In 1979, Sam Neill appeared in an Australian comedy movie about hacks on a Sydney newspaper.

The Journalist was billed as “a saucy, sexy, funny look at a man with a nose for scandal and a weakness for women”.

That would probably not fly these days — but as a rule, movies about Australian journalists are no laughing matter.

Back in 1982, a young Mel Gibson starred as a foreign correspondent who was dropped into Jakarta during revolutionary chaos in The Year of Living Dangerously. The 1967 events the movie depicted were real enough, but Mel Gibson’s correspondent Guy Hamilton was made up for what was essentially a romantic drama.

There was no romance and a lot more real life 25 years later in Balibo, another movie with Australian journalists in harm’s way during Indonesian upheaval.

Anthony La Paglia had won awards for his performance as Roger East, a journalist killed in what was then East Timor — now Timor-Leste — in December 1975. East was killed while investigating the fate of five other journalists — including New Zealander Guy Cunningham — who was killed during the Indonesian invasion two months earlier.

The Correspondent has a happier ending but is still a tough watch — especially for its subject.

Met in London newsrooms
I first met Peter Greste in newsrooms in London about 30 years ago. He had worked for Reuters, CNN, and the BBC — going on to become a BBC correspondent in Afghanistan.

He later reported from Belgrade, Santiago, and then Nairobi, from where he appeared regularly on RNZ’s Nine to Noon as an African news correspondent. Greste later joined the English-language network of the Doha-based Al Jazeera and became a worldwide story himself while filling in as the correspondent in Cairo.

Greste and two Egyptian colleagues, Baher Mohamed and Mohamed Fahmy, were arrested in late 2013 on trumped-up charges of aiding and abetting the Muslim Brotherhood, an organisation labeled “terrorist” by the new Egyptian regime of the time.

Six months later he was sentenced to seven years in jail for “falsifying news” and smearing the reputation of Egypt itself. Mohamed was sentenced to 10 years.

Media organisations launched an international campaign for their freedom with the slogan “Journalism is not a crime”. Peter’s own family became familiar faces in the media while working hard for his release too.

Peter Greste was deported to Australia in February 2015. The deal stated he would serve the rest of his sentence there, but the Australian government did not enforce that. Instead, Greste became a professor of media and journalism, currently at Macquarie University in Sydney.

Movie consultant
Among other things, he has also been a consultant on The Correspondent — now in cinemas around New Zealand — with Richard Roxborough cast as Greste himself.

Greste told The Sydney Morning Herald he had to watch it “through his fingers” at first.

“I eventually came to realise it’s not me that’s up there on the screen. It’s the product of a whole bunch of creatives. And the result is … more like a painting rather than a photograph,” Greste told Mediawatch.

“Over the years I’ve written about it, I’ve spoken about it countless times. I’ve built a career on it. But I wasn’t really anticipating the emotional impact of seeing the craziness of my arrest, the confusion of that period, the claustrophobia of the cell, the sheer frustration of the crazy trial and the really discombobulating moment of my release.

“But there is another very difficult story about what happened to a colleague of mine in Somalia, which I haven’t spoken about publicly. Seeing that on screen was actually pretty gut-wrenching.”

In 2005, his BBC colleague Kate Peyton was shot alongside him on their first day in on assignment in Somalia. She died soon after.

“That was probably the toughest day of my entire life far over and above anything I went through in Egypt. But I am glad that they put it in [The Correspondent]. It underlines … the way in which journalism is under attack. What happened to us in Egypt wasn’t a random, isolated incident — but part of a much longer pattern we’re seeing continue to this day.”

‘Owed his life’
Greste says he “owes his life” to fellow prisoner Alaa Abd El-Fattah — an Egyptian activist who is also in the film.

“There’s a bit of artistic licence in the way it was portrayed but . . .  he is easily one of the most intelligent, astute and charismatic humanitarians I’ve ever come across. He was one of the main pro-democracy activists who was behind the Arab Spring revolution in 2011 — a true democrat.

“He also inspired me to write the letters that we smuggled out of prison that described our arrest not as an attack on … what we’d actually come to represent. And that was press freedom.

“That helped frame the campaign that ultimately got me out. So, for both psychological and political reasons, I feel like I owe him my life.

“There was nothing in our reporting that confirmed the allegations against us. So I started to drag up all sorts of demons from the past. I started thinking maybe this is the universe punishing me for sins of the past. I was obviously digging up that particular moment as one of the most extreme and tragic moments. It took a long time for me to get past it.

“He’d been in prison a lot because of his activism, so he understood the psychology of it. He also understood the politics of it in ways that I could never do as a newcomer.”

“Unfortunately, he is still there. He should have been released on September 29th last year. His mother launched a hunger strike in London . . . so I actually joined her on hunger strike earlier this year to try and add pressure.

“If this movie also draws a bit of attention to his case, then I think that’s an important element.”

Another wrinkle
Another wrinkle in the story was the situation of his two Egyptian Al Jazeera colleagues.

Greste was essentially a stranger to them, having only arrived in Egypt shortly before their arrest.

The film shows Greste clashing with Fahmy, who later sued Al Jazeera. Fahmy felt the international pressure to free Greste was making their situation worse by pushing the Egyptian regime into a corner.

“To call it a confrontation is probably a bit of an understatement. We had some really serious arguments and sometimes they got very, very heated. But I want audiences to really understand Fahmy’s worldview in this film.

“He and I had very different understandings of what was going … and how those differences played out.

“I’ve got a hell of a lot of respect for him. He is like a brother to me. That doesn’t mean we always agreed with each other and doesn’t mean we always got on with each other like any siblings, I suppose.”

His colleagues were eventually released on bail shortly after Greste’s deportation in 2015.

Fahmy renounced his Egyptian citizenship and was later deported to Canada, while Mohamed was released on bail and eventually pardoned.

Retrial — all ‘reconvicted’
“After I was released there was a retrial … and we were all reconvicted. They were finally released and pardoned, but the pardon didn’t extend to me.

“I can’t go back because I’m still a convicted ‘terrorist’ and I still have an outstanding prison sentence to serve, which is a little bit weird. Any country that has an extradition treaty with Egypt is a problem. There are a fairly significant number of those across the Middle East and Africa.”

Greste told Mediawatch his conviction was even flagged in transit in Auckland en route from New York to Sydney. He was told he failed a character test.

“I was able to resolve it. I had some friends in Canberra and were able to sort it out, but I was told in no uncertain terms I’m not allowed into New Zealand without getting a visa because of that criminal record.

“If I’m traveling to any country I have to say … I was convicted on terrorism offences. Generally speaking, I can explain it, but it often takes a lot of bureaucratic process to do that.”

Greste’s first account of his time in jail — The First Casualty — was published in 2017. Most of the book was about media freedom around the world, lamenting that the numbers of journalists jailed and killed increased after his release.

Something that Greste also now ponders a lot in his current job as a professor of media and journalism.

Ten years on from that, it is worse again. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says at least 124 journalists and media workers were killed last year, nearly two-thirds of them Palestinians killed by Israel in its war in Gaza.

The book has now been updated and republished as The Correspondent.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Jornal Independente newspaper has been awarded Timor-Leste’s mediaoutlet of the year prize in the National Press Council’s 2019 awards.

Rigoberto Monteiro, executive director of Timor-Leste’s Press Council, said the Independente took out the award because of the quality of its stories and “strict adherence to the journalism code of ethics compared to other major media”.

Virgilio Da Silva Guterres, president of the Press Council, said although the Independente was one of the smaller media outlets in the country, its commitment to “writing balanced news and obeying the journalism code of ethics” gave it an edge over other media outlets.

Accepting the award, Jose Sarito Amaral, director of the Independente, said he was “very grateful that the Press Council and jury team [had] recognised Jornal Independente as the best media in Timor-Leste.”

Amaral said he promised to continue motivating his journalists to improve the quality of their work.

Introduced in 2017, the Press Council Awards recognise the critical role media plays in access to information and freedom of speech.

The award comes with prize money of US$1500 and a trophy.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Today, October 16, marks the 45th anniversary of the Balibo Five – the five Australian-based Australian, British and New Zealand – journalists murdered in East Timor in 1975. Their case remains unsolved.

Roger East, a former ABC journalist, was later murdered when in Timor-Leste investigating the earlier killings and running a Timorese news agency.

This was a marked moment in press freedom history in Australia, yet after investigations were launched to find those responsible and prosecute them, after 1868 days – according to the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) – the AFP (Australian Federal Police) had not made one attempt to question the suspect identified by a prior inquest.

The investigation was subsequently dropped.

Since then, nine other Australian journalists have also been murdered, again with complete impunity, reports the Brisbane-based Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom (AJF).

Globally, impunity in cases of journalist murders remains at almost 90 percent.

Professor Peter Greste, director and spokesperson of the AJF, said:

“This trajectory shows a broad and continuing failure of our judicial process, and a lack of political will to address one of the most egregious attacks on the media in our history.

“A liberal democracy stands on the shoulders of a sound legal system, a free press, transparent governance and security forces that protect both the people and the integrity of the system itself.

“Failure to hold those responsible for the Balibo Five murders and those subsequent to them is a failure of our democracy. If we hope to be a strong and flourishing country in the region in future, we must ensure this never happens again.”

Murdered were the three-man Channel Seven crew reporter Greg Shackleton, (29), New Zealand cameraman Gary Cunningham, 27; and 21-year-old sound recorder Tony Stewart; and the two-man Channel Nine crew Scottish-born reporter Malcolm Rennie, 28, and British cameraman Brian Peters.

Roger East opened a one-man news agency in Timor-Leste, stringing for both ABC Radio in Darwin and the AAP news agency in Sydney.

He filed reports on East Timor’s calls for international support and provided the first accounts of the killing of the five journalists at Balibo.

As the sole remaining foreign reporter in East Timor his stories described the approaching Indonesian forces and the plight of the civilian population.

Roger East’s final story for ABC Radio was heard on Correspondents Report on the afternoon of 7 December 1975.

The AJF promotes press freedom and the right of journalists to report the news in freedom and safety. This includes working with Australian governments to ensure legislation supports press freedom. Professor Peter Greste is a director of the AJF and is UNESCO chair in journalism and communication at the University of Queensland (UQ).

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

NEWS REVIEW: Robert Baird

The Australian lawyer who helped uncover the Timor-Leste bugging scandal says Australia had direct, advanced knowledge of the threat that faced the murdered Balibo Five journalists, with a report describing the men as a “hurdle to be got over” in keeping clandestine activities secret.

Bernard Collaery has published what he describes as a “a survey of failed Australian policy” towards its much smaller neighbour. In Oil Under Troubled Water, he describes seven decades of “grim” history, including the Indonesian occupation years he pointedly labels “genocide”.

“I’ve not called it a holocaust, I wouldn’t use that term… [but] when there is a reckless starvation of people, it is close to, and [it] is genocide,” he told Tatoli.

The release of the book comes as Collaery and the former Australian Special Intelligence Service (ASIS) officer known as Witness K face criminal prosecution for their role in exposing the bugging of Timor-Leste’s cabinet rooms during sensitive oil and gas treaty negotiations in 2004.

The claims about Australia’s high-level knowledge of the impending Balibo attack come in a report which Collaery uncovered in the UK National Archives, where he spent some time researching the book. It highlights the information-sharing between Australia and Indonesia’s intelligence agency, then known as Bakin, in the lead up to the December 1975 invasion.

In his report, Britain’s then-Ambassador to Indonesia, John Ford, writes “the only limitation on clandestine activity now appears to be of its exposure”.

“A particular hurdle to be got over is a plane load of Australian journalists and politicians who are due to visit Timor… to investigate allegations of Indonesian intervention,” Ford writes. “The information from the Australians is sensitive and should not be played back to them or repeated to other missions.”

For Collaery, who advised the East Timor resistance for more than 30 years and has represented the families of the murdered Balibo Five, this was a “shocking” candour.

“[The Whitlam government] could hardly warn the Australians… that Indonesian special forces were a danger to them without conceding that they were aware that clandestine activities were happening inside Portuguese Timor,” he writes.

“So, rather than save lives, they saved the relationship with the Indonesian intelligence service, clearly.”

The report undermines the official version of events leading up to the Balibo attack. A 2002 Parliamentary report found another intelligence agency, the Defence Signals Directorate, did not have “intelligence material that could have alerted the government to the possibility of harm to the newsmen” and that “there was no holding back or suppression of data”.

‘We will not press you on the issue’: Kissinger
Collaery also quotes a US State Department transcript of a meeting between Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Indonesian General Suharto on December 6, 1975 he said betrays a “profound breach” of the United Nations charter.

“We want your understanding if we deem it necessary to take rapid or drastic action [in Timor],” General Suharto said.

“We will understand and will not press you on the issue. We understand the problem you have and the intentions you have,” Secretary Kissinger replied.

The day after the conversation, Indonesia invaded Dili and began its 24-year occupation of Timor-Leste.

Collaery says the conversation is evidence Indonesia acted with “unprovoked aggression“.

“[And] it’s a breach of the code by the United States as an accessory to that series of war crimes,” he says. Australia, as “a more silent witness”, was also complicit, he adds.

‘It’s ruined my law practice… they would have known that’
The book carefully skirts around the criminal proceedings Collaery faces for legal reasons.

“It’s not a memoir,” he says. “That comes later”.

A well-known Canberra barrister, former ACT Attorney-General and diplomat, Collaery took the former ASIS agent Witness K on as a client in 2013. After learning of the bugging operation, Collaery had arranged for his client to give evidence at a confidential overseas hearing.

But after news of the bugging operation was reported in the Australian media, the country’s domestic spy agency, ASIO, raided the lawyer’s home, seizing documents and data. ASIO also raided the home of his client, and had his passport cancelled, preventing Witness K from attending the hearing.

In protest, Timor-Leste unilaterally withdrew from the 2004 CMATS Treaty and took the case to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, with Collaery representing them. The case was subsequently withdrawn, and the two countries resolved the dispute through mandatory conciliation in early 2018.

Months after the treaty was signed, Collaery and Witness K were charged under the Intelligence Services Act of 2001. The Act criminalises the unauthorised disclosure of certain information about ASIS, Australia’s foreign spy agency.

Collaery is frank about how the prolonged case has affected his life.

“It’s ruined my law practice… I live on borrowed money, I can’t practice as an advocate in court, I’ve had to let my staff go. That’s all predictable and [prosecutors] would have known that,” he says.

Serious legal risks
Celestino Gusmão from L’ao Hamutuk, a Dili-based human rights organisation, has extensively researched the long-running maritime border dispute. He says Timor-Leste has shown great support to Collaery and Witness K.

“Through their love, their solidarity with the Timorese people, they put the people of Timor ahead [of their own lives],” he says.

Gusmão says he appreciates the serious legal risks the pair ran in exposing the bugging operation.

“I think Bernard Collaery and Witness K [were] prepared for this, but [they] should not be used as a deterrent,” he says.

• Bernard Collaery (2020). Oil Under Troubled Water, Melbourne University Press. This news review was first published in Tatoli, the Timor-Leste News Agency website.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

Two journalists from Timor-Leste will benefit from the Balibo Five-Roger East Fellowship in 2018, an initiative of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance and Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA.

They were chosen from four outstanding applications assessed by a selection panel in Australia, the MEAA says in a statement.

The next recipients of funding from the fellowship, which aims to nurture the development of journalism in East Timor are:

• Maria Pricilia Fonseca Xavier, a journalist and news broadcaster in Tétum and Portuguese at Timor-Leste Television (TVTL).

• Augusto Sarmento Dos Reis, senior sports journalist and online co-ordinator at the Timor Post daily newspaper and diariutimorpost.tl website.

The Balibo Five-Roger East Fellowship has been established to honour the memory of the six Australian journalists murdered in East Timor in 1975, and to improve the quality and skill of journalism in East Timor.

-Partners-

The applications were assessed by a panel of MEAA communications director Mark Phillips; Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA organiser trade union development and education for Timor-Leste and Indonesia, Samantha Bond; senior lecturer in journalism at Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, Jock Cheetham; and former television journalist and newsreader Mal Walden, who was a colleague of three of the Balibo Five.

Funding for projects
The successful applicants will be provided with funding to assist them with specific journalism projects in Timor. It is anticipated that each will also be offered the opportunity to travel to Australia in 2018 to spend some time observing and working in an Australian newsroom.

MEAA chief executive Paul Murphy said all the applications were again of a high quality and representative of the diversity of journalism in East Timor.

“We are well aware that is not easy to work as a journalist in Timor-Leste, and journalists face many hurdles, including a lack of resources and training, and attacks from the government on press freedom,” he said.

“But we are delighted that the successful applicants represent both print/online and broadcast media, and there is a balance between genders.

“Both Pricilia and Augusto are young journalists with impressive track records and a thirst to succeed in their chosen profession.”

Kate Lee, executive director of Union Aid Abroad-Apheda, said: “We are delighted to again be able to partner with the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance to support the development of independent journalism in Timor Leste through the Balibo Five-Roger East Fellowship and look forward to seeing some great investigative work from Pricilia and Augusto in 2018”

Funding for the Balibo Five-Roger East Fellowship has come from MEAA, the Fairfax Media More Than Words workplace giving programme, and private donations.

40th anniversary
The fellowship was established on the 40th anniversary of the murders of the Balibo Five in 1975.

Last year, four journalists successfully applied for funding from the fellowship, while separately the fellowship assisted Timorese journalist Raimundos Oki to spend a week with Fairfax Media in Sydney in September.

The fellowship carries the names of six journalists who were murdered by Indonesian forces in East Timor in 1975.

Five young journalists working for Australia’s Seven and Nine networks – reporter Greg Shackleton, camera operator Gary Cunningham, sound recordist Tony Stewart (all from Seven), reporter Malcolm Rennie and camera operator Brian Peters (both from Nine) – were killed in the village of Balibo after witnessing an incursion by Indonesian soldiers on October 16, 1975. Their killers have never been brought to justice.

Freelance reporter Roger East, a stringer for the ABC and AAP who provided the first confirmed accounts of the killing of the Balibo Five, was executed by Indonesian troops on Dili Wharf on December 8. His body fell into the sea and was never recovered.

A media release from MEAA and APHEDA.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Death of the Balibo Five … a Footprint Films extra including clips from the film Balibo and interviews with the film director, Robert Connolly, and cast. More at: www.balibo.com

By Duncan Graham

Greig Cunningham wants to know how and why his brother Gary died. The New Zealand news cameraman was killed in 1975 by Indonesian Special Forces in what was then East Timor – now Timor-Leste.

In his four-decade fact hunt, the retired Australian accountant’s latest stopover has been the brothers’ birthplace, New Zealand.

In the capital Wellington he asked Foreign Minister Murray McCully to pressure the Australian government for release of secret legal documents about his older sibling’s death.

After the meeting, Cunningham said McCully had agreed to contact the Australian government for the papers “but suspects they will refuse”.

However, the minister agreed to open the files about Gary held by the New Zealand government once public servants can access the archives. These have been inaccessible since a major earthquake hit Wellington in mid-November. Several office blocks have been closed until security can be assured.

Cunningham’s quest has also taken him to Timor-Leste several times, but he has never visited Indonesia because he says he fears for his safety. He has heard that others have been threatened for asking questions about one of the ugliest incidents still affecting relations between Australia and its northern neighbour.

Cunningham says he wants to meet the former soldiers allegedly involved to hear their side of the story. Two are still alive.

“This is not about money,” he said. “I find that idea repulsive. Nor is it about vengeance. The Cunninghams don’t do that.

“Settling this issue would let Indonesian-Australian relationships improve. There has been no justice. What happened was wrong. That needs to be acknowledged so we can draw a line.”

Gary, 27, was a New Zealander shooting film for an Australian TV network. He was on assignment with four other newsmen, two Britons and two Australians in Balibo, a tiny town on the border with Indonesia.

The corpses were cremated. Some witnesses alleged the bodies were dressed in military fatigues and photographed with weapons in an attempt to portray the crews as not genuine journalists.

The Indonesian government claimed the media men were killed in crossfire during a clash with Timorese guerrillas. This explanation is still officially accepted by Australia, though not by the victims’ families.

Books have been written and a play and film, Balibo, produced about the Balibo Five, a term that’s become Australian shorthand for public concerns about relations with Indonesia

Shortly before the men were shot, Indonesian troops had entered the former Portuguese colony to suppress the independence movement. The Western media described this as an invasion but Indonesia said it was “defence action” to protect its borders.

Six weeks later another Australian journalist Roger East, 53, was investigating the deaths of his colleagues when arrested by Indonesian soldiers. He was executed in the capital, Dili, along with many Timorese and his body thrown in the sea.

Constant agitation for justice by the men’s families eventually forced a coronial court inquest in Australia. This concluded that “the Balibo Five … were shot and or stabbed deliberately and not in the heat of battle” and that this had been done to prevent reporting on the Indonesian military’s movements.

As this meant a war crime, the Australian Federal Police got involved. Two years ago their investigation was abandoned, allegedly because of insufficient evidence. Cunningham has so far been refused access to the AFP’s “independent legal advice” which apparently supports this decision.

“I’ve got no quarrel with individual officers, but what the Australian government has done to us is just appalling,” he said. “There’s been political interference to appease Indonesia – it’s just a cover up.”

Because his brother was a Kiwi, Cunningham sought release of all historical records through the NZ government. In 2007, former Foreign Minister Dr Michael Cullen told him New Zealand would “carefully consider” the coroner’s findings and regularly raise the issue with the Indonesian government.

The families and former employers of the dead journalists have established the Balibo House Trust to “honor the memories of the Balibo Five by working with the Balibo Community to enrich their lives.”

It has set up a kindergarten, learning center and tourist enterprise to “foster awareness of the significance of Balibo to relationships between Australia, Timor-Leste and Indonesia”.

Gary has been recognised by the Timor-Leste government with an award collected by his brother last year.

“The Timorese see the newsmen as heroes,” said Cunningham. “They think of them as family. Why haven’t their own governments given recognition?”

Cunningham acknowledged the issue had remained alive because journalists were victims.

“Red Cross workers might have been forgotten by now,” he added dryly.

Last year, a War Correspondents’ Memorial, which included the names of the Balibo Five, was opened in Canberra by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull who said “democracy depends on a free and courageous press”.

The killings are barely known in Indonesia, where the award-winning 2009 Australian feature film Balibo is banned. However, bootleg DVD copies have apparently sold well in Jakarta, with young buyers keen to know more about the recent history of their nation.

Before East Timor gained independence in 1999, former Indonesian Foreign Minister, the late Ali Alatas, called it the “pebble in the shoe” in his nation’s relationship with Australia.

Cunningham, 65, said that will remain the situation till the truth about the Balibo Five killings is known.

“People talk about revelations damaging the national interest, but this happened 41 years ago. More recently the Australian government was caught out bugging the phone of former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono; what could be more damaging than that?

“I’m still passionate about finding out the truth. Even when I’ve gone this matter will not go away until resolved. Gary’s son, John Milkins, will keep this going. So will Gary’s grandson.

“This is an opportunity for Indonesia to acknowledge the facts and get a better relationship with Australia. It needs to be settled.”

Duncan Graham is a contributor to Strategic Review.