Tornado Alley (PROG)

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"Balibo 5", Indonesian shame AND MT ETNA!!!!

Balibo Five blood 'smeared across flag'

The blood of one of the Balibo Five was smeared across a painting of the Australian flag after Indonesian military commanders ordered the journalists killed, an inquest has heard.

A former East Timorese citizen revealed the chilling details on Tuesday as the inquest into the death of Brian Peters, one of the five Australian-based newsmen killed at Balibo in East Timor in 1975, resumed after a two-month break.
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The five were shot at Balibo on October 16, 1975, during the invasion of the former Portuguese territory by Indonesian forces.

Antonio Sarmento, who now lives in Queensland, told the inquest that an Indonesian journalist who had travelled to Balibo on the day of the killings told him about the incident.

Mr Sarmento said the journalist had flown on a helicopter with Indonesian soldiers from the East Timor border village of Batugade to nearby Balibo early on October 16.

When the journalist returned on the helicopter later that day, a video camera, a tape recorder, a 80mm mortar and army machine gun were unloaded and taken to the house of Lieutenant Colonel Dadin Kalbuadi, who commanded Indonesia's border troops.

"He said when the (Indonesian military) regional commanders arrived in Balibo, the five journalists raised their hands and they told them `we are Australian journalists' and then they just made like a brief inquiry and then they shot them," Mr Sarmento told Glebe Coroner's Court.

"He told us that one of the soldiers took the blood of one of them and painted it on an Australian flag."

The inquest has heard that the five journalists had painted an Australian flag on the side of a Balibo house they were staying in so they would not be mistaken by Indonesian forces as Fretilin fighters.

Mr Sarmento said he travelled to Balibo the following day and saw blood traced over an Australian flag painted on the right hand side of a door to the house.

An Indonesian military commander, known only as Captain Fernando, pointed out the blood smears to Mr Sarmento and two of his Timorese friends.

Mr Sarmento also revealed that the night before the killings, Captain Fernando told him in Batugade that the Indonesians knew the five Australian newsmen were in Balibo and wanted them dead.

"He said that they know that there are some Australian journalists in the Batugade area and Balibo and they tried to locate them and arrest them and if possible they would kill them," Mr Sarmento said.

"He didn't explain exactly why, but the way he told us, they seemed (to think) they were working together with Fretilin."

Official government reports have said the five newsmen were killed in crossfire between Indonesian forces and Fretilin troops.

But several East Timorese eyewitnesses have told the inquest the men were executed and their bodies burnt.

Mr Sarmento said according to the journalist who told him about the killings, Indonesian soldiers stripped the newsmen's bodies of their clothes and dressed them in Fretilin camouflage uniforms.

Their bodies were then placed on top of machine guns "to make out they had been killed while fighting" and photographed.

They were then placed in the house the men had been staying in and set alight, Mr Sarmento said.

The inquest resumes on Wednesday.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/070501/2/13ax0.html#