Balibo Historical Review

Balibo (2009) is an hour and a half long political movie directed by Robert Connelly. It is based on the five Australian soldiers being executed in Balibo in 1976 following the Indonesian government invading east Timor (IMDB, 2009). It features the cold reality and goes into gut wrenching detail of not only the Balibo five’s tragic end, but the invasion itself. This movie is indeed, very historically accurate in terms of events of the war and the journalists’ roles however the role of the Australian government only has some truth.

The details of the Indonesia – East Timor war were very factual. At the beginning of Balibo, there is a scene which takes the audience back to 1975. It is in this scene that they give details of the initial war movements. The Invasion began the 7th of December, 1975 where the Indonesians bombarded the city of Dili (History.com, 2011). The Indonesians invaded due to East Timor declaring independence just 9 days earlier. They were anti-colonialism and therefore acted against East Timor. Throughout the film, Indonesia’s movements included naval ships off the coast of Dili, and also regular patrols (Silver, 2002). This is accurate to what happened in real life.

The Journalists, and the murders were also historically accurate. The reporters were from channel 7 and 9 and were Greg Shackleton, Tony Stewart, Gary Cunningham, Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie (Balibo house, 2015). These details were all accurate in the movie. They were there to cover what was then the biggest emerging story in the region – the collapse of the decolonisation process in East Timor and the threat of invasion by neighbouring Indonesia just as they were in real life (Balibo house, 2015).  The movie also captured their path correctly, stopping in many places such as Dili and setting camp at Balibo (History.com, 2011). Smaller details the movie added such as the Australian flag painted on the wall of their home base to act as protection for them was indeed also true. The murders themselves, were eye opening. They were accurate to almost every detail, including how they were murdered. The reporters were shot and stabbed in a rash and violent bloodbath (SMH, 2004). This end scene also shows an Indonesian coroner ordering the attack. This is said to have been Dading Kalbuadi, a government official (The Australian, 2012). "In truth, he was not at Balibo during the killing of the journalists; he was in his tactical headquarters approximately 10km away. He flew in by helicopter immediately after Balibo had been captured." Says Clinton Fernandes, of the University of NSW.