Timor Archives

Timor-Leste and all those connected with supporting Timor’s dramatic and tragic path from Portuguese colony to independent nation mourn the death of outstanding journalist and author, Jill Jolliffe. Since early 1975, Jill’s tenacity in researching and reporting on Timor’s travails, always underwritten by a fierce belief in justice for the East Timorese, is widely acknowledged and honoured.

Jill Jolliffe’s place in Timor’s history will live on in her writings and in the rich archives she left for access by present and future generations. We seek to remember Jill with this preliminary guide to the documentary and archival record of her work.

Jill Jolliffe began her Timor journey as a member of an Australian union and student delegation to Portuguese East Timor in March 1975. Representing the Australian Union of Students (AUS), her report on the week-long exposure tour reveals her instinctive empathy for the East Timorese.  That bond was strongly evident in all that followed.

Returning to Timor as soon as possible after the short 1975 civil war, Jill Jolliffe launched her long career as a journalist – admitting to this writer late in 1975 that she felt very much a novice but had learned much, especially from experienced journalist Michael Richardson in their weeks reporting from Timor before the invasion.

Jill then combined Timor political activism and journalism in Australia in 1976-78. After publishing her influential first major Timor book in 1978, Jill then moved to Portugal where she spent the next two decades in mainstream journalism as well as investigative research and publishing about Timor. Her Timor focus continued when she lived between Darwin and Timor-Leste after 1999 and a decade later, moved to Melbourne where in 2014 she published her last major work, the personal memoir Run for your life.

Her always productive working life was sadly truncated when she was diagnosed in 2016 with dementia and was moved into a residential care home. Jill’s struggle to accept this development, and the challenges it posed to supporting friends, is movingly illustrated in a 2018 ABC radio program.

Jill Jolliffe – a natural archivist

Since first meeting Jill in late 1975, this writer has known her as a person devoted to preserving documentary records. Her long-time friendship with the late Kevin Sherlock included contributing materials and buying books for his extraordinary Timor collection in Darwin. Thankfully for all of us, Jill assiduously kept and protected her own ever-growing materials accumulated over decades of research and writing.

It is this grand accumulation to which we now devote our attention and give our thanks to Jill Jolliffe.

[John Waddingham, 12 December 2022]

A. Major archive collections

Papers of Jill Jolliffe – National Library of Australia (NLA)

The bulk of Jill’s physical archive is now found at the NLA in Canberra. Jill began sending batches of her archives there in 2009; the largest consignment was arranged by her guardians in 2017.  See the Papers of Jill Jolliffe catalogue record for an overview of the collection. A list of the rich and bewildering scope of Jill’s archive collection in ~100 boxes of material can be seen in the NLA ‘finding aid’ – Guide to the Papers of Jill Jolliffe.

The East Timor Question – Microfiche Collection

During the 1990s Jill aimed to preserve and provide research access to key self-created and collected documents through the commercial production and distribution of microfiche photographic copies. The microfiche sets can be found in a number of libraries internationally (example: WorldCat list). A Portugal-based online database of Timor-Leste’s Resistance Archive and Museum includes a digitised copy of the Guide to The East Timor Question, 1975-1996.

B. Other minor collections

During the 1970s Jill’s early archival instincts saw her deposit small volumes of material at various institutions. They include:

Papers of Jill Jolliffe (NLA): Mainly non-Timor items but includes Fretilin pamphlets and the literacy handbook Rai Timur rai ita nia niang.

Jill Jolliffe Collection (NLA): Audio recordings. Interviews with Francisco Borja da Costa and Jose Martins; recordings of Alarico Fernandes & Xavier do Amaral.

Individual items in the NLA catalogue include: Proclamation of the RDTL Constitution, 1975 (audio); David Scott & Jill Jolliffe at ANU 1976 (audio); Max Stahl & Jill Jolliffe interview with Konis Santana (DVD); Biographical cuttings on Jill Jolliffe (book).

Jill Jolliffe Manuscript collection on East Timor (Library, Australian National University): 117 folders in 12 boxes. Contents description being sought by CHART.

East Timor Collection (Noel Butlin Archives Centre, Australian National University): Includes notes on Francisco Borja da Costa; AAP  newsagency post-civil-war reports filed by Jill Jolliffe and Rick Collins; Street poems and photographs of Coho-bere with notes by Jill Jolliffe.

Falintil soldiers and civilians – Photographs (State Library, Victoria): Includes a widely-used image of Nicolau Lobato in post-civil-war Timor, 1975.

C. In other archives collections

The work and life of Jill Jolliffe will certainly live on in surviving archives of individuals and institutions with whom she engaged. While we expect this section on Jill to expand over time, one significant example is the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) files held at the National Archives of Australia (NAA) in Canberra.

ASIO Files

The intel files on Jill open in early 1968 with her activism against the Vietnam war; the later files focus on her Timor activity and related interactions with other activists like Denis Freney. Three files are available online: Volume 1 1968-70; Volume 3 1972-75 & Volume 4 1975-77. Two other files have not yet been digitised – Volume 2 (1970-72) and intel photographs of Jolliffe (1968-75).

D. Jill Jolliffe publications

Jill Jolliffe’s very productive life as an investigative journalist and author began with her fledgling reporting from East Timor after the short 1975 civil war in Timor. Since then, her works have included books, newspaper and journal articles and audiovisual materials. Some examples are: List of published books (Source – NLA’s Trove database);  Newspaper articles by or about Jill Jolliffe (sample from Canberra Times 1975-1995); the influential Timor Newsletter published from Portugal, 1980-84; her audiovisual Living Memory Project.

E. Tributes to Jill Jolliffe

We will provide here, over time, links to various tributes to Jill since her death on 02 December 2022

Supporting Jill Jolliffe Facebook page has many individual tributes on the announcement of her death.

Jose Ramos-Horta (Tetum; YouTube video)

Timorese Resistance Archive & Museum. (AMRT)

‘TimTimFiles’ Image and text tribute (Indonesian; YouTube video)

More to come……

Since 2013, researcher and author Kim McGrath* has sought direct access to Australian government archives on 1970s Australia-Indonesia seabed boundary negotiations over the Timor Sea. While many files are now available for study, the National Archives refused access to a significant volume of material in some of those files. Australia’s Administrative Appeals Tribunal recently confirmed the National Archives’ decisions to refuse access to the redacted materials.

We explore here the nature of the files sought by McGrath, the reasons why access was refused to some material and why we feel the Tribunal process was unfair.

The National Archives of Australia (NAA) currently holds over 2,000 folders of Australian Government records about Timor-Leste for the years 1974-1999. (1)  The many thousands of individual documents in the folders are an irreplaceable research record of historical Australian government policy and actions on Timor. Some of the documents also provide some unique insights into Indonesian government policies, events on the ground in Timor itself, and the work of solidarity activists in Australia.

Roughly 1,000 folders are immediately available to researchers. Half of these folders are fully open to researchers but the other half have parts of them kept secret. (2)

Most of these folders can only be seen by visiting NAA in Canberra. About 15% of the folders can be viewed online.

To see the digitised folders, click on the ‘digital item’ icon in these two lists of ‘Timor’ items at NAA:
(i) Fully ‘Open’ folders
(ii) ‘Open with exception’ folders (partly-secret or redacted text).

Researchers can apply to Australia’s Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) for access to the secret/redacted texts. However, as Kim McGrath found in her appeal, the odds are stacked against success.

Timor Gap folders
Australian government records are fundamental to Kim McGrath’s doctoral-candidate research on Indonesia-Australia seabed boundary negotiations in the 1970s. These Australian records provide a deep insight into Australia’s and Indonesia’s past and present policies and actions on the Timor Gap.

See this list for an indication of the number and range of Timor seabed-related folders held by NAA.

While McGrath was able to access some folders with no significant restrictions, NAA decided that another 24 folders could only be accessed after extensive redactions. We have created a modified version of McGrath’s list of files she submitted to the AAT to challenge NAA’s redactions. The list includes McGrath’s summary of the important content of each folder and the details of NAA’s restricted-access decisions.

Only two of the 24 folders have been digitised and made available through NAA’s online database:
(i) January 1978 cabinet papers on Australia’s de facto recognition of the Indonesian takeover (partly redacted);
(ii) January 1979 Australia-Indonesia Timor Gap talks (heavily redacted).

A long road to the AAT decision
Between July 2013 and June 2014 Kim McGrath applied to NAA for access to the folders. NAA failed to make an access decision for most of the files within the mandatory 90-day period, effectively denying her access to the folders. McGrath then applied to the AAT in March and October 2014 for a review of NAA’s (non-)decisions.

The formal Tribunal hearing was not held until May 2018, almost five years after her first application to the AAT. In the interim, NAA completed its examination of the folders and had largely finalised its access decisions by September 2016.

McGrath then had to wait a further two years after the 2018 Tribunal hearing before the AAT judgement was delivered on 9 June 2020.

The Tribunal decision
The Tribunal endorsed NAA’s redactions of the folders. The Tribunal accepted NAA’s opinion that some material could not be seen because it “could reasonably be expected to cause damage” to Australia’s security or international relations. (3)

McGrath’s arguments included that some of the material could be released because the content was no longer sensitive or because similar material in other NAA folders had already been released.

NAA’s key witness was Greg French, a one-time legal expert within the Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade (DFAT) and now Australia’s Ambassador to Italy. French examined the 24 folders and concluded that release of the redacted material “could damage” Australia’s relations with Timor-Leste and “was very likely to damage” Australia’s relations with Indonesia.

French explained his reasons for this conclusion – but only in a closed session of the Tribunal hearing. Neither Kim McGrath nor her lawyers were permitted to hear French’s reasoning nor cross-examine him or other NAA witnesses in the closed session.

CHART Comment
The time taken for the AAT to consider Kim McGrath’s challenge to NAA’s access decisions is already a clear injustice. More generally, such a delay would discourage others from taking the same course of action to challenge NAA’s access decisions.

While the NAA has to defend itself at the AAT, it is clear that NAA actually depends on DFAT to decide in the first place what should be redacted from DFAT documents now in the National Archive. No surprise, then, that an expert witness who is himself a DFAT officer would affirm and support DFAT opinion given to NAA.

The lack of independence implied in such a witness testimony is bad enough. The inability of an applicant like Kim McGrath to challenge witness testimony given in a closed court adds to the unfairness of the whole process.

Relevance for Timor-Leste
The Australian national archives system has much to recommend it. But the access appeals procedures are far from perfect, as the Kim McGrath case demonstrates. Perhaps Timor-Leste can devise a system which shows a better way.

Timor-Leste has an ever-growing archival heritage. Some 1974-1999 materials are still held privately but increasing volumes are kept in at least four archival institutions. Other materials can be found outside Timor.

Missing from Timor-Leste’s archival world are formal laws to protect but also encourage access to that archival heritage. Various draft laws have existed since at least 2003 but none have made it into formal Law.

Hopefully Timor-Leste’s civil society will have a chance to contribute to the drafting of national laws on archives before they are legislated. And hopefully those laws will make clear what can and cannot be seen by Timor’s citizens, the reasons for any restrictions and a fair and efficient mechanism for challenging access decisions that seem questionable.

 

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NOTES

* Kim McGrath is a long-time researcher/analyst, consultant and advisor on governance, policy development and other matters to governments, private companies, universities and not-for-profits. Since 2009 she has researched the 1970s Australia-Indonesia seabed boundary negotiations, out of which arose her popular 2017 book, Crossing the Line: Australia’s Secret History in the Timor Sea. Her doctoral studies are entitled Alternative histories – Australia’s Timor Sea energy diplomacy in the 1960s and 1970s. She recently wrote in the Foreign Affairs journal on the 2004 ASIS spying scandal in Timor and its ongoing aftermath. See an edited extract in the 12 July 2020 Guardian newspaper.

Many thanks to Kim McGrath for sharing with CHART an account of her NAA/AAT experience and some associated documents.

(1)  Almost 2700 records can be found in NAA’s public online database using the simple search term “timor’ in the date range 1974-1999. A further search, excluding photographs and audio-visual formats, shows there are 2056 ‘paper file & document’ records.

(2) Of the 2056 folders, 519 are ‘Open’; 479 are ‘Open with exception’ (ie accessible but with secret pages removed and/or redacted text); 82 are ‘Closed’ (not available for access). Another 976 folders are classified as ‘Not yet examined’ (no researcher has yet asked for access).

(3) This is the most common reason for redactions in hundreds of Timor folders at NAA. Documents are exempt from access if they match any one of a range of conditions described in the Australia’s archives law.

Further information

Media items on the Tribunal decision: The Guardian.

Full text of the AAT Decision McGrath & National Archives of Australia.

CHART articles on Clinton Fernandes’ successful 2011 AAT appeal and his less successful 2014 AAT appeal.

We examine the same document in two separate folders at the National Archives of Australia (NAA). One copy has parts blacked-out, the other is not redacted. We ask: Were the specific redactions justifiable and what are the broader implications of this inconsistency at NAA?

A late-1976 four-page report, apparently from church-connected sources, offered a rare independent view on conditions inside Indonesian-military-occupied East Timor. The report, broadly confirming Fretilin-led resistance claims, gained  immediate attention from Australian media, NGOs and activists and was analysed for Australian parliamentarians by James Dunn.

The report also came to the attention of the Australian Government at the same time and was assessed by its Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade (DFAT) and the Joint Intelligence Organisation (JIO*). More than thirty years later, the relevant folders from DFAT and JIO were released for public access. The JIO copy of the report was significantly redacted before its release in 2011, but the DFAT copy was left completely uncensored (released 2012).

This inconsistency raises doubts on the reliability of NAA decisions on restricting public access to many Timor documents.

What was redacted?
The unredacted DFAT copy shows that the main JIO redactions obscured references to Timorese, Indonesian or international Church organisations. We can reasonably conclude that the redactions sought to either hide or protect  the unidentified author’s Church connections.

Was the redaction justified?
In terms of personal safety of the authors, there is no doubt that the redacted material was very sensitive in 1976; other comments in both folders stress this. We strongly doubt, however, that the information was still sensitive in 2011 when this redaction was applied – especially since no individual is immediately identifiable.

The access decision redacting the report in the JIO folder was specifically based on Section 33(1)(a) of the Archives Act. This provision restricts access to any material which “would damage Australia’s security, defence or international relations”. In a close reading of the reasons for redacting this report (click on graphic above), we cannot see any reasonable basis to invoke Section 33(1)(a) in the case of this document.

Our views are effectively confirmed by the access decision on the DFAT folder. Other material in the DFAT folder was redacted or excluded under Section 33(1)(a), but not this particular document. The DFAT folder also contains additional unredacted material about the original source of the document.

What are the implications?
At the very least we can conclude from this example that NAA restrictions** on access through redaction under Section 33(1)(a) are inconsistently applied. Of more concern is the implication from this particular example that redactions in other NAA documents about Timor may be similarly unjustifiable.

A researcher can wait for up to two years*** for a Timor folder to be examined before being released. As Australian researcher Clinton Fernandes has found, challenging NAA redactions after the initial release of documents can be an onerous process. This is particularly so for materials from intelligence agencies like JIO. It is reasonable, then, for researchers to expect the access decision-making processes to be robust.

Regrettably, this present example certainly throws doubt on the reliability or legitimacy of restrictions on access to some materials at NAA.

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NOTES:
*JIO was the name of the Australian military’s intelligence arm, now called the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO).
** It is very likely in both cases that the access decisions taken were recommended to NAA by the relevant agencies (ie DIO and DFAT). Nonetheless, it is NAA which takes formal responsibility for the decisions.
*** A CHART analysis of wait-times for NAA access decisions is in preparation.