Dasha
Not one to get too much into politics and being a guy who very rarely takes any notice of the idiot box. This one caught my eye tonight.People from other parts of the world might wanna ignore this but Australians should take note of how fairdinkum our foreign affairs dep't headed by you know who - Mr Alexander Downer (great name aye??) is about taking care of us when we are traveling abroad!It seems a NSW state coroner Dorelle Pinch is going to finally have an inquest into the Balibo 5 deaths beginning with cameraman Brian Peter's story. Pinch is hearing final evidence that 4 others including Peters (Greg Shackleton, 22 his cameraman Gary Cunningham aged 27 and sound recordist Tony Stewart 21 joined another journalist Malcolm Rennie 29 both from TCN-9, Sydney.All of them died on 16 October 1975 that year during or immediately following an assault by Indonesian soldiers and their East Timorese allies against a Fretilin force at Balibo) were deliberately killed by Indonesian soldiers to prevent news of Indonesia's involvement in the attack being publicized.Being a 14 YO kid I recall wondering how these guys just doing there job could get nailed and our successive Governments turning a complete blind eye in the name of good international relations. I felt particularly for Shirley Shackleton. A campaigner for years after for her young husband's untimely death.. and getting nowhere. Here's hoping this inquest into Peter's death finally gets somewhere after all this time.This is the SBS spiel from tonight's report - Journos with some truth.QuoteFive Australian-based journalists died in Balibo in 1975 as the Indonesian military invaded East Timor, and more than 30 years later the NSW coroners' court is investigating the deaths. Witnesses to the inquest have accused the Indonesian military of executing the five journalists. Reports out of Indonesia today suggest the Australian government has told Jakarta they should not be concerned about the inquest. But Mr Downer said he had not given Indonesia any guarantee. "I wouldn't put it in those terms," Mr Downer told ABC Radio today. "We had, from my recollection, a very brief discussion on this quite some time ago, not that it wasn't anything to worry about, but that this was an investigation into events that occurred over 30 years ago and obviously we will just take it as it comes." Mr Downer said he had not seen the Indonesian reports and would not try to analyze them. "I haven't seen the quote and I haven't seen the context of the quote and it's attributed to a foreign minister so I am not getting into a micro-analysis of the quote," the minister said. Mr Downer said the deaths had happened well before his time in government, and there was nothing much he could do. "I mean this has not been a focus of my work, particularly this deputy coroner's inquiry because it's not something that I've ever had involvement with of course. "These are events of many, many years ago." But he said the Department of Foreign Affairs had cooperated with the coroner's inquiry so far, particularly with providing documents from 32 years ago. "We will let the coroner's inquiry take its course and when it is concluded, if there are recommendations, if they have any bearing on foreign policy then we'll have a look at them." Unquote.[/quote]Yer righto Alex . I will remember that next time I'm in Indo and I need a little justice when I'm with Shirley Shackleton.Great Government we got! :cry:
