Fools step in

So successful was Rudd that the object of his representations, the boat with 260 Tamil asylum seekers, remains in limbo in the Indonesian port of Merak with the asylum seekers still on board.

Balibo is the skeleton in the closet of attempts to have workable diplomatic relationship with Indonesia.

The military will use all means available to them to influence, direct and control Indonesian domestic politics on the issue. They will attempt, probably successfully, to thwart Australian investigations.

They appear to have briefed former Kopassus (Special Forces) officer, Gatot Purwanto, to spin a variation of “they were caught in crossfire” to protect the hide of Yunus Yosfiah the officer who ordered and carried out the murders.

Purwanto claims that firing came from behind the journalists forcing Indonesian armed forces opened fire. This claim has been dismissed. There were no Fretilin forces in the area where the shots were alleged to have originated.

Purwanto admitted the bodies were burnt in order to hide evidence of the killing of foreigners. Faced with an awful accident of war the Indonesian authorities might have admitted such a mistake and handed the bodies over. But they could not as the nature of the injuries would have made known that the journalists were deliberately killed. The military hit squad had to get rid of the bodies.

Purwanto is a stalking horse for the military and in particular his old boss in East Timor at the time, Yosfiah, who rose, as is the want with the Indonesian military, to the rank of General. Purwanto served for a time as a senior intelligence officer in East Timor, identifying, hunting down and interrogating Fretilin suspects. Many of these interrogations were accompanied by torture.

The AFP must investigate the murders, but in addition to worrying about the knock on effect on the refugee disruption program it has concerns that co-operation on terrorism will be affected. It need not, co-operation has been tainted by contact, at various levels, between the military, police and the JI, the main radical Islamic group in Indonesia. Unfortunately the AFP has never been fully included in the loop.