Agence France Presse: 26 April 2000
EAST TIMOR: WIDOW DEMANDS MURDER CHARGE AGAINST FORMER INDON MINISTER
The widow of one of five Australian journalists killed in East Timor 25 years ago has called for charges to be laid against a former Indonesian minister blamed for the deaths.
SYDNEY, April 26 (AFP) - The widow of one of five Australian journalists
killed in East Timor 25 years ago called Wednesday for charges to be laid
against a former Indonesian minister blamed for the deaths.
Shirley Shackleton, whose husband, television reporter Greg Shackleton was
shot in the East Timor border town of Balibo in 1975, said new evidence
showed former Indonesian information minister Yunus Yosfiah had opened fire
at the group.
Yunus, who has previously been named as the officer who led the unit
involved
in the shootings which occurred before the invasion of East Timor by
Indonesian troops, has denied any involvement.
Indonesia has previously claimed that the journalists were caught in the
crossfire between rival East Timorese factions.
However, SBS television is to screen a documentary here on Wednesday which
it
says will show the men were not killed in a crossfire.
Shackleton wrote Wednesday to Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer
detailing the new evidence and urging the government to press Indonesia to
inititiate criminal proceedings.
"If legal proceedings are diplomatically difficult then I ask that the
government announce a full judicial inquiry into the deaths of those brave
newsmen," she wrote.
"I ask that your government immediately request the Indonesian government to
commence criminal proceedings against Mr Yunus Yosfiah."
In the program, an eyewitness to the killings, Tomas Goncalves, a former
pro-Indonesian activist who switched sides last year, said it was Yosfiah
who
fired the fatal shots.
"The truth of the shooting is that it was the army and Yunus that ended the
life of the journalists," Goncalves told SBS.
Asked why Yosfiah opened fire when the men appeared to be surrendering,
Goncalves said he had to shoot "so they would not publicise what they saw to
the outside world..."
Three Australian government reports into the Balibo slayings named Goncalves
as a key witness, but found insufficient evidence to show who killed them or
why.
Shirley Shackleton said she believed Goncalves was telling the truth to
clear
his conscience.
"I sat and looked into his eyes and saw a man who's in a lot of pain
himself...," she told reporters here.
"He was lied to by experts as I have been. He has seen 25 years of thugs and
psychopaths just rushing through that territory wiping out a third of the
population."
She said she wanted Yosfiah to explain his actions in court.
"If you don't know what's happened to your loved one, there's this big dark
hole down there that can never be filled," she said.
Journalist Mark Davis said the SBS team met Goncalves in East Timor last
month where he appeared safe, but giving the interview may have added to his
security woes since turning against Indonesia last year.
end