Balibo
Jill Jolliffe
'No one could hope to match Jolliffe for knowledge … Her book is sensible, well-told, compassionate, balanced and clean of malice.'
Paul Toohey (The Australian)'Even if you've read 2001's Cover-Up, there's plenty to bring you back to this updated version ... she has devoted her life to uncovering what happened to the reporters and investigating how and why governments have, at best, ignored what happened and, at worst, lied about it. This edition has new material on East's murder and the 2007 inquest into journalist Brian Peters' death.'
(West Australian)'Over a period of three decades, Jill Jolliffe has laboured to put the many shards of this story together. This updated version of her earlier book, Cover-Up, reconstructs these tragic events and interweaves Jolliffe's own investigations as a long-time reporter in East Timor. It's a grim story, painstakingly told. The truth maybe out but neither Jakarta nor Canberra show any will to bring the affair to a "dignified close".'
Fiona Capp (The Age)In October 1975, during the decolonisation of Portuguese Timor, five young television reporters travelled from Australia to report on the brewing unrest in the region. It was a journey that would be their last: Greg Shackleton, Gary Cunningham, and Tony Stewart of Channel Seven, and Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie of Channel Nine, were killed by the Indonesian military as they filmed the infantry troops advancing into the border town of Balibo. In the months that followed, a sixth man who went to investigate their fate, freelance journalist Roger East, was also executed.
In this revised edition of the book that was originally published as Cover-Up, on which the film Balibo is based, Jill Jolliffe reveals previously hidden details of one of the most shameful episodes in Australia’s history. In doing so, she brings to light new material about Roger East, and details the 2007 Glebe inquest into the death of Brian Peters.
The result of over 30 years of personal investigations and tireless research, Balibo provides a unique first-hand account of the deaths of the five journalists and of Roger East. Jolliffe argues that the Australian government and its Western allies were always aware of the circumstances of the killings of the Balibo Five, as they came to be known, and that their cover-up of those details was a key factor in Indonesia’s decision to invade and occupy East Timor.
Part memoir, part history, this searing book is as much an indictment of the Balibo killers as it is of Australia’s role in East Timor’s recent tragic history.
'Jolliffe's 34-year struggle to reveal the truth about Indonesia's brutal invasion of East Timor and the slaughter of her colleagues places her firmly in the pantheon of our journalistic greats. Jill Jolliffe will never be a wealthy woman nor a household name, but to me she is a hero and I salute her bravery, courage and persistence.'
Jill Singer (Herald Sun)'Jolliffe has a long association with East Timor and the independence movement. She was in East Timor when the Balibo incident occured, and met the Balibo Five. Their deaths deeply affected her. Over the years, she has maintained an unwavering commitment to bringing out the truth about what happened to them on that mid-October morning.
'Ever since the invasion of Dili on December 7, 1975, when she was the last journalist to leave, Jolliffe has been meticulously assembling evidence of how the newsmen met their end, and who was responsible.
'This book brings all her evidence together. The centrepiece is the most comprehensive collection so far of interviews of East Timorese with links to the Balibo incident, which highlights the abundance of evidence available for the prosecution of those responsible, among them Captain Yunus Yosfiah (now a retired lieutenant-general), and a Kopassus (special forces) sergeant, Christoforus da Silva. Interwoven with this extraordinarily detailed work are strands of a personal memoir.'
Jim Dunn (Sydney Morning Herald)'One journalist outstandingly has worked to make sure that East Timor couldn’t be evaded. Jill Jolliffe’s Balibo takes up and expands her earlier book Cover-Up. It is comprehensive and compelling; the film, having used it as a major source, sends us back to it. Jolliffe began reporting from Timor at the time, in 1975; now Balibo draws together more than three decades of committed investigation and writing, taking us not only into the Balibo tragedy and through it, but on after that, with the journalists’ families, to the coroner’s court in Glebe, to the present. This book is up there with the great Neal Ascherson’s work on Poland, and I can’t say more than that.'
(Inside Story)'Her book ...draws much strength from its forensic approach. Balibo is not a travelogue or memoir; it is a valuable historical document laying out the actions - many of them deplorable - of those involved, and those who turned a blind eye.'
(The Advertiser)Jill Jolliffe
Jill Jolliffe has been following the Balibo Five story for 34 years. She witnessed the first incursions of Indonesian regular troops into East Timor in September 1975, reported on the death of her five colleagues at Balibo in October, and was evacuated from Dili by the International Red Cross four days before Indonesian paratroopers attacked the capital on 7 December 1975.
In 1978 Jolliffe moved to Portugal, where she continued to follow the East Timor story and to work as a correspondent for The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, and the BBC, among others. She now lives in Darwin and reports regularly from East Timor.
Buy from Readings
Format: Pb
Extent: 416pp + 16pp b&w photographs
Size: 210mm x 135mm
ISBN (13): 9781921372773
RRP: $29.95
Pub date: July 2009
News