By DPA,
Jakarta : Indonesia warned Thursday that the move by Australian police to open a war crimes investigation into the deaths of five journalists allegedly killed by Indonesian troops in East Timor in 1975 could hurt ties between the two countries.
An Australian coroner’s inquiry two years ago concluded the five were deliberately killed by Indonesian soldiers to prevent news of Jakarta’s invasion of East Timor from leaking out.
Indonesia has always maintained that the journalists, known as the Balibo Five after the town in which they were killed, died in crossfire between Indonesian soldiers and East Timor fighters.
“It has the potential (to hurt ties) because it serves as a new source of irritants,” Indonesia foreign ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said.
“This is a very serious issue, and we will see where the process will lead,” he said.
Faizasyah ruled out the prospect of Indonesia extraditing its citizens to Australia.
He said the investigation could have an impact on people-to-people relations between the countries. He did not elaborate.
Earlier this year, East Timorese President Jose Ramos Horta called on Indonesia to accept responsibility for the deaths, saying he was in Balibo at the time and had always doubted Jakarta’s account.
Television journalists Greg Shackleton and Malcolm Rennie, cameramen Gary Cunningham and Brian Peters as well as sound recordist Tony Stewart died Oct 16, 1975, after trying to capture images of Indonesian troops crossing the border.
East Timor, a former Portuguese colony, was annexed by Indonesia in 1976 and had to wait for full independence until 2002.
According to a report by a UN-sponsored truth commission, the Indonesian occupation led to about 100,000 deaths by killings, starvation and disease.
Australian governments had accepted Jakarta’s assertion that the men were killed in a crossfire, but in January 2008, the Attorney General’s Department referred the case to the police after the Sydney coroner’s finding.