For decades, Australia’s intelligence services have denied having any foreknowledge that the Balibo Five were at risk from Indonesian forces.
Intelligence services ostensibly only learnt shortly afterwards that the five — journalists working in then-Portuguese Timor in October 1975, reporting on secret Indonesian military activity — had been murdered by Indonesian special forces.
But Oil Under Troubled Water, a new book by Bernard Collaery, presents a strong case that Australian spies knew that Indonesia regarded the journalists as a “hurdle to be got over” before Indonesian military preparations could ramp up ahead of its December 1975 invasion, beginning a quarter-century occupation of the province.
In Oil Under Troubled Water, Collaery — currently being prosecuted by the Morrison government along with a former ASIS officer Witness K for revealing ASIS’ illegal bugging operation against Timor-Leste — explores the history of Australia’s relationship with what is now Timor-Leste.
A key revelation of the books is that Timor-Leste has been deprived of billions of dollars in resource revenue as a result of the deliberate hiding of the discovery of significant helium deposits in petrochemical reserves beneath the Timor Sea from both Timor-Leste and the United Nations.
Remarkably, Australia itself has also lost access to this strategic asset by allowing American multinational ConocoPhillips to take control of the helium.
Collaery has also unearthed documents that contradict the longstanding official line on what the Australian government knew about the Balibo Five — Greg Shackleton, Tony Stewart, Brian Peters, Malcolm Rennie and Gary Cunningham — in the lead up to the Suharto regime’s invasion of Portugese Timor in December 1975.
A sixth journalist, Australian Roger East, was murdered by Indonesian forces while investigating the disappearance of the five.
Collaery shows British ambassador to Indonesia Sir John Ford reported to London in September 1975 about clandestine Indonesian military activity in Portugese Timor ahead of its planned invasion:
The only limitation on clandestine activity now appears to be its exposure. The Indonesians are clearly worried about this. According to the Australians, president Suharto told general Yoga, the head of Bakin [the then-named Indonesian intelligence agency] that he would not agree, for the present, to step up clandestine activities beyond their present level. A particular hurdle to be got over is a plane load of journalists and politicians who are due to visit Timor, apparently at Fretilin request, to investigate allegations of Indonesian intervention.
The Suharto regime had a history of heavy suppression of journalists inside its own borders and in West Papua; “getting over the hurdle” could have had only one meaning.
But this “sensitive” information obtained by an Australian agency — Collaery believes it must be ASIS — via a “top level liaison” with Bakin apparently wasn’t sufficient for the agency to alert the then-Whitlam government or to raise concerns about the ramifications of Ford’s phrase “getting over the hurdle”.
The Whitlam government at that stage was about to become embroiled in a life-or-death constitutional struggle, and Gough Whitlam was about to dismiss ASIS head Bill Robertson.
The Ford letter also sits poorly with the finding of inspector-general of intelligence and security Bill Blick’s 2002 review of allegations.
Blick found that another 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 “intelligence material was passed rapidly to government and there was no holding back or suppression of data by the agencies tasked with providing such material”.
The deniability of any foreknowledge or role of either Australian intelligence agencies or the Whitlam government itself in Indonesia’s destabilisation and invasion of Portugese Timor has been a staple of the official narrative around the murders of the Balibo Five — one that has united intelligence establishment figures and Whitlam apologists alike.
The British government has also come under pressure from the families of the two British journalists of the Balibo Five to explain what it knew ahead of and after the killings.
Collaery raises a wider question if the John Ford letter is correct. We’ve known since 1999, when the intelligence archive of Soviet defector Vasili Mitrokhin became available, that Yuri Andropov’s KGB had succeeded in tapping the communications of Henry Kissinger, who in 1975 was president Gerald Ford’s secretary of state and who accompanied the US president to Jakarta to meet with Suharto on the eve of the invasion.
It was at that meeting that Ford effectively greenlighted the invasion by telling Suharto “we will understand and not press you on the issue”.
Kissinger’s only concerns were that the invasion not commence until Ford had left the country, and that US weapons not be linked to the invasion.
Given Australia-US intelligence sharing, Kissinger is also likely to have been aware of Indonesia’s clandestine military activities in the lead-up to the invasion and the “hurdle to be got over”, via Australian sources.
As a result, the KGB may also have been aware that, effectively, ASIS or another Australian intelligence agency had had the opportunity to intervene before the murders of the Balibo Five, but refrained from doing so.
Was such information — which would have proved deeply embarrassing both to agencies and to Indonesia — ever used by the Soviets as leverage against Australian intelligence agents?
It’s another sordid moment in the long history of Australia’s neo-colonialist treatment of the people of Timor, driven by an obsession with exploiting its petrochemical resources.
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Well done Mr Collaery, who despite the bastardry of his own government has found time to write this book.
There appears to be an interesting implicit threat with the publication too. Collaery made it very clear last year he’ll reveal all about his vexatious prosecution in his own good time. This book strongly suggests he has the will and abilities to do just that in granular detail.
Exactly! I had been saying to a friend of mine that even George Brandis had enough sense to leave Bernard Collaery alone.
Whilst commenting poorly on the absence of any sense demonstrated by the current Attorney General, Christian Porter.
Obviously he thought it was grand that he could have a secret trial and a secret jailing of Witness J, a mentally ill spook who was ill enough to think he needed help.
Ah Christian, a few years in the practice of law by being a WA police prosecutor, know as “shooting fish in a barrel” sometimes gives one a little too much confidence in their competencies.
It is probable that sticking to arguing that the federal government owes no duty of care to it constituents to be both accurate, fair and reasonable and have a basis upon which to raise a debt other than an algorithm with a know and acknowledged at a minimum of a 25%, error rate aka RoboDebt, may be considered a safer option for ones reputation, than being downwind when Bernard Colleary surfaces from under this vexatious litigation.
One thing my father told me, was, sometime things occur that are terribly unfair to you and sometime detrimental too. Just take it at the time and bear up as best you can, because at sometime in the future there will be an opportunity to get square, don’t waste it.
My advice to you Bernard, if you are reading this, is I think your time is coming.
Of course the tragedy in Biboa was awful, and that Australian journalists were killed is something that will live on in infamy. As far as justice and truth goes however, what can we expect? Was it carried out by ‘Special Forces” – maybe but this was not some James Bond feat – shoot some nosy reporters, not necessarily planned – events on the unfolded in a chaotic and unanticipated way – so who can you trust? Our own intelligence/cia – please! Intercepted messages (as if the military do not know how to misdirect attention), a KGB spy who taped Kissinger – so what – Kissinger is no girl scout, Cater was hardly going to stop what was US international foreign policy, and it was never a secret that Cater and Kissinger had flown in with out secret cover and we know they had met with Suharto anyway. Did Suharto have to ask them for the OK? Assume he did – but I can not believe Suharto mentioned a slaughter, a mere invasion maybe and after all he had been supplied with US military arms – The US had supplied the regime since 65 to over throw Sukarno and killing and rooting out communists was standard American foreign policy. No one believes the Indonesian military or regime maintained files on the Dili event – except perhaps on political fall out – East Timor was just a pedestrian event in the times of Suharto – Did they expect a massacre would ensue – I doubt it. No cared about East Timor, on the international stage except Portugal, Australia was indifferent until some of our people got killed – the other 000.000’s of Indonesian lives did have us making a scene at the UN. Well we at least know no one evacuated our reporters and ASIO would have wanted them in harms way to source information. But did they even know the invasion was to occur let alone a massacre was to develop? You will never be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt who pulled the triggers or gave the direct order. It was too long ago, the military are never going to say anything (if they really know anything anyway, remember such things happen and soldiers know not to burden their superiors with the details, and the superiors prefer it that way). So you may learn of a name of a general , point to special forces implying it was a high level plot so very senior officials planned this but did they? Sure, senior officials green lighted the whole invasion but as for the events that unfolded in terms of resistance, protests, perceived reprisalschaos and wild shooting etc was probably more about the militia doing what they have always done ‘reacting in a disorganized and panicky response and thus lead to the atrocities. Did the army know about the resistance, protests and potential retaliation, real or imagined before? Special forces under the orders of the highest authorities were not needed – “what’s a few reporters when thousands have been slaughtered”. When the undisciplined and poorly trained military are invading and loose control in the unexpected revolt – it tales one shot to have the rest killing hoards of unarmed people – the guilty soldiers, who are paid less than they need to buy a black and white TV, have just been sent into yet another battle, desperate to survive and shooting at anything that moves. It was a pretty hopeless, poorly planned and uniformed invasion (no intelligence seemed to be guiding the soldiers or telling them of potential threats – LAND, TAKE CONTROL, QUELL ANY RESISTANCE AND ELIMINATE THREATS -was the slaughter planned – or was it that they had no plan or idea of what to expect – I believe they were caught off guard by the protests- to a soldier – that means fire indiscriminately – who knows maybe Fret land are lying low in position about to ambush them? So as the place went wild – a few soldiers become aware of these white reporters filming/noting what’s going down and in war 101 you know at least intuitively, this is not good PR. Reporters in these scenarios do have the effect of ‘encouraging the opposition’ and this ‘creates head aches for the troops” – so someone with some authority, not necessarily a general or special forces, thinks we really should discourage these nosy reporters from being around as they embolden the protesters -some lieutenant tells a few rank soldiers to take care of ‘business’. No one needs to seek special permission from a top official because they know their actions will be supported and it’s appreciated by the top officials – that they are not told the details. This is appreciated as they do not want to know the details. The mayhem of what’s happening creates this concept of ‘the fog of war’ and if no one knows anything, then the facts can not come out. The message is nothing new – ‘we don’t want pesky reporters around, it’s bad PR and may embolden the people after all they desperately want the truth to come out to the world and feel some people care”. Was it about “Australians in particular? Was it personal? I don’t know – maybe – did these soldiers have black and white TV ‘s and watch Jose Horta on 4 Corners with that afro and did not like the image Jose Ramos Hota was spreading, I doubt it. Jose was a fixture on TV but that dude worked very hard for years before anyone took notice, Only Portagel made a scene at the United Nations from the start and Australia had no appetite to say anything until after Dili.
Horta said years later – “who are these idiots in the UN Council, we had been a sovereign nation that was illegally invaded and massacred by Indonesia – yet they could not even express a dam thing – not even the Dili massacre moved them. They should hang their heads in shame – no wonder much of the world was left to burn all these years – we had Portaguel and I give credit to Australia – they never sent a UN investigative task force, peace keepers, nothing – just empty suites – puppets, maybe they were put in the UN because they were just idiots – I can’t understand. Horta in a very rare video said – I could not stand them, they sought to negotiate a peace and all I heard was sewage spew from their mouths – but this is very hard to find as Horta took on the role of the statesmen and sought to settle the hostilities. So Australia stepped in ‘bravely and to the East Timorese great appreciation – I am sure the soldiers were very sincere and honorable, we lost the lives of our soldiers in a terrible helicopter crash. but Australia was busted red handed listening in on the phone calls of the highest officials and over heard their private views on negotiating a peace settlement – including how the resources would be carved up. We honor the dead soldiers by sullying their memory. To me that’s like being caught with our pants down – busted, send off the field and we had no choice but to reconsider the ‘spoils’ after all we deceived them. But, instead it became a legal and technical argument – “we did not use the tapped phone calls we surreptitiously listened to” – something impossible to prove – but we screwed up, we lied and let them down under the auspicious of being here in peace. Just accept we should not screwed up and with dignity accept the renegotiation – our politicians, diplomats and intelligence services flunked out and so what if BHP takes a hit. Sue the government for being reckless, inept and negligence. But we showed our true colors. So we joined the security council – VOMIT –
It was a Friday night, late 90’s, dog barking, kids squabbling, phone rang.
Gough Whitlam identified himself then said “You are Wrong” And proceeded to tell me why.
I was a single mother in Brunswick studying for a second career, an inheritor of Whitlams legacy of opportunity for women so stunned beyond belief to receive a call from the great man.
My letter had suggested that if a leader of Whitlam‘s eminence and respect would speak up and acknowledge past mistakes on Timor, it could support their cause.
In retrospect I can only surmise how touchy this subject must have been for Whitlam to ring a nobody in Brunswick to tell me I was wrong.