Greg Shackleton’s Last Report

“…then for the next hour, sitting on woven mats under a thatched roof in a hut with no walls we were the target of a barrage of questioning from men who knew that they may die tomorrow and cannot understand why the rest of the world does not care.

Why, they ask are the Australians not helping us?
When the Japanese invaded they did help us?
Why, they ask are the Portuguese not helping us, we’re still a Portuguese colony
Who, they ask will pay for the terrible damage to our homes

My main answer was that Australia would not send forces here…. That’s impossible. However, I said we could ask that Australia raise this fighting at the United Nations – that was possible.

At that, the second in charge rose to his feet, exclaimed, “Camarade Journaliste”, shook my hand, the rest shook my hand and we were applauded because we are Australians.

That’s all they want…… for the United Nations to care about what is happening here. The emotion here last night was so strong that we, all three of us, felt we should be able to reach out into the warm night air and touch it.

Greg Shackleton at an unnamed village that we will remember forever in Portuguese Timor.”

Last Communication from Roger East in Dili December 1975.

Australia's nearest neighbour, tiny East Timor, has cast the die. It's 'Independence or Death', a western cliche, but here a daily salutation - and the Timorese people mean it.

The mortar that binds the East Timorese is the thoughts of Independence after 400 years of colonial rule. They will settle for nothing less.

Fretilin's army is basically anti-colonial, strongly Catholic-tinted and, not surprisingly, has many vehement anti-Communists in its midst.

Djakarta has elected to win support from its nervous neighbours by attaching the Red label to Fretilin.

However, Fretilin's initial planning is a blending of socialistic and cooperative policies which would appear natural for a colony bereft of secondary industry and winning only a subsistence existence from the soil.

Membership of Fretilin by Australian standards would include thinkers from the centre to the extreme left - the latter in a fringe grouping in the Central Committee.

Secretary of the East Timor Department of Foreign Affairs, Jose Ramos Horta, admits the committee's views vary on many issues, the sole exception being independence.

"I expect to see a multi-party set up in East Timor after we cross the present hurdle.

"We are a tolerant people who have waited a long time for the democratic process. We'll share it when it comes."

Fretilin believes the Governor, Colonel Lemos Pires, now living on the Island of Atauro, the St Helens of his choice, aided and abetted the UDT to stage its ill-fated August coup.

Fretilin had been told of the coup plot and a request to the governor to disarm the plotters is said to have been turned down.

Fretilin was defenceless when the fighting started and its members hounded, jailed and some murdered. UDT lost when the Portuguese-trained soldiers defected in favour of Fretilin.

UDT's leadership is now split three ways. Some are languishing in Timorese jails and others in the more comfortable surrounds of Australian cities.

The remaining standard bearers are in Indonesia, hosted and promised a triumphant return, albeit in the wake of mortar bombs.

Their platform of independence, which over a year ago saw them in a political alliance with Fretilin, is now abandoned. They are opting for Indonesia after 450 years of Portuguese domination.

Apodeti, the party pressing for union with Indonesia, is a bad bar-room joke. Its political rallies could be staged in the proverbial ten by four room which includes a table.

Founder and President, Arnold Araujo, 62, a respected horse thief, is currently being detained at Fretilin's pleasure.

The Portuguese jailed him for nine years for war crimes committed against the Timorese during the Japanese occupation.

This leaves only Fretilin which wants to embrace an offer of a United Nations supervised plebiscite.

East Timor's problems grow daily. Its primary ricebowl in the Maliana Valley is now a battlefield. Other crops have been destroyed or neglected in the turmoil of the fighting. Hunger is a reality and starvation a growing threat.

It is said Roger risked his life to send a real last message from the Marconi Centre at the airport, as the paratroops landed.
To hear or read more go to http://www.abc.net.au/rn/hindsight/stories/2008/2444721.htm