East Timor: Balibo
In October 1975, five journalists (including the Englishman Brian Peters) went to the border town of Balibo in East Timor to cover the impending Indonesian invasion of the fledgling country. All five were killed in the international tragedy that ensued. More than 20 years later, in 1998, when Maureen Tolfree walked into a Bristol police station, she had a simple demand: ‘I need to know how my brother, Brian Peters, died in Balibo in East Timor in 1975,’ she said. That was not the usual sort of query handled by local police. The desk sergeant shrugged, said the British Foreign Office controlled that sort of information, and politely showed Maureen the door.