New inquiry for journalist's death

SYDNEY — The NSW coroner announced on June 15 that an inquiry will be held into the death of Australian journalist Brian Peters in East Timor in 1975. Peters' sister, Maureen Tolfree, made the application for an inquest a year ago.

Tolfree's lawyer, Robert Dubler, believes that new evidence will reveal the truth about the events surrounding the death of Peters, including who was responsible. It is expected that the new inquiry will travel to East Timor to conduct hearings.

Scottish-born Peters — along with colleagues Greg Shackleton, Gary Cunningham, Tony Stewart and Malcolm Rennie — were killed while attempting to report on the Indonesian military incursions taking place into East Timor in October 1975.

The Whitlam Labor government frustrated attempts to reveal the truth of the journalist's deaths, as this would have seriously undermined its repeated claims that Indonesian forces where not crossing the border into East Timor.

A total of six inquiries into the journalists' deaths have been held since 1975, but each had inconclusive findings and alleged that the journalists died in crossfire between Indonesian forces and the East Timorese resistance.

Relatives and friends of the journalists, along with East Timor solidarity activists, have steadfastly refused to accept these findings.

Eyewitness evidence — revealed in the late 1990s by journalist Jill Jolliffe — plus information that came to light during the post-1999 United Nations transition period in East Timor, further strengthened the case that the journalists were summarily executed by the Indonesian invaders.

Jon Lamb

From Green Left Weekly, June 22, 2005.

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From GLW issue 630