the killings. "Gatot did not say there were such killings," he said.

In an interview with Tempo, Gatot, who claimed he was a lieutenant in the Army's special forces (Kopassus) team that converged on East Timor's border town of Balibo on Oct. 16, 1975, said his team found the five foreign journalists – two Australians, two Britons and a New Zealander – were still alive when the shootout between Indonesian soldiers and Timorese fighters began to die down.

The team infiltrated strategic East Timorese territory just weeks before Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese colony.

Gatot said that as the team did not know what to do with the journalists – Greg Shackleton, Tony Stewart, Brian Peters, Malcolm Rennie, dan Gary Cunningham – they asked Jakarta what action should be taken. While waiting, he claimed he heard gun shots from where the journalists were being held. "Our soldiers fired back. The journalists were all (killed)," he said.

Gatot said the team was in a difficult situation because if they were detained then, once freed, they would reveal that it was Indonesian soldiers that arrested them, exposing Indonesia's planned invasion of East Timor.

"Probably, (the shooting) was the best option. If not executed then they could testify that there was invasion by Indonesian military," he said, adding the bodies were then burned to hide the evidence.

Australian Federal Police launched a war crimes investigation into the case in September after the release of the Australian movie Balibo renewed public interest in the case. The film was banned in Indonesia.

Shirley Shackleton, the widow of Shackleton welcomed Gatot's interview – the first senior Indonesian soldier to contradict the official version that the reporters were caught in the middle of a gunbattle and accidentally shot.

"It is a milestone. It's another nail in the coffin of lies," she told Australia's Fairfax Radio Network as quoted by AP on Tuesday. (nia)

Gatot Purwanto: It was a difficult situation

Tempo Magazine - December 8-14, 2009

The Timor Leste (formerly East Timor) story and that of Col. (ret) Gatot Purwanto, 62, are intertwined. This former Special Forces (Kopassus) officer can be said to have witnessed all of the bloody incidents that happened in Indonesia's former 27th province. In fact, Gatot was involved in East Timor since the beginning of his military career. Tragically, it was also there that his vocation ended.

Just before Indonesia's invasion of East Timor in 1975, Gatot would go in and out of this former Portuguese colony, disguised as a trader. His good looks, neat appearance and sociable manner made it easy for him to move around. "I was known as Aseng over there," he said laughingly, recalling how people often mistook him for an ethnic Chinese.

Inside Timor, his job was to contact local opposition politicians and gather intelligence. He was the only Indonesian officer who was able to penetrate the Fretilin hideout in the jungle, and speak directly to their rebel chief, Xanana Gusmao.

However, the November 12, 1991 Santa Cruz incident ended his bright career. As the assistant commander for intelligence in East Timor, he was responsible for failing to anticipate the demonstration that became violent. The Indonesian Military (TNI) was accused of shooting at the people, killing more than 100. Gatot was discharged from the military.

One bloody incident he remembers well is the attack at Balibo. Gatot, who was then a first lieutenant, witnessed how five Australia-based journalists from Channel 7 and Channel 9 – Greg Shackleton, Tony Stewart, Gary Cunningham, Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie – were captured and shot.

The five journalists were in the midst of covering the joint attack by the UDT and Apodeti groups – two rival groups of the Fretilin at the time – into Balibo in October 1975, supported by the Indonesian Army. "It seems to have been my fate to be involved in bloody incidents in East Timor," lamented Gatot.

Last week, following the screening of the film Balibo, produced by Robert Connolly, at the Utan Kayu Theater in East Jakarta, Gatot described his version of the incident depicted in the controversial film to Tempo reporters Arif Zulkifli, Wahyu Dyatmika, Sunudyantoro, Yophiandi and Agus Supriyanto. Excerpts:

You were in Balibo when the five journalists were shot. What happened?

The battle was not over at the time. The fighting had eased, but shots could still be heard. At the edge of Balibo town, near the church on the hill, there were buildings. We shot in that direction because we heard shots coming from there. When we approached the buildings, we saw the five journalists inside. They were captured and they were still alive.

So what did the troops do?

I was still on lower ground, near Pak Yunus (retired Maj. Gen. Yunus Yosfiah, who at the time was the team commander with the rank of captain – Ed.). We received a report that foreigners had been caught. Pak Yunus ordered me to report them to Pak Dading (retired Lt. Gen. Dading Kalbuadi, at the time the commander – Ed.), who was at the border area. If I am not mistaken, Pak Dading then contacted Jakarta, and asked what they should do with those people.

So, it is not true that the five journalists were killed in the crossfire between the TNI and the Fretilin?

When they were first captured, they were still alive. We surrounded them with our weapons. I saw this at a distance of 30 meters from the lower ground of the hill. They were inside and they seemed to be filming from the top. There were shots coming from that direction from time to time, which is why we aimed there and surrounded the building.

What happened then?

It was a difficult situation. If we captured them, the Indonesian troops would be implicated. We didn't know what to do with them, execute them or what. At that very moment, when our troops were sitting around, suddenly shots came from the direction of where the journalists were. Maybe someone was trying to rescue them, we thought. Our troops ran over there, to find all five of them dead.

Exactly when did the attack happen?

We entered Balibo just before dawn. But when the incident took place, it was already daylight, maybe about 10 or 11 in the morning.

When the shooting took place, what were the orders from Yunus Yosfiah or Dading Kalbuadi?

Nothing yet. From the team leader, Pak Yunus, there were no orders to kill them or whatever. Pak Dading was still waiting for instructions from Jakarta. Communications took a long time. So, the shots happened when we were provoked into shooting at the place where they were hiding, because shots came from there.

Was there an effort to identify the five journalists? Were they asked who they were?

No, because none of them spoke Indonesian and none of the troops spoke English.

But did the troops know they were journalists?

We should have known, because they were carrying cameras and other equipment. That should have been obvious from those close to them. The shooting happened from a distance of about 15 meters.

Before the troops entered Balibo, did they know there were five foreign journalists inside the town?

We didn't know. That's why we were shocked and confused when they were captured. We didn't know what to do with them.

So, what happened after the shooting?

Pak Dading went to the site. A TVRI reporter, Hendro Subroto, came along. Then Pak Dading spoke with my commander, Pak Yunus.

What was the condition of the troops at the time? Were any of the troops blamed for acting without orders?

It was a difficult situation for us. If we kept the journalists, not execute them, when they got out, they would say, "Yes, that's right, the Indonesians captured us." It could be used as evidence that we were there. So it was a difficult decision to make. Perhaps, at that time, people at the top thought the shooting was the best way out. I am not sure. If they were not executed, they could be witnesses to the fact that the Indonesian Army had invaded Timor.

So, the shooting was a rational decision?

Yes... but it was provoked by the shooting coming from where they were. Later, they found a Thompson gun inside the building, next to them (the five journalists).

What happened after that?

The bodies of the five journalists were taken to the house of a Chinese in Balibo, about 300 meters from the location of the shooting, just inside the town. There, the bodies were covered with rice husks and then burnt.

Why use the rice husks?

Because they take a longer time. They (the bodies) needed to be totally disintegrated. That took two days. Some wood was also used.

Why were the bodies torched? Wouldn't that have shown that the troops tried to cover the shooting?

Because we were in a bind at the time. We had to make sure that the involvement of Indonesian troops was not known. That's why we didn't wear uniforms when we attacked, we wore civilian clothes. You may have heard of the blue jeans brigade. That was us with long hair.

Who ordered the bodies to be burnt?

Well, there were orders from... (unclear response). I don't know exactly, I was just a young officer then. But we were in a difficult position. If we let them live, they would tell everyone it was an Indonesian invasion. If they died and we abandoned them, there would be evidence that they were shot in territory controlled by Indonesian guerrillas. So, the simple way was to eliminate everything. We just claimed not to know anything. It was the instant reaction at the time.

Besides the TNI, who else was in Balibo at the time?

Besides the Susi Team (advance team), the pro-Indonesian forces of Apodeti and UDT jointly took part in Balibo. There were Apodeti leader Thomas Gonzalves and UDT leader Joan Tabarez. There was one unit of our troops against two of theirs. We were 50, they were about 100.

During the invasion, was there support from Indonesian battleships?

I think there was. When we entered Balibo, there were shots from our ships offshore.

Why was Balibo the first target of attack?

Balibo was not the first one. We had advanced quite deeply at that point, but we were forced to withdraw, running back to Haikesak (a small village at the Indonesian border), and to Atambua. After reinforcements came from UDT and Apodeti, we entered again. The troops had been mobilized and trained since the end of 1974. At the point, we should have reached Dili, preparing a dropping zone and other facilities to support the big invasion, like setting up ammunition dumps in specific areas.

What was the situation in Balibo when you entered it?

Balibo is a small town, with non-descript buildings. There were five concrete buildings, the biggest owned by a Chinese and another served as a health center. In areas bordering with Indonesia, like in Balibo and nearby villages, the population tended to be supporters of the Apodeti, and more pro-Indonesian. This was quite different from people on the eastern side, which could not be accessed by our troops and which were controlled by Fretilin.

When you were assigned in East Timor, you reportedly had close relations with Xanana Gusmao?

I befriended Xanana after the operation carried out during the time of Pak Sahala (retired Lt. Gen. Adolf Sahala Rajagukguk, former Army Deputy Chief of Staff – Ed.) in 1981. After that operation, the TNI was sure that Fretelin was in disarray, falling apart. Finally, all Kopassus troops were withdrawn from Timor, with only two companies – Nanggala 51 and 52 – remaining.

After the troops were withdrawn, they consolidated and attacked us again. I started thinking, if we keep ourselves low all the time, how can we advance? I finally opened communications with Xanana. He welcomed it. Maybe Xanana thought some good could come from it because at that time he was already thinking that post- war, he could be in politics. That was sometime between 1982 and 1983.

What did Xanana say?

He was very formal at first. We spoke in Tetum. He always stressed to me: Indonesia will not be able to continue funding the war in Timor.

Did your good relations continue?

Yes, we have kept in close touch until today. Since the jungle days, I have been the only Kopassus officer who is able to meet with him. So today, if Timor needs intelligence equipment, I help out. Once, Xanana even asked my help to 'sterilize' his office [from wiretaps].

Going back to the Balibo film. What is your impression of it?

From the start until the middle [of the film], it's quite balanced. The film also blamed the governments of Australia, the United States and Britain, which gave their blessings to the Timor war. But the main incidents, surrounding the shooting of the five journalists, were over-dramatized. No one was tortured. The scene depicting the TNI's entry into Dili was not that spectacular.

What do you think of demands to expose and try the Balibo perpetrators in court?

A lot of time has passed, right? The perpetrators are now old men. We no longer have a problem with Timor Leste.

Were you against the referendum in Timor Leste?

I thought it was a hurried decision.

Do you think the integration of East Timor between 1975-1999 was a wasted effort?

Look. At the time, the communists had gained control in Portugal. All areas under their control, including colonies they thought of letting go, were also influenced by communism. So it was not wrong for Australia and the US to push Indonesia into taking over. It was the Cold War at that time.

But Indonesia failed to win the people's hearts over there.

At that time, East Timor was seen as a dumping ground for errant bureaucrats. In Timor, without supervision, those petty bureau chiefs became small kings. They were nepotistic about recruitment, refusing to hire local people, opting instead to give jobs to relatives from Java.

Commentary by James Dunn - December 10, 2009

Purwanto's account of what happened at Balibo is puzzling. It may be an attempt to ease the mounting pressure on the Indonesian military by claiming that the newsmen were shot only after they fired on, which is nonsense.

According to my investigations in the immediate aftermath of the killing, Fretilin troops were no where near the scene when the journalists were killed, and the victims were unarmed.

Purwanto did of course play a role. As I recall he was in charge of communications during the attack. However, it is true that in 1983 he played a conciliatory role, engaging in talks with Xanana, an initiative that got him into trouble with Jakarta.

It is however a clear statement that the newsmen were executed to prevent exposure of Indonesia's illegal invasion. Even if some shots were fired at the intruders, which I do not believe was the case, it did not justify the shooting of the newsmen. The case must go on.

Balibo: The film and the reality

Tempo Magazine - December 8-14, 2009

The ban on screening Balibo recalls the 1975 deaths of five foreign journalists in East Timor. One witness of this incident, a former intelligence officer, believes the element of dramatization is inevitable, resulting in a fictional film featuring images of a brutal military.

Few people recognized the small, 62-year-old man wearing a faded blue T-shirt over black denims, his face lined with the beginnings of wrinkles, his thinning hair turning grey. He sat relaxed with his legs stretched out in a corner of the Utan Kayu theater in East Jakarta, on Thursday a week ago, waiting for the screening of the film Balibo, which tells the story of five Australian journalists killed in East Timor in October 1975.

The man is Colonel (ret) Gatot Purwanto, a former army intelligence officer, who served quite some time in East Timor (now Timor Leste). His last position was Assistant Intelligence Officer of Command Operations in East Timor. He was discharged following the Santa Cruz incident in Dili, which erupted in November 1991. That evening, he told Tempo that his colleagues had warned him about watching Balibo.

"Why should a witness watch a film about something he personally experienced?" they taunted him. In fact, Gatot was at Balibo 34 years ago. Under the code name Team Susi, he and dozens of Indonesian troops crossed the East Timor border in preparation of Indonesia's invasion into the former Portuguese colony. "I was a first lieutenant at the time, just three years out of officer training school," he recalled.

The team commander was Major-General (ret) Yunus Yosfiah. "We were assisting partisans of UDT and Apodeti," he said. UDT and Apodeti were two political parties in Timor who at the time were pro-Indonesia. About 100 pro-integration militia members had joined them.

When the film began, Gatot quickly recognized locations used as settings for the film. "That building used to be the Finance Department" he said of the opening scene. Gatot, who is fluent in Tetum, could understand the dialog in this local Timorese language. He immediately began shaking his head when the film depicted a scene about Fretilin ideology, the leftist party fighting for an independent Timor. "They were communists," he said with certainty. In the scene, where the lead actor is shot in the forest by an Indonesian helicopter, Gatot also shook his head murmuring, "That's not true."

But, when the film moved into the main scene with the killing of the five Australian journalists, Gatot stared with his mouth open. He sat motionless with his eyes glued to the screen. When the scene changed to the story of what followed the shooting, he sat looking surprised and speechless for a long time. Only when Tempo asked him if his memories of the time were similar to the way the incident was portrayed in the film, Gatot turned and replied, "No, no, it wasn't like that." He took in a deep breath, whispering softly, "Not exactly like that."

It is a pity that Gatot Purwanto and Greg Shackleton never met, considering they have more in common than the first letters of their first names. They were both 27 years old in 1975, when their fates led them both to Balibo.

Balibo is a small town in Bobonaro district. The distance to the border with West Timor is only about 10 kilometers. The remains of a 400-year-old Portuguese fort still stand on a hill facing the beach. Gatot admits that his forces captured and shot Shackleton and his four colleagues: sound man Australian Tony Stewart, 21, Gary Cunningham, 27, from New Zealand from Channel 7, British nationals Brian Peters, 29 and Malcolm Rennie, 28, from Channel 9.

The film Balibo, according to Gatot is overdramatized. Even though he later admitted that the troops did try to hide the bodies of these journalists by covering them up with dry rice husks so they would burn slowly. "Until the bodies were completely destroyed; it took two days," he explained.

Balibo shows the political escalation heating up near the time of the invasion and the moments of the five journalists' deaths.

The director and scriptwriter is the Australian cinematographer, Robert Connolly. Originally the film was to be shown at the Jakarta International Film Festival last week. But the Film Censorship Board (LSF) banned it. The reason given by Mukhlis Paeni, Director of LSF, was that, "it has the potential to open an old wound."

That "old wound" did not come from the south. The Balibo incident had been diplomatically bandied back and forth, between Jakarta and Canberra. Yet, the two countries have come to an agreement. The Australian government accepts the version of the Indonesian government stating that the five men died in cross-fire. "This film does not express the opinion of the Australian government," said Jenny Dee, press attachi for the Australian embassy in Jakarta.

Those who disagree with the Indonesian government's version are the families and friends of the slain journalists, and human rights activists in Australia, who are demanding justice. They believe the five journalists were executed by the Indonesian Military (TNI), like Roger East, another Australian journalist who was lost and presumed to be shot dead on the first day of the invasion of Dili harbor on December 7, 1975. They want the perpetrators brought to court. For 34 years this case had surfaced and resurfaced in Australian politics. Those concerned about human rights kept charging that both the Labor Party as well as the Conservative Party supported the invasion – as did the United States and the United Kingdom – to prevent the spread of communism.

The "old wound" Muklis may be referring to could be the public at home. Many scenes in the film bring back memories of human rights abuses carried out by the military in the not-so-distant past. The familiar icons are disturbing: red berets, camouflage uniforms, AK-47s, as well as the actors playing the roles of familiar military figures like Benny Moerdani and Colonel Dading Kalbuadi (both of whom have died). What is frightening is the action depicted in the film: groups of civilians being shot at, public executions, and the faces of women and children crying in fear.

The LSF invited Sutiyoso to view Balibo, two days after the ban, when they had difficulty contacting Yunus. The former Governor of Jakarta, Sutiyoso, was a Special Forces soldier in the same operation as Gatot. According to Sutiyoso, the intelligence operation called Flamboyan was aimed at assisting the pro- integration militia to clear the area of "enemies," or the Fretilin militia. "This was like entering a lion's den, a one-way ticket operation. We didn't even get to say goodbye to our families," he told Tempo, one Saturday morning.

To support the operation, the forces formed three teams, each with about 50 Special Forces troops. The 1965 Group led the operation, the second in command came from the 1968 group. The three teams were given women's names: Susi, Tuti, and Umi.

Sutiyoso confirmed that Yunus Yosfiah, a major at the time, led Team Susi. His second in command was Sunarto. Team Tuti was led by Major Tarub with Agus Salim Lubis as his second in command.

Sunarto and Agus Salim have both passed away. Team Umi was led by Major Sofyan Effendi with Sutiyoso as his second in command. "Gatot was in Team Susi," he recalled.

With the command center in Motaain, they went back and forth to the border areas. They all wore civilian clothing, their hair long, with tight shirts in the style of the time over wide-legged or denim pants. Dading, the leader of the operation (in the film he is seen as the first one to pull the trigger in the shooting that killed the journalists), is shown wearing a scarf around his neck and a cowboy hat. Everyone had a code name. "My name was Captain Manix, like in the film," laughed Sutiyoso.

Team Umi then seized Batugade in a shootout with a Fretilin ship. But unlike usual procedures, the commander, Major-General Benny Moerdani told them to remain in the beach town about 40 kilometers from Motaain. "This was strange. It was unusual for the intelligence forces to do this. Our specialty was hit and run," he said, "It was difficult for us to hold the area, because we were armed only with assault weapons. A month later, he heard that Team Susi had moved to Balibo and Team Tuti to Maliana.

"The shooting of the journalists occurred when Team Susi arrived," says Sutiyoso. At that time, communication was not easy, but members of the same team visited each other. So everyone there heard the news of the five journalists' death.

"In that battle, no one knew anyone, whether they were foreigners or Javanese. It was only kill or be killed," he said.

From his side, the director of Balibo, Roger Connolly, used the services of historian, Dr Clinton Fernandez from the Australian Military Academy at the University of New South Wales to give guidance on the historical context, as well as from a pile of documents from East Timor, Australia, England, the US and even Portugal (none from Indonesia). Fernandez concluded that "the Indonesian Military were involved in efforts to terrorize and destabilize which were later blamed on pro-independence groups.

After that, they just had to come in to maintain order," he said on the official site for the film Balibo.

The sources that Connolly used to describe the moments of the siege and capture of Balibo come from the prosecutor's investigation of the court in New South Wales in February 2007.

Downloadable from the Internet, there are more than half a dozen witnesses describing what they saw in detail, including the role Yunus played in the fate of the five journalists. Yunus, when contacted by Tempo, was not willing to update his previous statements. Through a text message from his son's cellphone he replied, asking what would happen if a national leader were to be tyrannized by another nation. "If the question is the same, Pak Yunus' answer is still the same." This former Information Minister (1999) has repeatedly said that he was not involved in the killings.

According to that report, only one or two of the Fretilin militia were killed in the shootout at Balibo, the same number as the victims of the pro-integration side. What caused a lot of talk from the day of the incident were the deaths of the journalists, the main theme of the Balibo film.

This testimony is very different from what was recorded by TVRI journalist, Hendro Subroto, who arrived at the scene a few hours after the incident. According to Hendro in his book, Eyewitness to the Integration of East Timor, 17 people died in the battle of Balibo. The burnt corpses of 15 of them were found at the Fretilin headquarters, which was bombed by mortar fire. "Four of the 15 were foreigners. Two more bodies were found in the forest, one of whom was a foreigner," he wrote, based on a joint report by the pro-integration militia. Interestingly, the witness who said there were 17 victims is the same witness who testified in the Australian court. But he admitted to lying and giving a false statement, which he later withdrew.

Then there is the fictional "aspect" of the film. Admittedly, Balibo does contain a few fabrications. Let us not forget that Balibo is not a documentary. The film is not free of fictional scenes. It includes many imaginary figures and incidents, such as the character of Juliana, taken from the testimonies of East Timorese about human rights abuses on the first day of the invasion. There is also the matter of the fight between Roger East and Ramos Horta at a swimming pool which never took place.

However, the LSF had no problem over the details of whether this film was close to reality or not. What is important, said the director of the Evaluation and Socialization Commission, Djamalul Abidin, is that the LSF has the mandate to apply censorship on political or ideological grounds. In other words, it is not necessary to cut the sadistic parts, but in the name of politics and ideology, the entire film can be thrown out. Take Sutiyoso, who firmly disapproves of screening this film because it degrades the TNI. "The TNI is not like that. TNI follows the principles of Pancasila," he said.

The question is when: In the film or in reality?

– Kurie Suditomo, Wahyu Dhyatmika, Nieke Indrietta, Martha Warta Silaban, Sutarto, Suryani Ika Sari (Jakarta)

Australians welcome 'confession' on Timor killings

Agence France Presse - December 7, 2009

Talek Harris, Sydney – Relatives of five journalists killed in the East Timor border town of Balibo in 1975 on Tuesday welcomed a former soldier's "milestone" statement that they were shot by invading Indonesian troops.

Shirley Shackleton, the widow of Australian television reporter Greg Shackleton, said the retired Indonesian colonel's comments shattered Jakarta's "lies" that the five died in crossfire.

"It is a milestone. It's another nail in the coffin of lies," she told Fairfax radio.

Gatot Purwanto, a former special forces commando, told Tempo weekly magazine that the "Balibo Five" were killed when troops heard gunfire coming from the house where the foreigners were hiding.

The comments contradict Indonesia's long-held position that the reporters – two Australians, two Britons and a New Zealander – were killed in gunbattles as Indonesian forces entered the town.

"At that time, when our soldiers were relaxing and sitting around, suddenly there was gunfire from the house," Purwanto was quoted as saying.

"Maybe somebody tried to rescue them. Our soldiers immediately opened fire at the house... all the journalists were then found dead," he said.

Purwanto was reportedly speaking after viewing the film "Balibo", directed by Robert Connolly and starring Anthony LaPaglia, which was banned in Indonesia last week.

Australian Paul Stewart, whose 21-year-old brother Tony was the youngest of the Balibo Five, said Purwanto had shown the Indonesia's official explanation was "absolute nonsense".

"It just goes to show banning the film was probably the worst thing the Indonesians could have done because it's opened up the whole controversy again," Stewart told ABC radio. "It's going to bite them on the bum, big-time."

Purwanto, who was a lieutenant disguised as a local food vendor at the time of the offensive, said Indonesian troops in Balibo were confused about what to do with the reporters.

There was concern that should they be allowed to tell their stories, it would be used as "evidence" of the invasion of the former Portuguese colony which Indonesia wanted to keep secret.

He said the soldiers had not been ordered to kill the journalists, adding that the bodies were burnt for two days to conceal their identities.

"I think he's in deep strife," Stewart said. "He's probably written his own death warrant. The Indonesian generals have never wanted this to come out – I think this guy might disappear overnight."

Australian police in September launched a war crimes investigation into the deaths after a coroner's report recommended charges against a number of Indonesian military officers.

Former army chief Wiranto is among the senior officers who have been indicted by UN prosecutors over gross human rights abuses during Indonesia's 24-year occupation, which claimed an estimated 100,000 lives.

East Timor gained formal independence in 2002 after a referendum in 1999 voted to split from Indonesia. Its President Jose Ramos- Horta, a former rebel leader, has said at least one of the Balibo Five was "brutally tortured".

Report: Indonesian colonel says reporters killed

Associated Press - December 7, 2009

Rod McGuirk, Jakarta – A former Indonesian army colonel has told a magazine that soldiers deliberately killed five Western journalists in East Timor in 1975, contradicting his government's line that they accidentally died in a crossfire.

The explosive claim in the weekly Tempo magazine, published on Monday, further fuels diplomatic tensions between Indonesia and Australia created in September when Australian federal police launched a war crimes investigation into the journalists' deaths in the East Timorese border town of Balibo in the weeks before Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese colony.

It comes amid renewed public interest in the case spurred by the release this year of an Australian movie about the incident named "Balibo." Indonesian authorities have banned the Robert Connolly-directed movie's release in that country.

Gatot Purwanto told Tempo he was a lieutenant in the special forces team that overran Balibo on Oct. 16, 1975. The journalists, who have become known as the Balibo Five, were shot to keep secret Indonesia's military involvement two months before a full-blown invasion, he said.

Asked if the soldiers decided to kill the reporters – two Australians, two Britons and a New Zealander – Purwanto said "yes." "If they had been left alive, they would say it was an Indonesian invasion," Purwanto said. He said the bodies were burned to hide the evidence.

Yunus Yosfiah, who was then an army captain and later a government minister, had been waiting for instructions from Jakarta on what to do with the foreigners when they were killed, Purwanto said.

Neither Yosfiah nor Purwanto, who now runs a security firm, could be contacted on Monday. An Indonesian government spokesman had no comment.

The "Balibo" movie depicts Indonesian soldiers shooting and stabbing the unarmed journalists. Indonesia's censorship board said the script was based on testimony of witnesses of "questionable nature."

[Associated Press writers Ali Kotarumalos and Niniek Karmini in Jakarta contributed to this report.]

Balibo killings were 'rational', says former army colonel

Australian Associated Press - December 7, 2009

A former Indonesian army colonel has admitted Indonesian soldiers deliberately killed the so-called Balibo Five journalists to cover up the invasion of East Timor.

Gatot Purwanto says a rational decision was made to kill the Australia-based newsmen, contradicting Indonesia's long-held official line they died in crossfire.

"If we let them leave they would say that this was the Indonesian invasion," Purwanto, who was a low-ranking special forces soldier when he took part in the 1975 assault on Balibo, told Tempo magazine. "If we let them go there would be evidence."

Speaking after seeing Robert Connolly's Balibo, the Australian film about the killings that has been banned in Indonesia, Purwanto said he and his fellow soldiers had been surprised to find the men in the East Timorese border town.

Purwanto claims his superior Yunus Yosfiah – often accused of ordering the killings – tried to ask Jakarta what to do about the men as soldiers surrounded the house where they were hiding.

But those soldiers decided to open fire, before Jakarta responded, after they were "provoked" by gunfire from the journalists' direction, Purwanto said. Afterwards, soldiers took the bodies to another house to be burned.

"To make it easier we tried to make them disappear," Purwanto said. "We would say that we didn't know anything. That was our spontaneous reaction at that time."

Purwanto said Connolly's film overdramatised the killings, insisting "there was no torture".

Purwanto was "honourably discharged" from the Indonesian military after his involvement in the 1991 Santa Cruz Cemetery massacre in Dili.

Killings of Balibo Five were deliberate, says former army colonel

The Australian - December 7, 2009

Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta – The Balibo Five were deliberately killed during Indonesia's 1975 invasion of East Timor, according to a retired commando who was in the special forces squad that shot them.

It is the first time a senior Indonesian has broken ranks with the official line that the five Australian-based journalists – Greg Shackleton, Tony Stewart, Gary Cunningham, Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie – died accidentally in crossfire in the small town of Balibo.

According to Colonel Gatot Purwanto, members of "Team Susi", the squad responsible for the deaths, were waiting for orders from Jakarta about whether to arrest or execute the men when, in response to shots fired from the direction of the house the journalists were hiding in, the Indonesians launched their fatal attack.

The explosive revelations are contained in the latest edition of Tempo magazine, which interviewed Colonel Purwanto after a clandestine screening of the film Balibo in Jakarta last week by the Indonesian Journalists Alliance.

The Colonel, who was cashiered from the Army's Kopassus special forces squad after his involvement in the 1991 Santa Cruz cemetery massacre in Dili, said the five journalists' bodies were then burned to destroy all evidence of the murders.

He said it took two days for the remains to be completely destroyed. "Our position (at that moment) was extremely difficult," said Colonel Purwanto, who now runs a private security company.

"If they were allowed to live, they would have said this was an Indonesian invasion. If they were killed and it was left at that, there would have been evidence they were shot in an area controlled by Indonesian guerillas. To make things easy, we got rid of them completely. We said we didn't know anything. That was a spontaneous reaction at that moment."

The Indonesian Government has always insisted the matter was closed, and last week its Film Censorship Board banned Australian director Robert Connolly's dramatisation of the deaths, Balibo.

In his written response to a request for the film's classification, chief censor Mukhlis Paeni said the film was not to be "distributed and screened in the entire area of the Republic of Indonesia" because it was "based on verbal testimonies with questionable nature" and contained "subjective issues which will potentially open old wounds".

According to the Tempo interview, Colonel Purwanto said the shootings happened while members of Team Susi, which included former Information Minister Yunus Yosfiah, were deliberating what to do with the men.

But he said the orders they had requested from Jakarta never came, and they were forced suddenly to respond to shooting which came from near where the journalists were hiding.

"We discovered the five of them together in a house – they were certainly not dead yet," he explained. "I was still some way down the hill from the house, with Major Yunus. We received a report that the foreigners had been detected. He ordered me to report to the commander, and if I'm not wrong, the commander then contacted Jakarta to ask what they wanted us to do with these people.

"They were still alive. We surrounded the house and drew our weapons on them. I saw this from 30 metres away. They were still hiding in the house, and filming from that point. Then there was shooting from that direction... it could have been that it was someone trying to save them. But our men immediately fired in that direction and the journalists were all killed."

Colonel Purwanto said the members of Team Susi had entered the tiny town of Balibo, in Bobonaro province to the country's west, around dawn on October 16, 1975, but that the journalists were not killed until "around 10 or 11 in the morning".

He said it had not been possible to identify them when they were first discovered "because none of them spoke Indonesian, while the military forces in the field could not speak English".

He admitted, however, that it should have been obvious that they were journalists "because they carried cameras and other equipment... the shooting happened from only about 15 metres away".

NSW Deputy Coroner Dorelle Pinch has recommended that Mr Yusfiah should face criminal charges in Australia – a recommendation the Australian Federal Police is investigating.

Justice & reconciliation

Cross-country ties an obstacle to East Timor justice

Interpress Service - December 2, 2009

Matt Crook, Dili – East Timor's leaders say bringing to justice perpetrators of atrocities committed during the Indonesian army's occupation would sour relations between the neighbouring countries, but not everyone is so keen to forgive and move on.

Despite high-level stubbornness, justice can still be achieved so long as people continue to make their voices heard, observers said.

"Speaking about justice is part of achieving justice, just as speaking about independence was part of achieving independence" Dr Clinton Fernandes, an East Timor expert from the Australian Defence Force Academy, told IPS.

"Citizens – like the UN – do not have their own military or police forces but can create the political will to achieve justice simply by always speaking about it," he added.

For years, the people of East Timor and international supporters have pushed for closure on the crimes against humanity committed during the Indonesian military occupation between 1975 and 1999.

East Timor became independent in 2002, but at a cost of 180,000 lives, either killed in the violence or else left to die of starvation or sickness.

The nation's leadership is sticking to the line that if riled, Indonesia might close the border with West Timor, lock down trade ties or reconsider the futures of the 6,000 or so Timorese students studying in Indonesia.

In August, Amnesty International released the report 'We Cry for Justice', in which one of the recommendations was for the UN Security Council to set up a comprehensive plan to end impunity.

The report has now been translated into Tetum (one of East Timor's official languages) and Bahasa Indonesia in the hope that people in East Timor and Indonesia will be able to see that their voices are being heard.

"Every voice counts to see change on the ground, including media coverage on justice issues," said Isabelle Arradon, researcher on Indonesia and East Timor for Amnesty International.

"Continuous coverage in the lead-up to discussions on [East Timor] at the UN Security Council in February 2010 is welcomed to show that the international community supports the calls of the victims on the ground, and to remind UN Security Council members that the view of the [East Timor] government is not shared by many in the country," she added.

The firm stance of the nation's leaders has been criticised by the UN, which maintains that strong ties with Indonesia should not impede the need for justice.

"To ask for accountability of the individuals who did really horrible things in no way undermines that [relationship] – it only strengthens it," said Louis Gentile, representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

With the recent passing of yet another East Timor massacre anniversary, there is disillusionment on the streets of Dili.

Julio Barreto, 36, was there at Santa Cruz in Dili on Nov. 12, 1991, when Indonesian troops sprayed bullets into crowds of peaceful protesters, killing 270 of them.

"We didn't realize the troops were preparing to shoot at us," he said. "I don't like them – the people who did this – they are well known as human rights violators, and everyone knows what they have been involved in."

Like many in East Timor, Barreto feels let down by his country's heads of state for the lack of accountability for the Santa Cruz Massacre and other crimes against humanity.

"Instead of stressing out and thinking of those things that might never happen, I prefer to concentrate on work instead of thinking too much about bringing those people to justice, because it would take the leaders to do it, not the ordinary people like us."

The issue of justice has been a sensitive one for previous governments, but perhaps none has been scrutinised as much as Xanana Gusmao's current ruling coalition, most notably in recent weeks when the release of an Indonesian former militia leader sparked an international media frenzy.

Maternus Bere, former commander of the pro-Indonesia Laksaur militia, was indicted by the UN Serious Crimes Unit for a bevy of crimes against humanity, including his part in the Suai Church Massacre in 1999, in which up to 200 innocent people were slaughtered.

Bere crossed the border from neighbouring West Timor and returned to Suai, a city in East Timor, in August to visit his family. He was arrested and ordered by the court in Suai to be detained, but directives came from Gusmao to release him into the custody of the Indonesian embassy in Dili on Aug. 30 as celebrations marking 10 years since the nation voted for independence began.

Bere spent a secretive two months at the embassy before being taken back to Indonesia on Oct. 30, making him a free man.

In 2003, the Serious Crimes Unit indicted 391 people, including Bere, for crimes against humanity committed in East Timor, and yet most of them have lived as free men in Indonesia.

The initial decision to release Bere could have toppled the government as the opposition Fretilin party and allies tabled a vote of no confidence that was debated on Oct. 12. Gusmao defended himself, calling it a "political decision" to free Bere.

"[Indonesian foreign] minister Hassan... said that should there be no solution to the case of Martenus Bere, it could affect the relationship between the two countries," Gusmao told parliament. "He added that our refusal to cooperate in such a sensitive matter for Indonesia might force the Indonesian state to review their diplomatic policy towards [East Timor]."

Gusmao's government survived the no-confidence vote in what observers said was a sign of political stability in the country, but the justice issue is one that refuses to simmer down.

"The struggle for justice is not a contest between Indonesians and non- Indonesians. Rather, it is a contest between those around the world who want justice to prevail and those who want to see impunity prevail," said Dr Fernandes at the memorial rites in October for Sander Thoenes, the 'Financial Times' correspondent murdered in East Timor 10 years ago.

UNMIT/ISF

Australia to cut East Timor troops

Agence France Presse - December 10, 2009

Sydney – Australia said on Thursday that it would reduce its troop commitment in East Timor by more than a third following a prolonged period of stability in the tiny nation.

Defence Minister John Faulkner said 250 officers would be brought home by February 2010, bringing Australia's commitment to the UN-backed International Stabilisation Force (ISF) to 400 out of a new total of 550.

"The decision to reduce the number of (Australian) personnel recognises the ongoing calm security situation in East Timor and the efforts of the government and people of East Timor to uphold this," Faulkner said in a statement.

He said security in the fledgling country had remained stable since rebel attacks on its president and prime minister in February 2008, and 100 troops had been withdrawn in January this year with "no significant effect".

The ISF has been deployed to the former Indonesian territory since factional fighting in 2006 left at least 37 people dead. It peaked early last year at more than 1,000 troops after rebel soldiers staged armed attacks on President

Jose Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao. East Timor won formal independence in 2002, three years after a UN-backed referendum that saw an overwhelming vote to break away from Indonesia following a 24-year occupation.

Environment/natural disasters

Fears cane toads have hitched ride to East Timor

ABC News - December 17, 2009

Adrienne Francis - There are renewed concerns that one of Australia's worst exotic pests may have hitchhiked to East Timor.

In September, a Timorese environmental group accused Australian peacekeepers of introducing cane toads during operations in 1999. However, it was later proved to be a case of mistaken identity.

Darwin resident Rob Wesley-Smith says a number of suspicious- looking, large, yellow toads have been spotted again on the south coast of East Timor.

"I have been told that they definitely have poison sacks on their shoulders," he said. "That is a very telling sort of identifying thing.

He said supplies have previously been delivered from Darwin to the Natarbora region in East Timor, making it possible for cane toads to have accidentally been taken there.

Mr Wesley-Smith is travelling to East Timor to examine the suspicious-looking toads.

"If in fact there are cane toads there then I think the important thing is to alert people to what they look like, what you can do to get rid of them," he said. "And we will try and get people off their butts and go out and do some night time hunting and get rid of them."

Health & education

East Timor's ticking AIDS time bomb

Agence France Presse - December 30, 2009

Matt Crookm, Dili – The tiny nation of East Timor could face a deadly AIDS epidemic, with promiscuity among youths, low condom use and general ignorance leading to a sharp increase in reported cases, doctors said.

"Most likely it will be a disaster in the near future," said Dr. Daniel Murphy, founder of Bairo Pite Clinic, one of four voluntary AIDS testing centres in Dili.

East Timor is considered a low prevalence country for HIV, but government statistics point to a significant increase in the number of registered cases, rising from six in 2003 to 117 in April this year – a 20-fold leap.

The actual number of people living with HIV in East Timor, however, could be much higher as many people don't get tested, Murphy said.

"They think they have it under control," he said, criticising complacency in the government of Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, a former guerrilla and hero of the struggle for independence from Indonesia.

"They should be going around the country and screening everyone. The benefit of being tested is you can get to grips with the epidemic and start therapy earlier and slow the spread down."

A 2004 study compiled by Family Health International found an HIV prevalence of three percent among female sex workers in deeply Catholic East Timor and one percent among men who have sex with men.

The study found that a lot of men who had unprotected anal sex with other men also had sex with women.

But knowledge of HIV did not equate to safe sex, it found. About 40 percent of sex workers didn't know what a condom was while none asked clients to use one.

More than 40 percent of East Timor's population of 1.1 million are under 15 years of age. Women have, on average, eight children, while about 40 percent of men in East Timor are illiterate, and misconceptions about HIV are rife.

Of the 117 registered HIV cases, most were transmitted through heterosexual activity and the most affected demographic is 15-29-year-olds, health ministry HIV/AIDS officer Narciso Fernandes said. "Most young people have a misconception about the transmission of HIV," he said.

In 2006, a UNAIDS-funded survey found that only seven percent of respondents had ever used a condom. Some 57 percent didn't know how to use one and 35 percent were unaware condoms could prevent HIV.

A United Nations Children's Fund survey of more than 1,000 youths aged 15-25 in 2007 found that although 61 percent had heard of HIV, about half thought transmission could occur through mosquito bites or sharing clothes.

Only a quarter of those surveyed knew condoms could prevent HIV. "This is why this is happening to the young people, because they don't get education," Fernandes said.

National Aids Commission member Francisco Jeronimo said data gathered from a loose network of organizations all over the country indicated the real rate of infection could be some 40 times higher than officially reported.

"The number of registered cases is about 120, but the estimate is in excess of 5,000," he told AFP.

"A lot of the work being done is to find those people who are being hidden from the official register to make sure we get the correct picture about the reality of the prevalence of this disease."

Kit Ming Leung, technical advisor on HIV/AIDS for the East Timor Red Cross, said the government should rethink its strategy, adopted from successful campaigns in other Asian countries, of targeting high-risk groups.

"It seems many of the HIV cases that are being presented at hospitals are mostly not from high-risk groups," she said.

"My concern is that the current response model is looking primarily at high-risk groups and missing the general population – particularly young people."

For the people living with HIV in East Timor today, there are constant struggles. Many find themselves out of work and unable to support their families.

Maria da Costa (not her real name) is HIV-positive and part of the Esperanza (Hope) group in Dili. Formed in 2004, the group is made up of about 50 people living with HIV who met through Bairo Pite Clinic, where they go for counselling and medication.

"The important thing is for the ministry of health and clinics to spread information to all the people and go to rural areas," da Costa, 34, said.

"It even happens that nurses will spread information to the neighbours of people diagnosed with HIV. They tell them not to go close to this family and not to play with their children. They think that if they play together they will get infected."

Da Costa's husband was diagnosed with HIV in 2003 and died last year. One of their children, a six-year-old boy, has also tested positive.

The church's response is going to be crucial in East Timor, which is 95 percent Catholic.

Reverend Daniel Marcal works on the HIV/AIDS support programme of Church World Service, a charity formed by the National Council of Churches. He says loosened attitudes towards relationships, or "free sex", are commonplace.

"When I speak in the church, I say free sex is a sin, but I can't guarantee all my members will have the same view as me," he said.

"In East Timor, the government doesn't prioritise HIV. They prioritise dengue fever, tuberculosis and malaria. Now we are not taking the situation seriously enough to prevent it, so maybe more of the population of East Timor will soon be living with AIDS."

Police/military

UN must pull back from East Timor policing: group

Agence France Presse - December 7, 2009

Matt Crook, Dili – The UN mission in East Timor needs to hand over formal control of the country's national police force as soon as possible to avoid doing irreparable damage, according to an influential think-tank.

The slow handover of policing responsibilities, which began in May on a district-by-district basis, is encouraging local police to set up parallel security structures, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a report last week.

The UN Security Council must "recognise the limited capacity of UN police to play an ongoing development role with their Timorese counterparts" and order the full handover of policing responsibilities immediately, it added.

"The problem is that the Timorese police are running a parallel operation," said Jim Della-Giacoma, ICG Southeast Asia project director.

"It's a fiction that the UN is in charge of the police and maintaining this facade is not healthy if the UN is supposed to be supporting rule of law in this country.

"If the Timorese police are to improve they need to be learning by doing, but they also need to be taking responsibility for their own actions."

He added: "There is a role for the UN police in country, it's just not in front – it's supporting from behind".

Della-Giacoma cited the recent release of Indonesian former militia commander Maternus Bere as a prime example of the lack of control the UN has over the Timorese police force.

Indicted by the UN's Serious Crimes Unit for his role in a string of human rights violations in East Timor, Bere was arrested on August 8 while visiting family in East Timor only to be released into the care of the Indonesian embassy on August 30 at the order of Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao.

Bere was taken back to Indonesia on October 30 despite a wave of international condemnation, including from the UN.

"When it came time to send him back to Indonesia, the Timorese police escorted him to the border without the knowledge or consent of the UN mission," Della-Giacoma said.

"They followed the prime minister's orders, they followed Timorese general commander's orders, they did not follow, and they do not follow, the UN police commissioner's orders."

As the UN prepares to welcome Ameerah Haq as the new chief of mission in East Timor, replacing Atul Khare, Della-Giacoma said it was time for the UN to clarify its position.

"Together with the Timorese government they need to hammer out an agreement that is very limited and specific and has a clear role for the UN mission and its police contingent in supporting the Timorese police in the coming years."

Hak is expected to arrive in East Timor in early January in time to be involved in a technical assessment of the UN mission, which should have a bearing on the future of the UN's presence in the fledgling nation.

While Haq's arrival is not expected to usher in a period of great change, observers are hopeful of at least some positive impact when she takes up the UN's most important post in East Timor.

"The new UN chief should heed Crisis Group's recommendations relating to a speedy handover of executive policing responsibility to the government," said Edward Rees, senior advisor to development group Peace Dividend Trust.

He said the UN would be better off putting money into building up the domestic economy, rather than mentoring a police force that it no longer controlled. "More local spending means more wealth and more jobs," he said.

"Jobs mean security and as a result (the UN) could use what time it has left to promote job creation through its spending," and thus help to ensure that UN police do not have to come back to East Timor in the future.

Opinion & analysis

Behind 'Balibo' and its banning

Jakarta Globe - December 16, 2009

Wendy Bruere – A young Jose Ramos-Horta, shown as the foreign minister of a newly independent East Timor, implores Roger East, an aging Australian journalist, to travel to his country to run a media agency.

Five young journalists are shot and stabbed as they attempt to surrender to Indonesian soldiers who are mounting incursions over the border. Later, Dili is invaded by Indonesian forces and Timorese civilians are lined up and shot on the pier. East is executed along with them.

These are scenes from Robert Connolly's film "Balibo," which portrays the 1975 murder of five Australia-based journalists by the Indonesian military in the East Timorese border town of Balibo. Banned by censors here because of its "potential to reopen old wounds" and "questionable objectivity," the people behind the film say it is a true story.

Gatot Purwanto, who was an Indonesian army lieutenant at the time and who witnessed the killings, recently told Tempo magazine that the journalists known as the Balibo Five were killed to keep the truth about Indonesia's invasion of East Timor from the outside world. He also said that the killings were provoked by gunshots coming from the direction of the house that the journalists were in. But his version, clearly at odds with how things played out in "Balibo," is not accepted by the Indonesian military.

Dr. Clinton Fernandes – the film's consulting historian, whose background includes working as the principle analyst for the Australian Intelligence Corps on East Timor in the 1990s – described the movie as "very accurate." He said that while any film is always a "collection of fragments," this concept doesn't detract from film's veracity.

"It is a true story in the sense that it telescopes events that would have taken much longer," he said in a phone interview last week. "In one scene, you find Roger East watching parachutists come down and then he is captured and killed, all in the space of about ten minutes. In reality, we're talking about something which took about a day and a half."

Fernandes said that several film techniques were used to convey information succinctly. For example, in the scene where the Balibo Five are killed, the film depicts the same soldier who ordered the killings as the one who carried them out.

"We know for a fact that Dading Kalbuadi [the overall commander of the Indonesian forces in East Timor] was in [the town of] Batugade and he gave the order that anyone found there would have to be killed. Then Yunus Yosfiah and others went and killed the Balibo Five," he said. "No movie can be expected to give the full version of the discussion, the assault, the killings. You've got to do it quickly, which is why what we have is Kalbuadi himself doing the killing.

"We are trying to show that it is a state crime, not a low-level rogue element. The film shows a senior officer participating in the killing because in real life, a senior officer ordered the killing."

The film's background is detailed on the "Balibo in depth" link on the balibo.com Web site. This link, curated by Fernandes, provides commentary on the film's version of what happened versus the reality, and details the events upon which the scenes are based.

For example, the Web site explains the role of Juliana de Costa, a Timorese woman who we see at the beginning and end of the film giving her testimony on the events in East Timor. According to the Web site, she "is a composite character derived from the extensive work of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation."

The commission, which aimed to document human rights violations during the occupation of East Timor, collected 7,824 statements from people across the country. According to the "Balibo" Web site, these testimonies detail "patterns of abuses, such as arbitrary detentions, torture, rape and massive property destruction."

"Balibo" also touches on the complicity of Australia and the United States in the invasion, with scenes showing a newspaper photo of Gough Whitlam, Australia's prime minister at the time, with then- President Suharto. In a later scene, a US-made helicopter shoots at East and Ramos-Horta, who is now the real life president of the country of Timor Leste.

The Web site provides evidence of the Whitlam government's knowledge of events in Balibo, despite official acceptance of Indonesia's version that the journalists were killed in cross- fire. A declassified Australian government document dated Oct. 22, 1975 is shown on the Web site, detailing the killing of five Australian journalists by invading forces.

"After the Balibo Five were killed," Fernandes said, "the Indonesian military paused in their operations, waiting to see what kind of reaction there would be from the Australian government. When no reaction was forthcoming, it was assigned to the Indonesian military that they could treat the Timorese as they wished, which is what they did."

It was only in 2007 that Australia launched a coroner's inquest into the deaths of the Balibo Five. The inquest, which found that they had been murdered to prevent news of the invasion from reaching the outside world, was described by Fernandes as "a very robust process."

"It was the first inquest that had the power to compel testimony of witnesses and to compel production of documents, including intelligence material. It had 66 witnesses, including two dozen Timorese who were bought in to testify," he said.

"The material presented was very thorough, witnesses were cross- examined and there were numerous eye witnesses that were present at the Balibo square watching the murder of the Balibo Five."

Fernandes said that after the journalists were killed, their bodies were redressed in military uniforms and the corpses posed behind weapons. "The aim of this was to pretend the Balibo Five were legitimate targets, but when people saw the photographs, they realized that the Fretilin [Timorese] soldiers had disabled the weapons and the photos showed the Balibo Five posed behind weapons that clearly could not have been used," he said. "There is evidence, not only of the murder, but of the cover-up and of the attempt to portray them as legitimate targets."

One question is why a film was made about Western journalists, when an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 Timorese died as a result of the occupation.

"To me the Balibo Five is part of the whole occupation of East Timor. I don't have any specific concern for the Balibo Five that's different to my concern for war crimes committed in East Timor," Fernandes said. "And my support for justice for the people of East Timor is only a component of my broader support for justice for the people of Indonesia."

Both the film and the war crimes investigation into the deaths of the Balibo Five, launched by the Australian Federal Police in September, have been criticized for having the potential to cause diplomatic tension between Australia and Indonesia.

However, for Shirley Shackleton, the widow of Greg Shackleton, one of the journalists killed in Balibo, the pursuit of justice is what matters.

"Murder is murder. It doesn't matter when it occurred. Every civilized person in the world requires justice," Shackleton said in a phone interview last week. "Justice is not about vengeance. In a civilized society, justice is about accountability, and until the Indonesian people cooperate to get justice for the Balibo murders, they won't get it for themselves."

Fernandes emphasized that the issue of the murders was "not a dispute between Indonesia and Australia, it is a dispute between people in both those countries, between those who support justice and those who want impunity."

He said he hoped the film would educate Indonesians about events in East Timor. "I know that Indonesian citizens had very little knowledge of what their military was doing in East Timor because the Indonesian military had always tried to control the narrative. They tried to control the narrative of the independence, after the 1965 killings. They tried to control the narrative of the Suharto years, of the occupation of Timor. For me, the 'Balibo' film is an attempt to shake that control of the narrative."

The ban of the film has not stopped the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) from screening the film and a recent article published in the Jakarta Globe said pirated copies of "Balibo" are now widely available throughout the country.

An article on Tuesday quoted AJI founder, Andreas Harsono, saying the journalists would lodge a challenge at the Constitutional Court if the government took steps to enforce the ban.

Shackleton, however, was optimistic that Indonesia's ban would only heighten interest. "I'm really pleased they did it," she said. "The thing they have ensured is that everyone got interested in the film."

East Timor: hydrocarbons, invasions and independence

Direct Action - December 2009

Jon Lamb – Twenty years ago, on December 11, 1989, the Australian and Indonesian governments signed the Timor Gap Treaty (TGT), giving the go-ahead to energy corporations to exploit the large natural gas and petroleum reserves located in East Timor's territorial waters. The deal marked the conclusion of 10 years of delicate negotiations between the Suharto dictatorship and successive Australian governments. Access to these oil and gas reserves that the deal provided was a key strategic focus for Australian governments for nearly 30 years.

The Timor Gap came into existence as a consequence of the maritime boundary negotiations between Indonesia and Australia in 1971-72, which left a "gap" in the boundary adjacent to East, a Portuguese colony at the time. Portugal had refused to participate in the 1971-72 negotiations. Test drilling for oil and gas in the area of the Timor Sea in the early 1970s showed great promise, prompting Australian-based mining companies to push for a quick resolution of the incomplete boundary.

Portugal, however, was not so keen to conclude a separate agreement during negotiations with Australia in 1974-75, preferring to await the outcome of the third UN Law of the Sea Conference which included in its agenda discussions on how maritime boundaries between adjacent countries should be determined. Relations between Canberra and Lisbon soured when the Portuguese government awarded exploration rights to a US-based company (the permit covered some 60,700 square kilometres) over an area that the Whitlam Labor government had also granted rights to a rival Australian-based exploration consortium.

With the rise of a radical pro-independence movement in East Timor in the wake of the April 1974 left-wing military coup in Lisbon against the 48-year-old right-wing military dictatorship in Portugal, it was highly unlikely that an independent East Timor would accept Australia's proposition to draw a more-or-less straight line and close the gap. Key Australian foreign ministry bureaucrats and members of the government, including PM Gough Whitlam himself, began to more openly support annexation of East Timor by Indonesia, with the view that this would enable a quick and favourable boundary agreement and the commercial extraction of oil and gas.

This position was most articulately expressed by Australia's ambassador to Indonesia, Richard Woolcott, who in a cable sent to Canberra in August 1975 remarked: "We are all aware of the Australian defence interest in the Portuguese Timor situation but I wonder whether the department has ascertained the interest of the department of minerals and energy in the Timor situation. It would seem to me that this department might well have an interest in closing the gap in the agreed sea border and this could be much more readily negotiated with Indonesia than with Portugal or independent Portuguese Timor. I know I am recommending a pragmatic rather than a principled stand but that is what national interest and foreign policy is all about..."

Timor Gap Treaty

The belief that negotiations with Indonesia would be resolved quickly proved false. Negotiations did not begin in earnest until February 1979, following the announcement by Fraser government foreign affairs minister Andrew Peacock in December 1978 that Australia would accord full recognition of Indonesia's annexation of East Timor as a perquisite to concluding the maritime boundary. As the talks were underway, numerous human rights atrocities and war crimes were being committed in East Timor by the Indonesian military. Canberra provided diplomatic cover and support to the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, ensuring favoured status for Australian-based companies and tenders operating in Indonesia.

From the outset of the negotiations, Jakarta expressed the view that it was not going to accept the same principles as those applied during the earlier boundary negotiations. Indonesian foreign minister Dr Mochtar Kasumaatmadja described the 1971-72 negotiation result as one in which Jakarta had been "taken to the cleaners". This time, Jakarta wanted a boundary based on the median line – or half-way point – between the coastlines of East Timor and Australia. What resulted in the final TGT was a set of zones of "development co-operation" where royalties from mining companies were split on a proportional basis.

After the collapse of the Suharto dictatorship in 1998, the prospects for East Timor's independence improved dramatically. The East Timorese resistance leadership indicated that an independent East Timor, while supporting the development of the oil and gas fields in the Timor Gap, would not accept the terms of the TGT. In November 1998, National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT) spokesperson Mari Alkatiri confirmed that an independent East Timor was not going to be "a successor to an illegal treaty".

Following the UN-sponsored referendum in 1999, in which the overwhelming majority of East Timorese voted in favour of independence, the Australian government, then headed by John Howard, immediately began to pressure the East Timorese political leadership and the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) to merely replace Indonesia as signatory to the TGT. Both the East Timorese leadership and UNTAET flatly refused this proposition. A further six years of drawn-out negotiations ensued, during which Canberra bullied and cajoled the East Timorese, blustering about how "ungrateful"' the East Timorese where being.

As a means to avoid the maritime boundary dispute being resolved by internationally accepted means, the Howard government announced in March 2002 that it was withdrawing from the legal mechanisms under the auspices of the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea used to resolve boundary issues that cannot be settled by negotiation. By this time, Canberra had already illegally acquired around US$1 billion in oil and gas royalties that rightfully belonged to East Timor.

In Australia, solidarity activists campaigned against the Howard government's threats to cut aid to East Timor and thus attempt to deny East Timor its territorial rights and control over its oil and gas reserves. An alliance formed during 2004 called the Timor Sea Justice Campaign, which gained a significant boost with the support of maverick businessperson Ian Melrose, who funded an extremely embarrassing and pointed national media campaign highlighting the Howard government's belligerence and illegal actions.

In 2006 a compromise was reached which resulted in the signing of the treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea (CMATS), under which East Timor's share of tax revenues from the Greater Sunrise gas field to 50%, from the previous miserable 18%. East Timor also agreed not to finalise the maritime boundary for a further 50 years. Since then, the dispute between East Timor and Australia has centred on where the downstream processing of the natural gas from the huge Greater Sunrise field should take place. The current East Timor government of PM Xanana Gusmao, with the support of President Jose Ramos Horta, has continued to call for the gas to be processed in East Timor, rather than the option preferred by the Australian and Northern Territory governments, which is to have it piped to Darwin.

'Under Australia's control'?

Some of the Australian socialist groups that opposed the sending of Australian troops to stop the Indonesian military-sponsored slaughter in East Timor in August/September 1999 abstained from Timor Sea Justice campaign. In recent coverage on the 10 years since the independence ballot, the publications of Socialist Alternative and Solidarity, for example, have also argued that the sole purpose and result of the Australian-led military intervention in 1999 was to protect the Australian capitalist rulers' interests in East Timor, including the TGT under which they control of around 90% of the oil and gas reserves in East Timor's territory. Thus, the October edition of Solidarity headlined its article "Ten years of Australian control of East Timor". But if this were the case, then the 1999 military intervention can hardly be said to have been successful. Under the arrangements negotiated with post-independence East Timor, Canberra's control of these reserves has fallen from 90% to about 25%.

Far from maintaining or increasing its control over East Timor's economic resources, Australian imperialism has had to witnessed a situation where economic competitors from Asia in the form of Chinese, Malaysian, Indonesian and Singaporean companies have significantly increased their presence and influence upon East Timor's economy. Portuguese-based investors also maintain a significant influence in East Timor, as evidenced by the recent awarding to Portuguese construction firm Ensul of the contract to upgrade the airport facilities at Bacau, East Timor's second largest city.

The consortium of corporations that exploit the largest oil and gas field under East Timor sovereignty – the Bayu-Undan field, royalties from which provide 90% of the East Timor government's revenues – is dominated by a US corporation (Conoco-Phillips, with a 57% stake). Australia's Santos company only has an 11% stake. Conoco-Phillips acquired its dominant position in the consortium when Australia's BHP sold its 23% stake in April 1999.

This reality also contradicts the claims of Socialist Alternative, Solidarity and some other commentators on East Timor, who allege that the 2006 political crisis was deliberately engineered or used by Canberra to install a more compliant, pro- Australian East Timorese government in place of the Fretilin government headed by Alkatiri. There is little evidence to support this claim, as the ongoing stand-off between Canberra and the Horta-Gusmao regime over the Greater Sunrise dispute demonstrates.

According to an article in the September edition of Socialist Alternative, "Australia saw Alkatiri as too independent and friendly towards China, and therefore openly backed the creation of a new government under Jose Ramos-Horta and Xanana Gusmao". This claim lacks any evidence to support it. In fact, the Gusmao government has been pursuing closer relations with Beijing. Thus the November 23 Australian reported that "East Timorese plans to build a naval base for Chinese-made patrol boats has raised concerns about Beijing's military influence in a region traditionally regarded by Canberra as its own... Last year, the Gusmao government controversially agreed to buy two 1960s-era 43m armed Shanghai Class patrol boats for $25 million, a deal that apparently included construction of a landing dock on the south coast.

While no offer has been made to give China military access, the base underscores growing military links between Beijing and Dili. Those ties are consistent with Dili's desire to assert more independence from Canberra and Jakarta, said Hugh White, head of Australian National University's Strategic and Defence Studies Centre." The Murdoch mouthpiece quoted White as saying: "What Australians fail to recognise – notwithstanding our role 10 years ago – for East Timor, living next door to a country like Australia is somewhat uncomfortable. Seeking to balance Australia's role, and for that matter Indonesia's role, in their international position is a perfectly understandable thing to do."

[Jon Lamb is a member of the Revolutionary Socialist Party and former coordinator of the Timor Sea Justice Campaign in Darwin.]

Balibo 1975

Tempo Magazine Editorial - December 8-14, 2009

There is not a single reason why the Film Censorship Board should ban the screening of Balibo at the current Jakarta International Film Festival. Whether the board realizes it or not, either on its own initiative or at the behest of a third party, the board seems to be engaged in a show of strength. This is not only an unhealthy development for our movie industry, but also for our democracy. The Film Censorship Board believes that moviegoers are incapable of independent thought, and need to be regulated and protected, from confusion or the influence of foreign elements.

The Film Censorship Board specifically views the scene showing the killing of five foreign journalists during the turmoil at Balibo, in the early stages of Indonesia's invasion of Timor Leste (formerly East Timor), as sadistic. The movie by Australian director Robert Connolly tells the story of the 1975 incident based on an investigation by Roger East, a journalist who went to Timor Leste at the invitation of Jose Ramos Horta (now President of Timor Leste). The Film Censorship Board says the film's plot is not based on historical facts and that this inaccuracy is irresponsible.

But historical facts depend on the person investigating them, and the outcome of such investigations do not always tell the whole truth. With an incident shrouded in mystery like a ghost coming and going, as in the Balibo case, all findings must be published so their veracity can be proven. The way to test the truth is not to obstruct anyone from discussing their findings.

In deciding whether to allow controversial films to be screened or not, the Film Censorship Board should learn from the Catholic Cinematographic Center, the Vatican body that studies films from the viewpoint of their morality.

In 1948, the movie Il Miracolo (The Miracle) was released in Italy. Directed by Roberto Rossellini, an Italian pioneer of neo-realism, the film attempted to question the issue of sainthood through Nanni, a young girl. In a drunken stupor, the village girl is tempted by a vagrant whom she thinks is Saint Joseph. Nanni then becomes pregnant. She views her pregnancy as holy, but her fellow villagers scorn her. They taunt her, physically abuse her and parade her on the streets with a washbasin on her head. Nanni manages to escape to a church on top of a hill, whereupon after giving birth, she experiences spiritual ecstasy.

Issues relating to sainthood are sensitive to the Church. The Catholic Cinematographic Center condemned the film, but it did not ban it. The film was shown at the Venice Film Festival, known for its unwillingness to screen works judged by the Vatican to be religiously offensive. The official Vatican newspaper, Osservatore Romano, published an appreciative review.

It said there were "serious objections from the religion's viewpoint," while highlighting the "undoubted fine quality of the scenes." It concluded by saying that "we still believe in Rossellini's works."

Such open thinking needs to be cultivated, including in our country. This is freedom to express an opinion, which is guaranteed in our Constitution, including the right to screen films, no matter where they come from.

In some countries, films are banned for many reasons – such as those containing topics on religion and sadism or more specifically, on incest and pedophilia. But even those reasons call for cool-headed thinking. An immediate ban does not have to be the first step.

We must remember that films, whatever they may be depicting, are entertainment. People must pay to watch them. Therefore the premise should be simple: if you do not want to watch it, do not go to the theater and buy a ticket. This also applies to the Jakarta Film Festival – seats are limited and moviegoers are automatically selected. Of course, we should not forget that digital technology now makes it easy for people to find anything that is inaccessible in their daily lives. This is precisely why the censorship and the banning is so absurd. What should be condemned is the knee-jerk reaction by the Film Censorship Board, which was supported by a number of organizations and institutions and an unfortunate sign of extreme intolerance and stupidity. It is wrong from any viewpoint. Banning is the language of those lacking in common sense.

Gareth Evans to be new ANU Chancellor

Commentary by Clinton Fernandes - December 4, 2009

Former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans has been appointed Chancellor of The Australian National University by the University Council today.

..."Gareth Evans has made an outstanding contribution to Australian life and international affairs over his long career. His national and international standing makes him a perfect fit for ANU," Professor Chubb said...

Clinton Fernandes: OK, well here's another Gareth Evans bio:

Gareth Evans was a Senator in the Australian Parliament from 1978 to 1996. While in Opposition from 1978 to 1982, he was placed in charge of the Attorney-General's portfolio. When the Australian Labor Party came to power in 1983, Evans became Attorney-General.

In opposition, Labor had adopted a series of strong resolutions on the subject of East Timor, condemning Indonesia's annexation "in the strongest terms" and calling for the suspension of all defence aid to Indonesia. Upon coming to power, however, the Labor government abandoned its previous stance. It sent a parliamentary delegation on a so-called "fact-finding tour" of East Timor. On this tour, Fretilin representatives tried to make contact with delegates on the road between Baucau and Los Palos but were rebuffed. They were later captured and killed by the Indonesian military. The report of the delegation concluded that the Indonesian government was acting in good faith in East Timor. The delegation found no evidence of human rights abuses and no real insecurity in East Timor. Accordingly, Labor reversed its policy. It continued negotiations with Indonesia on the seabed boundary in the Timor Gap.

In December 1989, Gareth Evans was Foreign Minister when he signed the Timor Gap Treaty with Indonesia's foreign minister, Ali Alatas, in December 1989. This treaty ensured that Australia and Indonesia would rob East Timor's oil, while the Indonesian army continued to occupy East Timor.

While Gareth Evans was foreign minister, he did his best to provide diplomatic cover for the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. In 1990, he dismissed concerns about Indonesia's invasion and occupation of East Timor, saying that "the world is a pretty unfair place, littered with examples of acquisition by force".

Nine months before the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre, Evans had stated that East Timor's "human rights situation has, in our judgment, greatly improved under the present military arrangements".[i]

When news of the massacre broke, Evans described it as "an aberration, not an act of state policy"[ii]. The Indonesian government announced what it called a "special commission of inquiry"; unsurprisingly, it found that responsibility for the massacre lay with the civilian marchers, who had provoked the military into firing on them. The inquiry found that a few junior soldiers were also guilty, and that a total of 19 people were killed[1]. Gareth Evans applauded these findings, calling them "positive and helpful" and saying that he was "reasonably happy" with the Indonesian government's response. Senior Australian diplomats actively cooperated with the Indonesian authorities: the Australian ambassador to Jakarta Mr Philip Flood was informed soon after that Indonesian soldiers and intelligence agents had killed even more civilians around Dili after the massacre. The ambassador kept this information confidential, in line with the wishes of the Kopassus officer who conveyed it to him, Lieutenant-Colonel Prabowo Subianto.[iii]

At a press conference in March 1992, Evans said, "We consider it no longer necessary to question the issue of (East Timor's) sovereignty, like it or not.... The way forward is not to chase a Will of the Wisp, not to chase an aspiration that can never be satisfied".

Eleven months after the Dili massacre, the US Congress cut off Washington's military training program (known as International Military Education and Training - IMET) for Indonesia. But Australia filled the void left by the US's decision, pursuing closer military-to-military ties with the Suharto regime. Much later, Evans was forced to concede that "many of our earlier training efforts helped only to produce more professional human rights abusers". While Evans was foreign minister, however, Australia carried out more military exercises with Indonesia than with any other country.

Under Evans, the Australian government concealed the negotiation of the 1995 Australia-Indonesia Security Agreement from the parliament and the people. Evans justified the secrecy, saying that it was "difficult to do things in a fishbowl". He argued that the secrecy was necessary in order "to have a sensible process of negotiation" so as "not to be thrown off the rails by people getting very excited about things before it's appropriate".

At the height of the crisis surrounding the resignation of President Suharto, Gareth Evans ventured his opinion that Suharto should "stand down in favour of a military leader in order to end the civil and political crisis gripping the country".[iv][v] In a radio interview, Evans was asked for his "thoughts on the current crisis – is the removal of the Soeharto family the only way forward?" He replied that "Soeharto's time has come; the first family's time has come. ... It's explosive, it's out of control. The only question now is whether a transition can be managed without too much more chaos and bloodshed, or whether it can be done reasonably smoothly".

Dismissing the idea of Vice-President Habibie succeeding Suharto, Evans said he didn't think that:

Habibie has the degree of support in the wider community, let alone anywhere else in the world, to make it a terribly credible option on any sustainable basis. The more likely option is that one of the key military people, either Wiranto or possibly Prabowo, will in fact take over – perhaps in the context of some more broadly based council. ... ultimately I think the military does call the shots.

They do have a respect and a credibility and a role in Indonesian society which is very different from a country like ours, and so it's not quite as disconcerting a proposition for Indonesians to have the military running a transition towards a more democratic system. It's not quite as disconcerting as perhaps at first sight it appears to Australians.

And there are some of the more senior military people who do have a reputation as moderate and capable of managing such a transition: we can only keep our fingers crossed and hope that will be the case.[vi]

When Laurie Brereton, Labor's foreign affars spokesman after the 1996 federal election (Labor was out of office) amended the party's foreign policy such that it formally committed the party to supporting East Timorese self-determination,

Gareth Evans responded very negatively. He objected to the passage that dealt with East Timor, which read as follows:

"Labor also reaffirms its grave concern about continuing reports of human rights abuses in East Timor. Labor strongly urges the initiation of genuine dialogue between the Indonesian Government and the people of East Timor to resolve the fundamental issues which underlie the conflict. A Labor Government will lend every encouragement to international efforts to peacefully resolve the East Timor conflict. It is Labor's considered view that no lasting solution to the conflict in East Timor is likely in the absence of a process of negotiation through which the people of East Timor can exercise their right of self-determination."

Evans tried to amend much of this. Among other things, he cancelled the word "international" and the whole of the final sentence. Evans' intervention was hardly surprising – after years of support for Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor, it was obvious that international interest was unwelcome, as was any meaningful commitment to an act of self-determination. According to Brereton, they had "a very robust phone conversation", during the course of which Evans was made to understand that Brereton would not be dissuaded. Brereton later remarked that "the review process was not easy, especially given that the overall policy review was, as we know, overseen by the then deputy leader [Evans] who had, of course, a considerable investment in Labor's past policy on East Timor. I might say that Gareth's handwritten deletion of... all [my] key references given to self-determination – that hand-written note remains filed in my office because it's a little piece of the history of the development of Labor policy".[vii]

Brereton's remarks were made at the Labor Club in Sydney. They carried a hint of menace – should Evans dispute the historical record, Brereton possessed a rebuttal in Evans' own handwriting.[viii]

Gareth Evans subsequently rejected calls that his government had anything to apologise for, saying that "the notion that we had anything to answer for morally or otherwise over the way we handled the Indonesia-East Timor relationship, I absolutely reject".

Notes

[i] Indonesia News 1991, Volume 10, Number 2.

[ii] Aarons M and Domm R 1992, East Timor: A Western-made Tragedy, Left Book Club, Sydney.

[iii] McDonald H 18 November 1998, Exposed: The slaughter that Evans denied, Sydney Morning Herald.

[iv] AAP 15 May 1998, Suharto should stand down for military - Evans.

[v] AAP 15 May 1998, Suharto likely to be succeeded by military leader - Evans.

[vi] Clark P 15 May 1998, Interview on Radio 2BL Sydney with Deputy Opposition Leader and Shadow Treasurer, Gareth Evans.

[vii] Snow D 17 July 1999, Laurie's last stand, Sydney Morning Herald.

[viii] Snow D 17 July 1999, Laurie's last stand, Sydney Morning Herald.