East Timor WI: Roger East

Cook

Banned
It would certainly have been doable; get up into the hills and send reports via HF radio. But newspaper reports without photos don't really carry much clout; the old saying about a picture being worth a thousand words is the golden rule of journalism. Minus photos and no-one's really going to care.

As to what difference it would make -very little; Australia was the only nation with both an interest in East Timor and any capacity to affect events, and Australia was in the final days of an election campaign, with a caretaker government that would not have legitimacy until after the election - so the Indonesians could be confident of no serious diplomatic consequences until after the election.
 
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