(PINA/IFEX) – On 16 October 1999, Radio Australia reported that an East Timorese man told Australian peacekeeping forces he witnessed the killing of five Australian-based journalists in 1975. Radio Australia said he told Australian troops now in East Timor that the reporters were killed by Indonesian soldiers during their invasion of the former Portuguese territory. […]
(PINA/IFEX) – On 16 October 1999, Radio Australia reported that an East
Timorese man told Australian peacekeeping forces he witnessed the killing of
five Australian-based journalists in 1975. Radio Australia said he told
Australian troops now in East Timor that the reporters were killed by
Indonesian soldiers during their invasion of the former Portuguese
territory. The East Timorese man says he was a Fretelin fighter against the
invading Indonesians in the border area town of Balibo on the day the
journalists disappeared.
**Updates IFEX alerts of 24 June, 21 June and 28 May 1999**
Australian company commander Major David Rose told Radio Australia the man
claims to have seen the Indonesian soldiers enter the house the men were in.
“He (the former Fretelin fighter) said he was in a position to the east of
the house the Australian journalists and other journalists were in and that
he saw Indonesian soldiers enter the house,” Major Rose said. “He believes
that they were shot by the Indonesians and he did provide a name that I am
not at liberty to give at the moment.” The Australians say the man is
fearful of making public statements at the moment because he has relatives
in Indonesian West Timor.
Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer was quoted by Radio
Australia as saying he is not in a hurry to investigate the claims. Downer
says a third inquiry into the deaths of the journalists is not likely at the
moment because investigating more recent deaths is the current priority.
Radio Australia quoted him as saying: “Something like 200,000 people have
been killed in East Timor since 1975 and there’s a international
investigation set up by the United Nations into the recent killings in East
Timor and obviously that is where the priority is at the moment.”
Background Information
Indonesia’s Information Minister, Yunus Yosfiah, has admitted that he led
1975 Indonesian troops in the area in which the five Australia-based
journalists were killed but he said that at the time he knew and heard
nothing of the killing of the journalists. A total of six international
media workers were killed during Indonesia’s 1975 invasion of the former
Portuguese colony. Organisations such as the International Federation of
Journalists (IFJ) and Australian colleagues have called for further
investigations into continuing allegations they were deliberately killed by
Indonesian forces or forces under Indonesian control (see IFEX alerts).
