John Martinkus was a master of courageous, no-bullshit journalism. He shot from the hip
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Version 0 of 1. He was a character straight out of a 1930s-set Coen brothers film. The big overcoat, pork pie hat, the low growl Is truth in war really that unclear? I went to Vietnam last year and saw statues of Ho Chi Minh out the front of a Maserati showroom. I saw little Chinese influence. There was no domino effect. I also visited Timor-Leste, a country that finally is independent. It lost nearly one-third of its population and, yes, there were internal divides, but it is united in independence and no one doubts that the militias there were funded by Indonesian special forces. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the lies about them have led to wild schisms in the Sunni-Shia faultline that will play out for years. And for the West Papuan youth, their war is not ending – it is just beginning. These were the truths that John Martinkus, among other independent journalists of his ilk, pursued with a passion. He died on 14 September. John was a handsome foreign correspondent. He was strongly connected to international affairs. He was a curmudgeon. His fellow correspondent Mark Davis said: “His patch was East Timor, and he did it when no one was interested and no one could get in. He broke the first stories of the forming pro-Jakarta militias, well before the referendum. The same with West Papua – he got into West Papua.” John wrote straight, he described what he witnessed, what locals he’d befriended told him. He wrote about what we don’t get to see, what governments don’t want you to know or, if we’re letting them off the hook, can’t be honest about because of sensitive diplomacy. He was a master of courageous, no-bullshit journalism. And when the Alexander Downers of the world undermined his credibility – as was the case when he and his translator Hussein were kidnapped by insurgents in October 2004, not long after three other journalists were killed – John became combative. He exposed the lie that Iraq was on the road to reconstruction. He said it was on “the road to shit”. He shot from the hip. On national television. I always though John was somewhat from another time, oblivious to what was going on around him. He was a character straight out of a 1930s-set Coen brothers film. The big overcoat, pork pie hat, the low growl from years of chain smoking, the constant jaw grinding. He was always an outsider, pushed out into the darker regions, and carried with him an understandable PTSD. He was there when those students he’d befriended in Dili were tortured and murdered. Hundreds of them. He was affected. He was emotional. Over his last years there was no doubt he was embittered. The demons never left him. He felt that no one was listening. Last year he travelled to Dili with his daughter Lilya. President José Ramos-Horta bestowed on him a medal “for his contribution to the benefit of the country, the Timorese and humanity.” Mark travelled with him: “It was incredible to see the groundswell of love for John … he’s a big deal in East Timor, as he deserves to be … Not too many guys can say, ‘I helped create a nation’ – and John certainly did.” After his death Lilya posted how proud she was of her “war hero” dad. John had said: “The award is not for me, it is for the students who fought proudly and defiantly for independence from the Indonesians, the translators who helped me understand … “I owe the ordinary people who gave me the information to faithfully report … They were the heroes who risked and sometimes lost their lives to give me the information that I needed to report the truth.” He authored six books, among them A Dirty Little War, about East Timor’s fight for independence. He was a four-time Walkley award-nominated investigative reporter and in later years taught journalism at the University of Tasmania. A friend said John wouldn’t want to be eulogised, wouldn’t want it to be about him – but he would have loved it. Long-form investigative journalism is gone as a genre. The era of the foreign correspondent is all but over. There’s no budget, no yearning. The work of journalists who bang the drum in our region like Ben Bohane, Jo Chandler, Mark Worth and Tim Page hardly exist any more. Last Saturday we played a Not Drowning Waving show with Sir George Telek at the Melbourne Recital Centre in front of a thousand people. We dedicated the song Mr Suharto Man to John. Upon mentioning his name the love from the audience was palpable, the applause warm and loud. It was the sound of thanks and appreciation and recognition. He would have said in that low growly voice, after an exhale of cigarette smoke, “About bloody time.” David Bridie is an independent musician, producer and installation artist. Across four decades as a band member, solo artist and composer of film and TV soundtracks, he has released more than 30 albums. He is also the founder and artistic director of Wantok Musik Foundation |