February 12, 2010
NZPA
The New Zealand government has been criticised for its “appalling” failure to hold Indonesia to account over the Balibo Five killings in East Timor.
New Zealander Gary Cunningham and other Australian-based newsmen Brian Peters, Malcolm Rennie, Greg Shackleton and Tony Stewart were shot dead at Balibo, East Timor, in October 1975.
A memorial to Cunningham was announced at a ceremony in Wellington on Friday.
The Australian Federal Police launched a war crimes investigation into the killings last year, following a 2007 coronial inquest which found Indonesian forces deliberately killed the Australian-based journalists to cover up their 1975 invasion of East Timor.
Retired Indonesian army colonel Gatot Purwanto appeared to back the coroner’s findings in December last year, becoming the first senior Indonesian figure to contradict the official explanation the newsmen were killed in crossfire.
The planned memorial in Wellington, organised by the Indonesia Human Rights Committee with support from the Media Freedom Committee and Wellington City Council, would be the first official commemoration in New Zealand.
Click here to read the full article: NZ must act on Balibo deaths
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 8:39 pmand is filed under News, Timor Leste. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.