Monday, February 20, 2017

ACTION PACKED LIFE OF JOURNALIST HITS WALL

The  longtime activist , journalist and author, Jill Jolliffe , shown here  in  1969 in the  Melbourne magazine , Broadside , edited by Pete  Steedman ,  has  been   enfeebled . Apparently the tragic development   took  place  about  a  year ago in  Melbourne , news of the situation only received here  in recent  weeks. This  courageous  woman  relentlessly   covered  the  US approved  Indonesian invasion of   East Timor and its aftermath   ,  wrote  Cover Up :The Inside Story of the  Balibo Five , the  Australian news team murdered by the Indonesians ,  from     which  the  movie  Balibo, starring  Australian actor  Anthony LaPaglia in  the  part  of  veteran   journalist    Roger  East,  who had worked  in  Darwin  and  was shot and  thrown  into  the  harbour  at  the  East Timor  capital,  Dili .

As a  result of  her  tireless campaigning , the Yale University  magazine  Globalist  named  her  the 2006  Journalist of  the  Year  for  her extensive writing on  important  matters .
 

In her 2008  memoir , Run For Your Life , Jill revealed her  birth mother had adopted  her  out , she  had been  brought up in  a  violent  household  and  ran away as a teenager , going to Monash University  and  becoming involved with activists . She lobbed in  East Timor  in  April   1975  as a Reuter's freelance  correspondent with  a  student  delegation  ,  evacuated  on  the last  flight out  of  Dili  in  December ,  Roger  East  refusing   to   leave . 
 
From 1978 to 1999 she was based in Portugal where she  interviewed refugees  from  East Timor , covered   the war  in the former   Portuguese  colony of  Angola   and  reported on  matters  in  other colonies . Documentaries she  was   involved in   included   European  prostitution  rackets  which enslaved Portuguese , Spanish and  Third World women  , the East Timor  guerrilla   war  which involved  a highly  dangerous journey  inside  the occupied country seeking the Revolutionary  Front  commander Nino  Konis  Santana  , the subject of  a  book  she wrote  ,  and  a   Foreign Correspondent    special   with  Jonathan Holmes   about  the  Balibo  Five.   When  East Timor  achieved  its   freedom ,  Jill  ,who had been banned from entering the country  by  the Indonesians , came to  Darwin and  resided  , went  to East Timor where she launched the Living Memory Project , a video  archive  of  testimony by  East Timor   former  political prisoners . In 2010,  she was   a  Northern Territory  finalist   for   the   Australian  of   the  Year  Award .   
 
While in Darwin , Jolliffe   came to this  writer's residence and  discussed a  wide  range of  subjects  and  people , including   Roger East  and   prominent    Darwin  reporter  John  Loizou   who   started   the  online  South East Asian Times ,  still  running  . Now  this  relentless  fighter   is  suffering   from  loss  of  memory .