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Sydney. A leading press freedom group has urged Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to resist Indonesian “blackmail” over a war crimes investigation into the 1975 deaths of five Australia-based journalists.

Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres released an open letter to Rudd on Wednesday warning that the world was watching Australia’s investigation of the “Balibo Five,” who were killed during Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor.

Australian police announced last week that they had launched a war crimes probe into the deaths, nearly two years after a Sydney coroner ruled they had been murdered by Indonesian forces in an attempt to keep the invasion secret.

The surprise move prompted President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to warn that such an “inaccurate mind-set” could damage relations between Canberra and Jakarta, which considered the case to be closed.

Rudd has dismissed the comments as “bumps in the road” in Australia’s sometimes fraught relationship with neighboring Indonesia.

Jean-Francois Julliard, the secretary general of Reporters Sans Frontieres, said Yudhoyono’s “hostility” was contrary to international justice and called on the Australian prime minister to take a strong stance.

“We urge you to find the political, diplomatic and judicial means to bring the perpetrators of this multiple murder to justice,” Julliard wrote.

“We urge you, prime minister, not to yield to Indonesian diplomatic blackmail, which for too long has resulted in your country remaining silent on this matter.”

Australian coroner Dorelle Pinch in 2007 said Indonesia’s military had murdered the five journalists —Britons Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie, Australians Greg Shackleton and Tony Stewart, and New Zealander Gary Cunningham.

The journalists were killed in the East Timor border town of Balibo as they covered the Indonesian invasion that led to a 24-year occupation of the former Portuguese colony.

Jakarta has always maintained that the reporters died in a cross-fire as Indonesian troops fought East Timorese Fretilin rebels, a version of events accepted by successive Australian governments.



Agence France-Presse