Vale Jill Jolliffe

DEATH OF JILL JOLLIFFE

A LIFE DEDICATED TO EAST TIMOR SOLIDARITY

(from AETFA SA UPDATE – DECEMBER 2022; Australia East Timor Friendship Association South Australia Inc )

It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Australian journalist who devoted much of her life to solidarity with East Timor. Jill reported on the early incursions into East Timor by the Indonesian military (TNI) and rhe murder of the Balibo 5.

In 1978, she wrote the book East Timor: Nationalism & Colonialism which at a time when there was little up-to-date information published on East Timor provided a very important in-depth background to the history of Portuguese colonialism, background to the developing nationalism, the formation of the FRETILIN interim government, the brief civil war and the early days of the struggle against the TNI.

Jill went on to write books and articles about East Timor in both English and Portuguese and spent 21 years working in Portugal.

Probably, her most famous book was Cover-Up – the inside story of the Balibo Five published in 2001 which was the film Balibo in which Anthony LaPaglia played the leading role of Roger East.

Another book she wrote was Finding Santana which is the story of how she took a very dangerous journey to occupied East Timor to meet Nino Konis Santana who was at the time leader of FALINTIL resistance army. Santana had replaced Ma’Huno in April 1993 after he was captured. (Ma’Huno had become leader after Xanana had been captured in November 1992.)

Finding Santana is an exciting read and there is an Adelaide connection. It was published by Wakefield Press in 2010 and AETFA SA was involved in the organisation of the book launch which was held at Norwood in 2010. A number of us have autographed copies. Jill also commenced her autobiography as a PhD thesis at Flinders University.

Sadly, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2016 .

Below iis a tribute to her from the Timor0Leste Government and anotherfrom Pat Walsh