BALIBO, Timor-Leste (SBS/Australian Associated Press/Pacific Media Watch): Balibo has a grim past, but the five Australia-based newsmen who died there are remembered every day as the western Timor-Leste township near the boder with Indonesian moves ahead.
In Balibo today, pre-schoolers are romping around in green and gold "Balibo 5" uniforms, a football team is training in orange - the colour on the Australia Flag House - and teens paint handprints on their T-shirts.
Balibo is forever linked with the Five, and the community has proudly taken their spirits in.
It was 40 years ago today that journalists Greg Shackleton, Malcolm Rennie, cameramen Brian Peters and Gary Cunningham (a New Zealander), and sound recordist Tony Stewart were killed in the Timor-Leste township where they were reporting on the Indonesian invasion in 1975.
Community leader Fernando de Carvalho, 71, had left Balibo weeks before.
But he says his relatives saw the killings, and gave evidence that they were deliberate.
"Me and my family feel very upset, very sad," he said.
"They were not army, they were civilians. They just came to cover the story and they were killed for it."
The flag house
Rino Fernandez, 33, was born not far from the house where Shackleton painted the Australian flag.
Growing up, he didn't know its history - but it means so much to him now.
He volunteers for the Balibo House Trust, which has preserved "Australia Flag House" as a centre dedicated to the men, and supports a growing list of community projects.
"We didn't know it would become important for our future," Rino says.
"This is our place, this is our heart, this is our home.
"Why would people come from abroad, from other countries ... to volunteer, well what about us? We as Timorese, why don't we help develop our country. If not now, when? If not us, who else?"
One room of the flag house is used to train locals in computer basics, and they hope to add a much-needed dental clinic. There are only five dentists in East Timor.
The kindergarten was refurbished in 2012, in conjunction with Rotary clubs, and this year a stylish four-star hotel was added to the Portuguese fort, opening the area to tourism. So far, 20 locals are receiving training in hospitality.
John Milkins, Cunningham's son, says for him, the trust's work is "the light in the darkness".
"It's still a very emotional journey standing in that village and in that square between those two houses and realising this is where your father died," he said.
"It is a link that will never be broken and one that we will never break, can never break; the only thing we can try and do is strengthen it."
Quest for Balibo truth spans 40 years
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