Balibo Review – By Bruce Honeywill in Dili

Balibo, the movie, has two special Amnesty International screenings in Auckland before going on general New Zealand cinema release on Thursday. The film, banned in Indonesia, tells the story of the murder of five members of two Australian-based television news crews in a tiny East Timorese border village in 1975. The narrative exposes the duplicity of the Australian government – and New Zealand – in covering the truth of the deaths for more than a quarter of a century.

In 2010, I stand on the wall of the old Portuguese fort overlooking the tiny mountain village of Balibo. I was here previously, 10 years ago.

Click here for the full article: Pacific Scoop: Balibo Review by Bruce Honeywill in Dili

Civic honour for Balibo murder victim

by Amanda Fisher

A “true hero” killed in the line of duty is to be recognised in Wellington as an investigation continues into his 1975 murder.

Cameraman Gary Cunningham was gunned down with four other journalists in East Timor by invading Indonesian forces, while on assignment for Australia’s Channel 7.

Though the Indonesian Army initially said the men were caught in cross-fire, it later emerged they were slain to prevent reports of the invasion reaching the world.

Mr Cunningham, who lived in Wellington until he was 21, would be pleased to live on in Mt Victoria’s Charles Plimmer Park, where a commemorative plaque, park bench and tree was to be erected, aunt Patricia McGregor said.

She wished her brother, Gary’s father, Jim – who died in 2001 – was still alive to see the memorial.

The New Zealand Government had not helped the family get answers, she said.

Click here for the full article: Dominion Post: Civic honour for Balibo murder victim

NZ must act on Balibo deaths

NZPA

The New Zealand government has been criticised for its “appalling” failure to hold Indonesia to account over the Balibo Five killings in East Timor.

New Zealander Gary Cunningham and other Australian-based newsmen Brian Peters, Malcolm Rennie, Greg Shackleton and Tony Stewart were shot dead at Balibo, East Timor, in October 1975.

A memorial to Cunningham was announced at a ceremony in Wellington on Friday.

The Australian Federal Police launched a war crimes investigation into the killings last year, following a 2007 coronial inquest which found Indonesian forces deliberately killed the Australian-based journalists to cover up their 1975 invasion of East Timor.

Retired Indonesian army colonel Gatot Purwanto appeared to back the coroner’s findings in December last year, becoming the first senior Indonesian figure to contradict the official explanation the newsmen were killed in crossfire.

The planned memorial in Wellington, organised by the Indonesia Human Rights Committee with support from the Media Freedom Committee and Wellington City Council, would be the first official commemoration in New Zealand.

Click here to read the full article: NZ must act on Balibo deaths

Kim Hill interviews Robert Connelly on Balibo

Click here to hear the interview: Radio NZ: Kim Hill talks to director Robert Connelly on Balibo

Media Release: Time for New Zealand to insist that Indonesia support justice for the Balibo Five

December 2009

A former Indonesian officer, Gatot Purwanto, has just made a dramatic revelation confirming that Indonesian Special forces killed the Balibo Five journalists in cold blood.  Mr Purwanto, a retired colonel,   is the first senior Indonesian military figure to give a public eye witness account of the events.  He said ‘we tried to make them disappear’.   Australian Federal police are undertaking investigations for a possible war crimes tribunal and in   2007 Coroner Dorelle Pinch found that the men were killed deliberately by Indonesian officers including Captain Yunus Yosfiah and Christophorus da Silva.

“It is time that New Zealand took action on behalf of justice for its national Gary Cunningham who was murdered on October 16, 1975.  Over the years, New Zealand has feebly stood back and left any action to Australia.  Gary was killed with his companions because they wanted the world to know the truth about the imminent  Indonesian invasion of East Timor.  Gary bravely chose to keep filming as the Indonesian forces advanced on Balibo and he paid with his life.’

‘Indonesia has adamantly refused to co-operate with the Australian Federal Police in their current war crimes investigation.  New Zealand should immediately make an urgent call to Indonesia to cooperate with the justice process under way in Australia and to ensure that Yunus Yosfiah and Christophorus da Silva are brought to trial for their alleged crimes. It is time to end Indonesia’s impunity for its historic crimes in East Timor and justice for the Balibo Five can be a first step.’

The Indonesia Human Rights Committee is writing to both the Attorney General and Prime Minister John Key to  take action now.

For further information: Maire Leadbeater; 09-815-9000 or 0274-436-957

Watching Balibo In Jakarta

Packed screenings of the controversial film about the deaths of five Australian journalists in East Timor continue, despite an official ban

Quinton Temby

Is it more exciting to watch Robert Connolly’s feature film on the Balibo Five at a clandestine screening in Jakarta, at which people joke that the military is coming and commentators give defiant statements to the waiting national media? Of course it is. The ban by the Film Censorship Board on 1 December – which transpired just moments before Balibo was to be shown at a meeting of the Jakarta Foreign Correspondent’s Club – has prevented the film from running at this year’s Jakarta International Film Festival. But Balibo is much bigger now: it’s mainstream news, it’s a cult film in NGO circles, it’s a debate.

Click here for the full article: Inside Indonesia: Watching Balibo In Jakarta

Australian Film ‘Balibo’ Banned by Indonesian Censors

The local premiere of the acclaimed Australian film, “Balibo,” which recounts the murder of five journalists allegedly at the hands of Indonesian soldiers during the 1975 invasion of East Timor, was stopped on Tuesday after the censorship board banned the movie.

The Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club had planned to show the film for the first time in Indonesia to a private audience at the Blitz Megaplex in the Grand Indonesia Mall.

But a few minutes after the 7 p.m. screening time had passed, JFCC President Jason Tedjasukmana emerged from the screening room to tell a crowd of about 100 journalists and other invited guests, “We have some bad news. The LSF [Film Censorship Agency] officially banned it today.”

To read the full article, click here:  Jakarta Globe: Balibo Banned

Film Review: Balibo

BALIBO

Director: Robert Connelly

Australia 2009

Review by Maire Leadbeater

When the movie ‘Balibo’ was shown in East Timor audiences were in tears to see a hidden part of their history on the big screen. Despite knowing the story of the 1975 deaths of the ‘Balibo Five’ inside out, I too was deeply moved by this movie. It is painfully faithful in its portrayal of the key events and players, while using a little dramatic licence to give coherence. It has its share of edge-of–the-seat moments.

One of the five Australian-based journalists was a courageous young New Zealander, Gary Cunningham. Actor Guyton Grantley brings to life his appealing exuberance and charm which were his trademarks. He was an award winning cameraman with a promising future ahead of him, and he paid the ultimate price for his commitment to his craft. We should honour him. To the East Timorese he and his colleagues are martyrs who died trying to let the world now about a looming atrocity – the bloody Indonesian invasion of East Timor.

To New Zealand’s shame our Government has always tried to avoid pursuing the cause of justice for the Balibo Five. The bureaucrats were quite blatant back in 1975 and 1976 – since there was ‘no clear cut case’ against Indonesia for a violation of international law any NZ action would only ‘harm our own relations with Indonesia’. Gary was living in Australia, and working for an Australian news media so ‘no necessity’ for New Zealand involvement!

The story of western complicity in the Indonesian take-over is the back story of this film, and there has been some quite sharp criticism from John Pilger and others that not enough is made of this infamous chronology and the genocide it led to.

However, the movie is proving very powerful. The Balibo crime has been investigated some 8 times, most recently by an extremely thorough inquest conducted in Sydney in 2007. The Coroner, Dorelle Pinch, concluded her hearing with an unequivocal finding which named those directly responsible and referred the matter to the Australian Attorney General for consideration of a war crimes prosecution. There the matter lay for some 22 months but two months after ‘Balibo’ was shown at the Melbourne Film Festival the Federal Police have announced that they are beginning a war crimes investigation!

You can follow developments on the film’s official web-site www.balibo.com and you can check out the fascinating “Balibo in Depth’ and ‘Film vs reality’ sections compiled by the film’s consulting historian Clinton Fernandes .

To conclude, praise is due to Anthony La Paglia who starred as the journalist Roger East – a complex, conflicted but deeply compassionate individual. Roger’s story was often overshadowed by that of the Balibo Five, but thanks to Anthony’s fine performance he is now unforgettable.

*

Balibo is due for general release in Aotearoa in January 2010

John Pilger on Balibo: A Film’s Travesty of Omissions

20 August 2009

In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger recalls his undercover reporting for East Timor and reveals that a major new movie, Balibo, perpetuates the cover-up of the role played by western governments in the genocidal invasion of East Timor by Indonesia and the Australian government’s part in the murder of its own journalists.

Read the full article here: John Pilger on Balibo

Interview with Clinton Fernandes on the Balibo 5

Interview with Clinton Fernandes, consulting historian on ‘Balibo’ and senior lecturer in Politics at the Australian Defence Force Academy. To hear the interview, click here:

BFM Interview with Clinton Fernandes