INDONESIA:A top Indonesian military commander opened fire on a group of five foreign journalists, killing them in cold blood, a coroner's court in Australia has heard.
The men, who worked for two Australian TV stations, were targeted for execution despite trying to surrender in the town of Balibo in East Timor on October 16th, 1975, it has been claimed.
Capt Mohammed Yunus Yosafiah, who later became a cabinet minister in Jakarta, was the leader of a group of 20 soldiers who took part in the alleged massacre, according to a witness.
The evidence emerged on the second day of an inquiry into the deaths of cameraman Brian Peters and fellow British journalist Malcolm Rennie, who were working for the Sydney-based Nine Network. Australians Greg Shackleton and Tony Stewart and New Zealander Gary Cunningham, who were working for a Melbourne-based TV station, were also killed.
The Indonesian government has always claimed the men were killed in crossfire as troops advanced towards Balibo more than 30 years ago, but the men's families believe they were murdered. They say the motive for the massacre was to stop footage of the government's actions in East Timor being revealed to the outside world.
Giving evidence in an inquest at Glebe coroner's court in New South Wales, the witness, who was not identified for fear of retaliation, said he saw some of the men with their arms raised before shots were fired. He identified Mr Yosafiah as the protagonist and said other soldiers then began shooting. "I saw them shoot . . . They fired towards the white people," he said. The attack, he added, was unprovoked. - (Guardian service)