I first met John Martinkus in 1997, and he would sometimes stay at our Australians For a Free East Timor activist house in Darwin on the way to and from Timor-Leste. I also liaised with him via my work with the East Timor International Support Centre and met him many times over the years. I counted him as a friend and am devastated by his sudden death at much too young an age.
In preparation for the successful nomination of John for an Order Of Timor in 2024, I was asked by Jose Antonio Belo and Sebasti茫o Guterres to write a short record of John鈥檚 journalistic efforts for Timor so I spoke with John and wrote down much of the following.
John Martinkus, born in Australia in 1969 of Lithuanian parents, was studying at the University of Melbourne when the Santa Cruz massacre occurred on November 12, 1991. He travelled to Darwin in March 1992 and tried to join the Miss茫o Paz em Timor on the Lusitanio Expresso, but his media accreditation with a Melbourne community radio station was not deemed sufficient.
John made his own way to East Timor with his girlfriend Jenny in November 12, 1994. They stayed at the Hotel Dili (scarily visited by Indonesian intelligence) and also travelled to Bacau. From talking to Timorese he wrote an article about the situation, published in 麻豆传媒 Weekly.
After moving to Sydney, Harold Moucho and Keiran Dwyer set John up with contacts inside Timor. He went back in mid-1995 with a friend, journalist Dan Pederson, who worked with News Limited. They were waiting for guerrillas to get in touch with them but Intel was onto them so they travelled to Baucau and Los Palos and got stories from local people. Their consequent article was published in the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) and The Age in Melbourne. A longer piece was published in .
Back in Sydney, John consciously didn鈥檛 do activist activities as he wanted to stay under the radar. To survive he worked as a telemarketer and sold timeshare.
He returned to Timor in 1996 and 1997, staying at the very supportive 鈥檚 Vila Harmonia in Becora. In January 1997 John got picked up by a ute (he had to lie in the back under a tarp) and dropped off in a village near Baucau where he first met Jose Antonio Belo. They walked at night through the bush, silently, careful not to step on any twigs, before they arrived at Falintil commander David Alex鈥檚 camp.
John recalled that at one stage the Indonesian military were so close he had to stay in a hole, totally silent, with a dozen guys covered by a tarp. He was there a week and they wouldn鈥檛 let him smoke! He was greatly impressed by David Alex.
After his return to Australia in early February John鈥檚 article about that meeting was published in the SMH, The Age, Canberra Times and The West Australian, as well as 麻豆传媒 Weekly.
John returned to Dili in June 1997, but clandestine contact Eduardo Belo advised him to leave because the Indonesian military had captured David Alex and were searching for his collaborators. He went to Kupang by ship, typing his story about David Alex鈥檚 capture and death, quietly so he wouldn鈥檛 be heard.
He faxed it from Kupang under the pseudonym Ivan Smith. The West Australian foolishly published the article under his own name and after John arrived in Jakarta and he was followed and bashed by 鈥渢hugs鈥. His brother was working there at the time and gave him money to fly home to Melbourne.
After Indonesian president Suharto fell in May 1998, activist Andrew McNaughtan rang him to urge him to come back. John returned to East Timor in August 1998 and virtually stayed until he was forced to leave on September 10, 1999.
During that extended stay, he covered the student dialogues and protests, interviewed Manuel Carrascal茫o about his declaration of support for independence and was the only journalist to travel to Alas to investigate the killings in November 1998.
John covered the militia build-up and attacks. He remembered that one afternoon, in December 1998, when five Timorese were shot and killed in Becora, two of them were shot 5 metres in front of him. He was shaking like a leaf, but wrote the story and sent it through and was devastated when the SMH said it was too late for their deadline.
After Indonesian President BJ Habibie announced a 鈥渃onsultation鈥 with East Timor in January 1999, John, who had started to make a little money, could afford to stay at the more expensive than Vila Harmonia, but better situated Hotel Turismo.
New journalists began flocking into the country after the United Nations arrived in May 1999. When Lindsay Murdoch turned up, he told John he was not going to be working for the SMH anymore.
ABC took some of his work, then sent Jeff Thompson and asked Martinkus to train him. John generously shared his knowledge and many contacts with all the new journalists.
Covering the UN voter registration and referendum, John reported to some of the aforementioned newspapers, plus the New Zealand Herald Tribune and the Australian Associated Press (AAP) as well as doing occasional radio reports for ABC Australia and Deutsche Welle in Germany.
His front-page article in the New York Times on September 9, 1999, coincided with US President Clinton agreeing to lean on the Indonesian government to allow peacekeepers to go to Timor.
After being forced to leave the United Nations compound and Timor on September 10, 1999 John returned with the Australian-led peacekeeping forces Interfet, on the first plane back on September 20.
He and Andrew McNaughtan went to see the devastation in Suai before the soldiers even made it there. He stayed till March 2000. He moved to Darwin and, staying with activists Vaughan Williams and Cindy Watson, wrote his 鈥渆yewitness account of East Timor鈥檚 descent into hell鈥, the influential and well-received book A Dirty Little War, published by Random House Australia in 2001.
John returned to Timor regularly, writing about all the significant events including the 2006 East-West crisis there and the killing in 2008 of Alfredo Reinado.
Most recently, John covered the Pope鈥檚 visit to Timor-Leste in 2024 for The Saturday Paper. Eduardo Belo and Jose Antonio Belo tell me that John鈥檚 next project was to write a biography of David Alex, but sadly John unexpectedly died on September 14.
Sebasti茫o Guterres, who worked closely with John from 1998, told me last year that the East Timor Students Solidarity Council and all Timorese could have never wished for better friends in journalism (alongside other committed journalists) for their bravery, courage and humanism and for their support of a free and liberated Timor-Leste.
Vale John Martinkus. What a loss.
[Jude Conway is a long-term East Timor activist.]
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