Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma

33 Years Later, Send the Balibo 5 Home

33 years ago today, five journalists working for Australian TV networks were killed by Indonesian forces in East Timor, their bodies incinerated and interred at a cemetery in Jakarta. Details about the deaths of Gary Cunningham, Brian Peters, Malcolm Rennie, Greg Shackleton and Tony Stewart were shrouded in mystery, but the fact of their deaths has made them a potent symbol of the threats journalists face worldwide. Dart Centre Australasia joins the Prime Minister of Australia and a 2007 coroner's inquest in calling for all parties to respect the wishes of the families of the "Balibo Five" who call for repatriating their relatives' remains. More »

The “Balibo Five”—30 Years Later

By Cait McMahon

Shirley Shackleton—whose husband, Australian journalist Greg Shackleton, was murdered in East Timor in 1975—has been asking the same question for 30 years: “I want to know what happened to my husband and his colleagues,” she says. “Why were these people murdered in cold blood?”