Time to start looking with my eyes and not my ears.
I hire a car and make for Balibo, the village where the five journalists from Australia TV were murdered by the Indonesian Army in 1975. Balibo is a small village up in the hills not far from the coast. I have heard all sorts of stories about how long it will take me to get there so I’m anxious to get on the road as soon as possible. Car hire paperwork is painfully slow. The road follows the coast west from Dili and is bitumen, but badly maintained. There are huge potholes everywhere and the road edges drop off severely. Passing through one village I slow behind a truck and while not watching the road I drop the front passenger wheel into a deep pothole. I lose traction. Two wheels are swinging in the breeze and I’m stuck. Embarrassingly I’m surrounded by school children who find my predicament hilarious, peels of laughter everywhere! I get out and we all analyse the situation. The conclusion is to get a push and they happily oblige. Timor kids can push and I’m on my way again. Each of the main villages have schools to primary level and some go to mid-school. For high school the have to go to Dili I think. And each village has a different colored uniform. White shorts/skirts with bright green tops, or brown bottoms with white or bright yellow tops. One village had their kids wearing brown bottoms with hot pink tops! I can’t imagine what psychological effects this will have on the boys later in life but it certainly makes them very visible on the road. (I have since heard that the school uniforms can depend on the best deal the school can get on clothing material. Hot pink must have been on special.)
The narrow road that passes through the villages is used by everyone. At certain times of the day the road is busy with these school kids, goats, dogs of course, chooks, pigs as well as cars, trucks and buses. Travel is slow but entertaining. And there are all sorts of produce on display for the passerby to purchase, including fish. I saw the biggest tuna I have ever seen, hanging from a pole for somebody to buy.
There is some beautiful coastline visible from this road and one day tourism will take advantage of this. They are working hard on the roads and rebuilding the electricity network, out this way at least.
I reach Batugade close to the West Timor border and turn south to go up the range. The hills here aren’t so dissimilar to the Cairns hinterland, except they are dry, brown and sparsely treed. Balibo is only a shirt 15 minute drive from the coast. It is hard to know what village you are in because the signage isn’t great. I park at a spot below an obvious old stone fort. This was built by the Portuguese.
My trusty Lonely Planet explains to me where to find the building I am searching for and it isn’t long before I find it. In the village square at a tee section in the road, there is a building on the corner. This is where the five journalists working for Australian TV (two Australians, two British citizens and a New Zealander) stayed during their campaign to report on the Indonesian invasion. It is now a community centre. I understand the families of the journalists raised funding to purchase the building for this purpose and to tell the story of what happened here in Balibo.
The Victorian Government played a big part. On the wall within the main room of this community centre are glass covered informational posters on each of the journalists. On another wall is some information about some heroic East Timorese who lost their lives brutally to the Indonesian army for their involvement in the fight for independence cause. I personally am not connected in anyway to any of this but I’m still effected. It’s any eerie atmosphere when you think that back in 1975 the army came streaming in here and enacting their own kind of brutal justice. I try to imagine what the very last moments must have been like for the journalist’s. I feel sick.
A bunch of cheeky kids have joined me and distract me from getting too emotional. ‘ Photo mister?’ ‘OK, photo’. On the wall outside is a glass case covering the Australian flag one of the journalists, Greg Shakleton, painted in hope that this would give them some immunity. The now-famous flag is badly faded and hardly visible. Also on the wall is an Anti-Bali sign. What is this about? It is explained to me back at the Backpackers that there is some animosity here towards Bali because the invading Indonesian troops came from there.
The five journalists were murdered by the Indonesian Army. There weren’t murdered in this house but it is believed to be in the house across the village square. The Indonesian commander who gave the orders is still alive but retired from the army. I think the relatives of the journalists are still working hard to bring him to trial.
I walk around the old Portuguese fort. During Australia’s role in the UN Peace Keeping forces, a regiment was initially based here in Balibo and camped in this old fort. The views from here are spectacular. In one direction you overlook this pretty village and on the other side are great views of the coast. We’re right on the border here so you can look into Indonesian West Timor from here.
angusmccoll 
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