{"id":220,"date":"2017-11-27T16:41:28","date_gmt":"2017-11-27T06:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/?page_id=220"},"modified":"2017-11-28T10:28:57","modified_gmt":"2017-11-28T00:28:57","slug":"balibo-east-timor-why-i-didnt-go","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/national-film-and-sound-archive\/balibo-east-timor-why-i-didnt-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Balibo (East Timor)-Why I didn’t go!"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is part of an interview Series for the National Film and Sound Archive Aural History Programme by John Fife<\/strong><\/p>\n

My name is John Fife (JF<\/strong>) and I have with me Morrie Pilens (MP<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 You mentioned an interesting thing earlier \u2013 you touched on the word \u2018team\u2019.\u00a0 The cameraman and the journalist, they have to be a team.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 They have to mentally be a team.\u00a0 Because somehow I feel that most of the journalists have quite an inferiority complex.\u00a0 And they wanted to be better than thou.\u00a0 \u2018I am in charge, I am the one who\u2019s writing the story.\u00a0 It\u2019s my name in the story and you don\u2019t matter.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0 Knowing very well that without you they wouldn\u2019t have a bloody story.<\/p>\n

It was a sort of balance that had to be kept.\u00a0 If you got on with the journalist alright, it was good.\u00a0 If you didn\u2019t get on with the journalist alright you still did your report.\u00a0 But it was better if you had some communication.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Because as a crew you find yourself\u2026.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 In all kinds of situations, yes.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 You\u2019re away overnight \u2013 you\u2019re away for days sometimes.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 I know I\u2019m jumping bandwagon but \u2013 You know why we didn\u2019t go to Timor?<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 No<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Because Morrie wanted $100 000 insurance with a guaranteed piece of paper on the table, and $5000 slush money.<\/p>\n

JF: Yeah?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 And \u2018Oh, come on, you\u2019re only going to be there overnight \u2013whaddya want that for?\u2019<\/p>\n

And I said \u2018So when I go in with a group, I pay them to get me out of there.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Yeah, but you\u2019ve been in this situation before \u2013 you\u2019ve been in war zones.\u2019<\/p>\n

I said \u2018Yeah, that\u2019s why I want the insurance.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want a promise\u2026\u2019\u00a0 and this wasn\u2019t a news editor that was talking to me, because the news editor at that stage was Ian Cook.\u00a0 Cookie felt a little bit embarrassed with me, because by that time he knew that he can\u2019t get rid of me and he realised that I was an asset, not a hindrance.<\/p>\n

And one of the journalists was negotiating and he was like \u2018Hey, Morrie, you\u2019re going to Timor.\u2019<\/p>\n

And I said \u2018Oh, yeah.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Yeah, you\u2019ve been in war zones before.\u00a0 What do you want $5000 for?\u2019<\/p>\n

So \u00a0I said \u201cSo that I can pay somebody to get me out, if I get into trouble.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Oh, come on! You\u2019re only going to be there couple of days.\u2019<\/p>\n

Anyway, they went up to Ron Jury\u00a0 and of course Ron Jury says \u2018Sorry, we haven\u2019t got any money.\u2019<\/p>\n

*I think they offered it to Terry Carlisle \u2013 I don\u2019t know if they did or not but I have a suspicion that they did.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Ron Jury was the company secretary.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Yes, he was the money man.\u00a0 He was the one that I go and ask to buy new equipment and he would say \u2018Morrie, noooo\u2019 (laughter).<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 So that\u2019s why we didn\u2019t finish up with the rest of the poor bastards up at Balibo.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 And what was the atmosphere like when the news came through?<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Nothing.\u00a0 Nothing even mentioned<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 But those guys had died.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 \u2018Oh, bad luck\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

We knew why they\u2019d died.\u00a0 We knew it was the stupidity of one man.\u00a0 But, you know.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Tell me that story.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 I can\u2019t tell you that bloody story.\u00a0 I\u2019ll get sued.<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Okay.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Shackleton (Greg).\u00a0 Glory loving Shackleton.\u00a0\u00a0 If it wasn\u2019t for bloody Shackleton, they\u2019d have been out.\u00a0 They were going to come out with the Portuguese crew, according to the Portuguese, and Shackleton was putting on a big act and what have you.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s only heresay, from what I\u2019ve heard, so.\u00a0 That\u2019s Balibo.\u00a0 The rest of the guys were just regular guys, you know.\u00a0 Cunningham (Gary)was terrific, so were the others.\u00a0 They were just kids.\u00a0 They just do as they\u2019re told.\u00a0 (Brian Peters, Malcolm Rennie, Greg Shackleton, Gary Cunningham, Tony Stewart).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Kids in a war zone.<\/p>\n

MP:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 \u2018Oh, big deal, we\u2019ll put a flag on the wall and all of a sudden it\u2019s a protected national, you know.\u2019\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t work that way!\u00a0 A cameraman\u2019s the first one to be aimed for in a war zone.\u00a0 The life span of a cameraman in Germany was about 18 months.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

JF:\u00a0 Mm.\u00a0 So back here, when those guys were killed, a bit of a chill went through newsrooms?<\/p>\n

*MP:\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 Of course John Mullen (?) was upset because he\u2019d already lost a crew in a helicopter crash.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is part of an interview Series for the National Film and Sound Archive Aural History Programme by John Fife My name is John Fife (JF) and I have with me Morrie Pilens (MP). JF:\u00a0 You mentioned an interesting thing earlier \u2013 you touched on the word \u2018team\u2019.\u00a0 The cameraman and the journalist, they have … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Balibo (East Timor)-Why I didn’t go!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":167,"menu_order":10,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-220","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":318,"href":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/220\/revisions\/318"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pilens.com.au\/modris\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}