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Balibo inquest shows the futility of appeasement

By Bruce Haigh - posted Thursday, 14 June 2007


They have long been referred to as journalists but in fact they were war correspondents. The reason they went to Balibo was because they, along with other members of the media, intelligence, defence and foreign affairs officials, were convinced that Indonesia would invade East Timor. I spoke briefly to Greg Shackleton before he went to East Timor and that was the gist of the conversation.

Why they have never been accorded the status of war correspondents presumably rests with the fact that Australia has for so long tried to demonise them, blame them for their own deaths and accord them the role of non-persons, not deserving the protection or respect of the Australian government.

Well they do. They were five brave young Australians dedicated to exposing the truth and by doing so perhaps prevent a great injustice to the people of East Timor.

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If the Government can put money into finding the Australian World War I submarine AE1, if it can put money into bringing back the bodies of two formerly missing Vietnam veterans, it can put money into bringing back from Indonesia the bodies of Gary Cunningham, Greg Shackleton, Malcolm Rennie, Anthony Stewart and Brian Peters.

They should be posthumously awarded the Humanitarian Overseas Service Medal and an appropriate memorial erected in Canberra which might go some way towards making amends for 32 years of Australian government vilification and denial.

National self-esteem demands nothing less. If a nation cannot honour its heroes it will slowly decay from within. In 2000 I wrote in my book The Great Australian Blight, that the reason the bodies of the newsmen were not brought to Australia for burial was because of fears a funeral would stir up anti-Indonesian sentiment.

This should not now be the excuse for not bringing them home and honouring them.

The only way to develop a strong long term relationship with Indonesia is on the basis of honest exchanges, anything else has a well demonstrated propensity to unravel with negative results.

Australians are angry at their war correspondents having been shot by members of the Indonesian Army and they should be told so.

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The coronial inquest has demonstrated that the Taylor and Sherman inquiries were fundamentally flawed. Where does this leave the Flood inquiries into the intelligence services, refugee detention camps and the Cole inquiry into the AWB?

There is a lesson in this for the Howard Government: eventually the truth will out.

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First published in The Canberra Times on June 8, 2007.



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About the Author

Bruce Haigh is a political commentator and retired diplomat who served in Pakistan and Afghanistan in 1972-73 and 1986-88, and in South Africa from 1976-1979

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