Congratulations to Shirley Shackleton

Congratulations to Shirley Shackleton for winning Australia's Walkley Book Award for The Circle of Silence: A personal testimony before, during and after Balibo. Copies are available from ETAN.

The award citation says in part:

"This book is testimony to her work in East Timor, and an insight into a defining time in that country's history. Such struggles have their personal sides, however, and this book is also a remarkable personal narrative, interspersed with poetry, that details the other careers Shackleton juggled while maintaining an abiding focus on justice in East Timor."

From judges' comments:

Shirley Shackleton's book is an exceptional personal narrative in this year's field of rich Australian journalism, history and analysis. It is exceptional because of its raw intellectual honesty forged from murder and massacre in East Timor during a cover-up which prevailed for 25 years. It is exceptional because it confronts then exposes blind-eyed Australian diplomacy. It confronts then exposes self-censorship posing as journalism, because of the Australia/US/Indonesia geopolitical logic which required it.

From ordinary human expectations, the author's personal story -- with sometimes brutal self-assessment -- evolves from self-pity and grief over the 1975 murders at Balibo and Dili to a campaign to raise public consciousness about atrocities which decimated the people of East Timor. The consequence of that raised consciousness? Independence for East Timor in 2002 and a measure of belated redemption for Australia and the international community. The Circle of Silence is Shirley Shackleton's testimony from her life's darkest hour at the death of her husband Greg to vindication and relief at the survival of a people who struggled for their freedom.

Letter by Shirley Shackleton to SBY on Balibo

Shirley Shackleton delivered a letter (see below) to Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on his March 10 visit to Australia. According to the AAP "The Indonesian president has expressed sympathy to the families of Australian newsmen killed in Balibo in 1975."

Shackleton went to a lunch in Yudhoyono's honor with the letter. The AAP reports "She was stunned when two emissaries from the president approached her. 'They came and said that we've come from President Yudhoyono to give you his best wishes,' she told AAP. "The emissary said he wants you to know he's very sympathetic to you, and he's very interested to read what you have to say in your letter.'

We all await any follow-up.

Below the letter is a commercial by Shirley which aired during the visit calling for prosecution of the killers of the Balibo 5 as a war crime. The Australian police are investigating the case now after a coroner's report (PDF) concluded that the 5 were deliberately murdered not caught in crossfire as both the Australian and Indonesian governments had long maintained.

10th March 2010

Mrs Shirley Shackleton
Address

Welcome to Australia, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and congratulations on being appointed an Honorary Companion of the Order of Australia. I am the wife of one the journalists alleged to have been slain by members of Team Susi of the Indonesian military on 16th October 1975.

My name is Shirley Shackleton.

I am aware of the potential for our two great nations to become true friends, but as everyone knows we have serious problems to settle, one of which is the atrocity at Balibó which remains a weeping sore. It is no use just saying we are friends; we have to be friends and friends do not lie to each other, especially about something as serious as the cold hearted murder of unarmed civilians.

On that terrible morning when I heard that my husband Greg Shackleton was missing with four other journalists, I feared he was dead.  My second fear was if my premonition was correct, this would have to be managed very carefully or boys like my eight-year-old son could be fighting Indonesian boys in the future. And then, I was forced to witness lies which failed to serve the Indonesian and Australian peoples; on the contrary, they forced us to mistrust one another.

Unfortunately, this was not confined to Australia; in your recent visit to the US, questions were posed to you regarding the shooting of the Australian journalists. I note, however, that at Harvard University you responded to a questioner by promising, "We will cooperate with Australia because we respect human rights and democracy."

I believe it is time to put this atrocity to rest and I am asking you to use this occasion to heal the weeping sore that taints any possibility of respect and true friendship between our two countries by not only sending those accused of the murders to Australia for trial, but to also grant me five minutes to plead my case.

I understood long ago that I can drop dead tomorrow and Balibó will not go away. Please, as the president of Indonesia, hear my plea. I request a reply from you.

Shirley Shackleton

Purwanto's Balibo revelation

Ex-Kopassus officer Gatot Purwanto revelation in Tempo magazine that he participated in the deliberate killing of the Balibo 5 in October 1975 is important, but contradictory and apparently designed to provide a justification for the killings. If taken at face value, it would absolve his superiors and leave largely intact the Indonesian version of events that crossfire was ultimately responsible for the killings.

The interview and Tempo cover story grow out of attempts to show the "Balibo" film in Indonesia, which was banned by the Indonesian censors. (The Alliance of Indonesia Journalists [AJI] did show the film, defying the ban.) In recent years, other films (documentaries) on Timor have also been banned from showing at the Jakarta International Film Festival (Jiffest). The censorship shows that in post-Suharto Indonesia the establishment is more interested in covering up past crimes and protecting the military officers who committed them, than in expanding democratic freedoms.

As Shirley Shackleton, widow of the murdered Balibo journalist Gregory Shackleton and a staunch advocate for accountability for the human rights crimes committed in East Timor, says that at least part of Purwanto's "confession" contradicts multiple eyewitness testimony. ''I think it [his statement] is a smokescreen to protect his commanding officer, Yunus Yosfiah so that Yosfiah will be able to say, 'I've got eyewitnesses,'' Shackleton, told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Purwanto, who with other Indonesian soliders had illegally entered then Portuguese Timor, told Tempo: "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." Purwanto also said "the shots happened when we were provoked into shooting at the place where they were hiding, because shots came from there," while they were waiting for orders.

Shirley Shackleton's response:

"He's saying it wasn't crossfire. He also says that the troops fired after a shot came from behind the journalists. (But) there was no one in that village - it was completely deserted. That's bulls---. Team Susi was an assassination squad sent to shut them up. This was bloody murder."

Both the Timor-Leste Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR) and the New South Wales Coroner, citing eyewitness accounts,  found there was no crossfire.

The Australian Federal Police, following up on the coroner's report are conducting a war crimes inquiry. Indonesia, always ready to try to bury past military crimes, is refusing to cooperate. It is sticking to the line that the journalists died in crossfire.

Some interesting reading

Amnesty International: We Cry for Justice - Impunity persists ten years on in Timor-Leste

Global Voices: East Timor: Celebrating Global Solidarity for Freedom

Victims of East Timor atrocities still await justice

Film puts spotlight on failure by James Dunn

Woolcott and Balibo

Clinton Fernandes responded on the east-timor listserv (archive here, subscribe here) to an article in the Australian which features self-serving remarks by former Australian Ambassador to Indonesia Richard Woolcott. The retired diplomat blames the murdered Balibo 5 journalists and their bosses for the deaths:

"The ABC left, and others left," Mr Woolcott said. "I think proprietors (of the TV stations) bear a heavy responsibility that they've never had to shoulder." ...He said the Indonesians "would have regarded (the reporters) as combatants because of their close association with Fretilin".

He also denies any Australian or personal culpability:

Mr Woolcott said he assumed the [Balibo] film would be "partly fiction, but I don't want to buy into an argument about what the Australian government knew, or didn't know. All my cables have been made public. I have put it all down in my book, and I would not change a word of that chapter. It is simply a tragedy that these young and inexperienced people were there, and their lives were cut short."

Fernandes responds:

1. On 13th October 1975, Woolcott reported in a cable that he had been told by his Indonesian interlocutors that "The main thrust of the operation would begin on 15 October. It would be through Balibo and Maliana/Atsabe".

2. On 14th October, viewers across Australia watched Greg Shackleton's story stating that the Channel 7 team were on their way to the border.

3. On 15th October, Woolcott was once again told by the Indonesians that "Initially an Indonesian force of 800 will advance Batugade-Balibo-Maliana-Atsabe... It is of course clear that the presence of Indonesian forces of this order will become public. The Indonesians acknowledge this. The President's policy will be to deny any reports of the presence of Indonesian forces in Portuguese Timor."

4. On 16th October, the Indonesians attacked Balibo.

5. While there were no mobile phones in those days, Woolcott had immediate access to his Indonesian interlocutors face-to-face.

6. Here's an extract from the proceedings of the Coronial Inquest:

"Every single move by the Indonesians succeeded according to their plans. When informed of the precise Indonesian battle plans, no objection, public or private, was voiced. There were no news broadcasts showing Indonesian involvement in the attack on Balibo. Because senior Australian leaders had been compromised by advance warning of the attack, they were hardly in a position to disclose their true knowledge to the Australian people. When news of the deaths came out, not a single word in public or in private was uttered by the Australian Government or political leaders to suggest involvement or blame on the part of the Indonesians for the deaths of the journalists. Instead, Australian officials in public and in private persisted in what can only be called a bizarre charade of asking the Indonesian Military to use their good offices in seeking information from their Timorese militia allies about the deaths of the journalists... It is apparent that the Indonesian leaders engaged in a masterful power play worthy of an international chess grandmaster using Australian leaders and departmental officers as their pawns."

http://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/hass/Timor/3/east/index.html

see also: ETAN: Australian Inquest into Balibo Journalists Killings in East Timor Shows Ongoing Need to Pursue Justice and Accountability

U.S. and E. Timor in 1999

The U.S. political dynamics around E Timor in 1999, as discussed below by Piers Akerman in his column "Balibo ghosts return to haunt Labor" are - to put it mildly, tremendously over-simplified.

He writes in Australia's Daily Telegraph that:

A significant omission from the film [Balibo] and its footnotes is the reality it was right-wing US politicians urged on by William P.Clark, the former national security adviser to US president Ronald Reagan, who pushed Timor as an issue when he was working for George W. Bush's presidential campaign in 1999.

The combined actions of Clark and fellow Republicans, and the Catholic Church pressing former US president Bill Clinton at the same time he was meeting with former Australian prime minister John Howard at the APEC conference in Auckland in September 1999, paid off.

There was tremendous bi-partisan congressional pressure (that grew out of years of organizing by ETAN, various churches (not just the Catholic Church)). Both Houses of Congress had gone on record as supporting self-determination in 1998. In addition, with the fall of Suharto, the blind supporters of his dictatorship were, to put it mildly, lost as to what to do and did not mount any counter to those urging the U.S. to pressure Indonesia by cutting ties with the Indonesia military and threatening other aid to Indonesia, which Clinton did while he was on his way to APEC.

That said Akerman is right about the current Australian administration's failure to act on accused war criminal Guy Campos' continued presence in Australia. Akerman writes:

For over a year now Campos, who entered Australia on a pilgrim's visa during the Papal visit, has been investigated by the AFP [Australian Federal Police].

In that time we have had Utegate and the OzCar giveaways but Campos is still on our streets terrifying East Timorese residents who have testified to his activities.

My question: When does Rudd think Campos will be held to account?

ADDENDUM

Former Australian diplomat James Dunn submitted this note to the east-timor listserv in response to a note similar to the one above:

I fully support the note by JMM. Piers Akerman is a well-known columnist of the right who, with very few exceptions, in the past supported the invasion of East Timor and, as Akerman does here, accused the journalists of being at least partly responsible for their plight. The same can surely be said of the US right, one of whom many years ago, when I appeared before a congressional committee, accused me of trying to drive a wedge between the US and its good anti-communist friend, the Suharto regime. Columnists of Akerman's ilk responded in a similar vein here in Australia, accusing us of supporting communists or neo-communists. Clark's contribution may have been helpful but it came late in the piece. True, Labor was in power in Canberra when the Balibo killings occurred, but in less than a month they had been replaced by the Fraser government which proceeded along the same lines. It is nice to have a glimmer of humanitarian light from Akerman now, but we got nothing from the Right after the Balibo event, and, even more shamefully, they continued to remain silent in the subsequent four years when East Timor became a killing field. Balibo holds lessons for all of us, for Australian politicians, our journalists, our churches, as well as for Indonesians. As one who was in East Timor when he Balibo killings occurred, it seems that if the media had reacted to the events of 1975, as they have to this moving film, one of the worst atrocity cases of its kind might never have occurred.

James Dunn