'Beyond the pale': Official history of Australia's East Timor operations on ice amid censorship claims

A legacy project of former prime minister Tony Abbott - an exhaustive official history of Australia's military operations in East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq – is in danger of collapse amid claims that bureaucrats are trying to censor its first volume.

While it is routine for government departments to provide feedback on publications such as this, a senior figure with direct knowledge of the project said DFAT's objections were "beyond the pale".Multiple sources, including one who worked on the volume, said the government wanted major changes to the draft to water down revelations about the actions of Australian officials and the Indonesian military during the deployment in 1999 and 2000.

A DFAT spokesperson said the department had worked with the War Memorial on the project since 2016, providing access to its classified records and making its staff available for interview. Professor Stockings - who served in the International Force East Timor deployment in 1999-2000 as a junior officer - was appointed as official historian the following year, by which time Malcolm Turnbull was prime minister.

"So if they're being censored there's something fundamentally wrong with the way we as Australians relate to the truth and the past," he said. Researchers had access to highly-classified documents including transcripts of meetings with the Indonesians and East Timoreans. They interviewed Australian departmental staff and Indonesian generals, among others.

Get Abbott to propose one on the Catholic Church and systematic abuse of young children.

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