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The long-awaited official history of the peacekeeping mission has been called a work of ‘national significance’, yet little fanfare surrounds its release.
The federal government has been accused of trying to hide the publication of the long-awaited official history of Australia’s East Timor peacekeeping mission, the first volume of which was quietly released in early December.
Written by the Australian War Memorial’s official historian Craig Stockings, Born of Fire and Ash is the product of six years of rigorous research into Australia’s response to the East Timor crisis, when Indonesian forces committed rampant human rights atrocities against the East Timorese on the eve of their UN-sponsored referendum on independence.
The book draws on classified government documents and more than 2500 interviews with veterans and government officials spanning defence, intelligence and foreign affairs, exposing the political calculations grounding the Howard government’s response to the crisis.
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