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.”
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
In front of a secluded temple in southwestern China, Duan Ruru skillfully executes a series of chops and strikes, practicing kung fu techniques she has spent a decade mastering. Chinese martial arts have long been considered a male-dominated sphere, but a cohort of Generation Z women like Duan is challenging that assumption and generating publicity for their particular school of kung fu. “Since I was little, I’ve had a love for martial arts... I thought that girls learning martial arts was super swaggy,” Duan, 23, said. The ancient Emei school where she trains in the mountains of China’s Sichuan Province
RSS