This was published 3 years ago
From the Archives, 1997: Australia 'had warning of Balibo attack'
Forty-five years ago five Australian journalists were killed in East Timor. Based on new revelations presented at an International Commission of Jurists' review, the Government was pressed to set up a full judicial inquiry into their deaths.
First published in the Sydney Morning Herald, 20 October, 1997.
The Australian Government knew 12 days in advance of the attack on Balibo village in which five Australian journalists died during the 1975 East Timor conflict, according to a former Canberra official who says he saw the intelligence material at the time.
Balibo victims ... Brian Cunningham, Malcolm Rennie, Greg Shackleton, Tony Stewart and Brian Peters.Credit:
The writer and activist Mr James Dunn, who was a research officer in the Parliamentary Library and member of a government advisory committee on East Timor in 1975, said the warning was contained in Australian and United States intelligence summaries circulated around the Government, including his committee.
"Australia knew 12 days before the assault on Balibo it was going to take place," he said. "There was no excuse for Australia not to take stronger action to advise journalists."
Mr Dunn's revelation came during a day-long review of the Balibo incident held on Saturday by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), a worldwide association of lawyers concerned with human rights, in response to last year's government inquiry into the deaths of journalists in East Timor by the former National Crime Authority chairman, Mr Tom Sherman.
Calling the Sherman report inadequate and already superseded by new information, the ICJ will now press the Government to set up a full judicial inquiry, with powers to compel witnesses and call for confidential documents.
The president of the ICJ's Australian Section, Justice John Dowd - a former leader of the NSW Liberal Party - said: "The misinformation, the withholding of information about this incident has been appalling."
Funeral of murdered journalists in Balibo, East Timor.
The ICJ will also explore the possibility of launching international war crimes indictments of the Indonesian officers known to have been in command of the Balibo attack, including the officer on the ground, Yunus Yosfiah, and his superiors Kalbuardi Dading and Benny Moerdani. All are now serving or retired generals.
Mr Sherman compiled his report from witnesses in Australia and Portugal over four months early last year, after new disclosures of information about Balibo by East Timorese refugees who were allegedly close to the events in 1975. He concluded that the five journalists - Gary Cunningham, Greg Shackleton and Tony Stewart of Channel 7 and Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie of Channel 9 - were killed by Indonesian troops and Timorese auxiliaries while fighting was still taking place at Balibo early on October 16, 1975.
But many alleged witnesses, including 12 former members of Indonesian-aligned groups represented by journalist Mr Bob Borsellino, refused to talk to Mr Sherman on the grounds that he was not independent enough of the Government.
"There was no trust," Mr Borsellino said yesterday.
These witnesses claim that Indonesian officers knew from their scouts and from monitored radio broadcasts that the journalists were in Balibo. The witnesses are also said to include people who saw the journalists deliberately killed, contradicting accounts that they died in crossfire or the confusion of battle.
Speakers at the seminar, held at the University of New South Wales Law School, said the Sherman inquiry was not given enough resources.