W

hen the Alliance of Independent Journalists invited Shirley Shackleton to testify at their judicial review of the government’s decision to ban the film Balibo, they could hardly have made a better choice.

Shirley, the widow of one of the five journalists killed in Balibo, East Timor in October 1975, has campaigned untiringly to seek justice for the slain journalists and continues to demand that a formal investigation be held to determine how they died.

Along with Greg Shackleton, the other victims of the atrocity were fellow Australian Tony Stewart, Gary Cunningham from New Zealand, and two British journalists, Malcolm Rennie and Brian Peters.

The film Balibo, which was released in Australia last year, tells the story of the murders, the subsequent invasion, the 24-year occupation of East Timor and the Timorese people’s fight for independence.

It was banned by the Indonesian Film Censorship Board in 2009 on the grounds that it depicts violence and uses only sources from Australian and Timor Leste (as East Timor is now known).

This ban obstructs the right of Indonesian people to learn about one of the worst examples of Indonesian military terror, namely its occupation of East Timor, when villagers were forced out of their homes, dissidents arrested and tortured and up to a third of the population killed in massacres.

During a recent trip to Jakarta, Shackleton visited the cemetery where the five journalists alleged to have been buried. Along with the relatives of the other journalists, she has always challenged the decision by the Indonesian authorities to bury the men in Indonesia and questions the contents of their graves.

In January, she wrote to the Indonesian government asking for permission to repatriate her husband’s remains but has so far received no response. She has also sought permission for the grave to be exhumed for DNA testing to prove who was buried in the grave once and for all.

The many silences she encountered while in Indonesia add legitimacy to the title of her book, which records a litany of silences heard at every turn since the day in October 1975 when she first heard that five journalists were missing, shortly after her husband had departed for what he thought would be a three-day visit to Portuguese East Timor.

At the time of Greg’s departure, their marriage was in crisis. Before his departure, he confided to her his fear that this risky assignment might result in his imprisonment.

As a chronic sufferer of asthma, Greg had good reason to be worried. “We could end up in jail,” he told her.

“Can you imagine conditions in a Third-World prison? I could die without medication. Don’t leave me there, Shirl. Do everything. Sell the house. Get me out.”

Yet these concerns did not diminish his determination to take the assignment, nor did their shaky relationship diminish his trust in Shirley Shackleton.

When she first heard a report on the radio about missing journalists, she called the Australian Broadcasting Corporation newsroom and asked who was missing but was told rather abruptly that she was wasting their time. If she was related to anyone missing, she was told, she would hear from the Foreign Affairs Department. She never heard anything.

Greg, along with Tony Stewart and Gary Cunningham, was on assignment from Australia’s Channel Seven, while the two British journalists, Malcolm Rennie and Brian Peters, were on assignment from Channel Nine.

Although she had received no confirmation from the Australian government about what had happened to the journalists, a commemorative event was held for the five men without it being clear what they were commemorating. Were the men dead? If so, where were the coffins? What had happened to the bodies?

“Among the many strangers who asked to speak,” she writes, “not one voiced the obvious — the deceased had been murdered. The eulogies, the music, the total lack of coffins gave the proceedings the quality of an odious sham.”

From then on, her book is devoted to an account of what happened to the Timorese people during the Indonesian occupation of their country and to a visit to Timor which she made in 1991 at the time of a Papal visit. Her descriptions are often interspersed with poems she wrote to give color to her accounts.

From the very start of the occupation, resistance to the Indonesian invaders was widespread and persistent. Foremost in organizing the resistance was Fretilin which established an armed wing called Falintil.

An Indonesian operation called Pagar Betis in 1979 and 1980 perhaps more than any other operation shows just how difficult the invaders were finding it to control the territory.

“All Timorese males from nine years old to their 60s were driven, ahead of Indonesian troops armed with whips, guns, fixed bayonets and machetes, to flush out guerrillas who were thought to be hiding. As the human chain tightened, anyone hiding in the bush would be forced into the open.”

As the author points out, most were civilians who had left their villages to seek sanctuary.

A similar operation had been organized by the British colonial government in India, to flush out animals as easy targets for sport. But in Timor, the quarry was human beings, not wild animals. “There was no mercy for the sick and feeble, and no transport… [The men] were given no time to collect water, protective clothing or digging sticks with which to obtain food…. Many Timorese who survived starvation and exposure died on the long trek back home. Some were impaired mentally.”

She concludes that “as a military operation, Pagar Betis was a failure; as a means of enforcing genocide it was a success.” When she later wrote about this operation in The Age, in 1990, her article was never refuted.

She decided to go to East Timor on the occasion of the visit of the Pope who had agreed to officiate at a mass. As it turns out, this was a special occasion for four-star general, Benny Moerdani who was himself a Roman Catholic. He remained a close ally throughout his military career of Gen. Soeharto and was part of the much dreaded Kopassus, which has throughout its existence been linked to numerous human rights abuses.

Moerdani was credited with having taken the decision to invade East Timor and was considered aftermath.

Unfortunately for Shackleton, she found herself sharing a hotel with Moerdani, even having to eat her meals in the same dining-room.

“I studied his large ugly hands, knowing he could reach forward and with a flick of his wrist break my neck. I wanted to slap his grinning face so badly that I sat on my right hand.”

She decided to use this opportunity to speak to him. He denied any knowledge of the killing of the Balibo Five or of Roger East, another Australian journalist killed shortly after the invasion.

After saying to him, “When you allow your troops to commit atrocities you make sure that Timorese will never accept you,” his eyes drooped as he looked passed me. In desperation, I said, “Timorese are not peasants, they are a refined people, a cultured people.” He stood abruptly, turned his back to me and sauntered away.

During the mass, a demonstration took place but was quickly dispersed. A crackdown occurred after the journalists had left. During his homily, the Pope said: “In your great suffering, you are the salt of the earth.” This was greeted with loud cheers. But his next words “You must be ready for reconciliation” were met with silence.

During a brief trip to Fatumaca in the east, Shackleton met a Catholic preist who was running a school for children most of whom were orphans, as well as a college run by Canossian nuns teaching printing, wood- and metal-working.

The situation she witnessed looked quite relaxed, but later one of the priests told her that some of the students had been tortured even while they were tilling in the fields. “Our masters force entrance to the people at night with fierce dogs, they shoot weapons and drag away suspects. We live in terror.”

It so happened that her visit to Timor coincided with the anniversary of the murder of the Balibo Five. This gave her the opportunity to plant a tree in Balibo on Oct. 16
and she was determined to do this “in full blazing sunlight”. As this was happening, a children’s choir nearby began to sing in Tetun: “The purity of their voices was a benediction.”

Then someone approached her, asking if she would agree to take out some handwritten letters from resistance leader, Xanana Gusmao. When the person later gave her the letters, she realized that she had been given 198 letters addressed to people in Australia, Portugal and France. She left the country with these letters tucked inside her jacket, thankful that she was never searched.

Throughout the years of the occupation of East Timor, the issue remained on the agenda of the United Nations, thanks to Resolution 384 adopted unanimously on
Dec. 22, 1975 by the Security Council, calling on Indonesia to withdraw all its troops from East Timor “without delay”.

The piece of paper on which the resolution was written was held by José Ramos Horta, who had fought with such determination to save his people from the horrors of the occupation.

But as she says, “that was all it was, a piece of paper. Indonesia behaved as if it did not exist and world leaders, by remaining silent, gave tacit approval to the illegal occupation of Timor. Another silent circle and one that destroyed all hope for the Timorese.”