Australian police yesterday announced a long-awaited war crimes investigation into the deaths of the “Balibo Five” journalists killed by Indonesian troops in 1975.
The surprise move comes nearly two years after a coroner’s investigation ruled the five Australia-based men were murdered in an East Timor border town as they tried to surrender to invading Indonesian forces.
The coroner called for war crimes charges against a number of generals, including one who rose to become Indonesia’s information minister in the late 1990s.
“Allegations of war crimes committed overseas give rise to complex legal and factual issues that require careful consideration by law enforcement agencies before deciding to investigate,” Australian Federal Police said in a statement.
The inquiry also follows the recent release of a hard-hitting movie, Balibo, depicting the deaths of Australians Greg Shackleton and Tony Stewart, Britons Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie and New Zealander Gary Cunningham.
Jakarta has maintained the reporters died in crossfire as Indonesian troops fought East Timorese Fretilin rebels, a version of events accepted by successive Australian governments.
If enough evidence was found to show “criminality or a real possibility of criminality,” police will ask Australia’s chief prosecutor to consider whether war crimes charges should be laid.
“The standard of proof in a criminal proceeding is high and differs from that of a coronial inquiry,” police said.
The journalists were covering Indonesia’s advance into East Timor, then a Portuguese colony, at the beginning of a 24-year occupation marked by serious human rights abuses.
Sydney coroner Dorelle Pinch found in 2007 that they were murdered to keep the invasion a secret.
Paul Stewart, whose brother Tony, 21, was the youngest of the Balibo Five, said the investigation was long overdue.
He also called for a probe into the estimated 183,000 East Timorese deaths during Indonesia’s occupation.
“I am pleased at the move,” he said. “While they’re investigating my brother’s death, maybe they’d also like to look into my Timorese mates, the death of all their family members as well.”
Sydney coroner Pinch found the five were captured and “shot and or stabbed deliberately by members of the Indonesian Special Forces, including Christoforus Da Silva and Captain Yunus Yosfiah.”
East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta, a rebel leader at the time who investigated the deaths, said in July that at least one of the five was “brutally, brutally tortured.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home