It was a story familiar to me - I wrote in 2003 howtroopers with our NZSAS had provided testimony to Australian military investigators considering charges against members of its own special forces unit, the Special Air Service Regiment.
The claim was that SASR members had attacked corpses after a 1999 clash with militia that left two of their number injured.
Our soldiers were willing to testify in a prosecution but the NZ Defence Force wanted their identities to be protected. Name suppression wasn't enough - they wanted their operational code names to forever disguise who they were.
Australia wouldn't go for it and the NZDF refused to allow our people to testify.
Now, 23 years after the alleged incident, Four Corners has brought extensive detail to what our soldiers witnessed and raised the possibility that a murder was committed by those Australian troops.
It's a chilling accusation when considered alongside the Australian war crimes investigation that, in November 2020, reported that same unit had murdered 39 Afghan civilians. These were killings that took place outside the heat of battle. In some cases, people were murdered simply to "blood" new arrivals.
It is deeply disturbing, ghastly, behaviour. It's hard not to think of it when watching ABC Four Corners' reporting into events in East Timor and the reaction it inspired in our Kiwi special forces.
NZ Army's Bravo Company arrived in Suai, East Timor, in 2000 for a six-month deployment. Photo / NZDF
So much for the Anzac brotherhood. If it's nurture not nature that's the key to raising an infant, something seriously wrong took place in the SASR that we should be thankful was not replicated over here.
For Australian and New Zealand militaries, East Timor was the first large-scale serious deployment since Vietnam.
That's not to devalue contributions made by service personnel who served in Bosnia, and other parts of the world. Those deployments saw hundreds make the journey.
Timor was different. Between 1999 and 2002, more than 5000 military personnel served in Timor. There were 1100 New Zealanders in Timor by October 1999 - the second-largest contingent - making it the largest offshore deployment since the Korean War.
It was equally significant for Australia which found itself leading a multi-national force under United Nations' mandate with the objective of shielding a persecuted population from the brutal might of Indonesia until it became the nation state of East Timor.
So that's the context - two militaries with little operational experience over the past three decades thrust into a volatile situation with little external oversight.
Former East Timor President Dr Jose Ramos-Horta, seen here inspecting a guard of honour in Wellington, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 for working to find "a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor". Photo / Mark Mitchell
How did it come to be that the SASR was accused of such heinous wrongdoing and it was our NZSAS that was willing to stand up and call it out?
We don't know enough about how the war in Afghanistan was fought to be definitive but it seems safe to say our military marches to the beat of a different drum. There is something about the culture inside those militaries.
It could be the roots lie in the transformation in 1994 of NZ Army from a conventional Western military to the iwi, Ngāti Tumatauenga, "'The Tribe of the God of War". It wasn't simply the adoption of the name but the incorporation of Te Ao Māori.
It meant a soldier's pathway into the iwi was one of developing whakapapa. They had to look back and understand how that iwi came to be formed, its tupuna and its defeats and victories. It created an organisation that sought to draw an understanding from New Zealand's indigenous roots as much as its colonial past.
NZ Troops arrive at Dili Airport in East Timor in 2008. NZDF supported peacekeeping missions through to 2012. Photo / File
It meant that in 1997 when New Zealand sent unarmed peacekeepers to Bougainville in a prequel to the UN mission, the commander Brigadier Roger Mortlock said: "The Māori Concert Group and a good shipment of guitars are going to be the main weapons in our arsenal." It was a hokey statement, but there was truth in it.
On deployment then and since, you can see it in those New Zealand soldiers who look kanohi ki te kanohi - eye-to-eye - with the local population. They see with the eyes of the invaders and the invaded and walk in both worlds. When they meet locals, they see people. They see their dreams, their hopes, their children-yet-to-born and the ancestors who have gone before.
There is a reason one of the most common mental health injuries suffered by NZDF personnel is that of a moral injury. When you see locals as people, and cannot alleviate their suffering, it is damaging.
It is important to be wary of nationalistic exceptionalism. Neither our troops or their commanders are perfect. NZDF has made its own errors, in its own ways, over the years.
But whatever happened in Timor, it struck a different chord with our NZSAS than it did with the Australian SASR.
There was always an interesting question about our deployment to Afghanistan. Why didn't we hook up with our Anzac brothers? Why did we go solo, hitching rides with any other military that would offer us one?
Former members of the NZSAS have suggested to the Herald it would have been uncomfortable to do so. The taint of Timor hung over relations for years. They blamed us for failing to have their backs.
In truth, lying to cover up war crimes is the antithesis of the Anzac spirit. Somehow we knew that and they didn't.
• David Fisher was interviewed for the Four Corners investigation. The full documentary can be seen here.
