Balibo, 32 years of Australian Cowardice : Melbourne Indymedia

Money is worth more than your life to the capitalists. Everything can be bought and sold in Indonesia, but not for a song.

Words like "cowardice" & "cringing" are misleading. Australia didn't collude in Indonesia's invasion & occupation of East Timor - they instigated it! The murdered Australian journalists were victims of Australian barbarism. The Indonesian army's role was that of hired thugs.

Balibo Five widow to address inquest

* By Mike Hedge
* May 31, 2007

THE widow of a journalist killed in East Timor in 1975 will tomorrow tell a Sydney inquest how she felt about her husband's death.

Shirley Shackleton considered staying away from the inquest examining the death of cameraman Brian Peters. He was killed, alongside Mrs Shackleton's husband Greg and three other Australian journalists, in the town of Balibo.

But the appearance of former prime minister Gough Whitlam at the hearing convinced her to have her say.

The inquest has been hearing evidence about the deaths of Peters, Shackleton, Gary Cunningham, Tony Stewart and Malcolm Rennie as Indonesian troops invaded East Timor on October 16, 1975.

In his evidence, Mr Whitlam told the inquest he had warned Greg Shackleton about going to East Timor because the government had no way of protecting him or his colleagues, now known as the Balibo Five.

"I assumed Greg Shackleton would have taken notice of my warnings; I assumed he would have warned his colleagues," Mr Whitlam told the inquest.

"It would have been very irresponsible if he didn't; then he would be culpable."

In Sydney tomorrow, Mrs Shackleton will address the inquest in a bid to put on the official record what she knows and what she feels.

"I'm defending my husband's reputation," she said.

"The prime minister has said my husband's culpable.

"If he'd had a warning from the prime minister like that he would have gone to his editor and told him he had 'the big one'."

The inquest has heard evidence the five newsmen were executed by Indonesian troops - not killed in crossfire as has been claimed up to now - and told that two people could be prosecuted for war crimes.

"This was bloody murder. They had their lives ripped away," Mrs Shackleton said.

She said she would not be giving evidence to the inquest, but would address the inquest with something similar to a victim impact statement.

She agreed she had no hard evidence, just a lot of observations and anecdotal accounts.

"This is where the historians will come in the future to learn about what happened, so it's a chance that I have to contribute something to the record," she said.