The Wire

An inquest into the death of Brian Peters, one of the five journalists killed in Balibo in East Timor in 1975, is being held in Sydney, stirring up old debates about what actually happened 31 years ago and whether key aspects of the story were covered up by the Australian, British and Indonesian governments. Peters, along with Greg Shackleton, Gary Cunningham, Tony Stewart and Malcolm Rennie, travelled to the border town of Balibo in October 1975 to document the border raids on towns occurring by Indonesian special forces, in the lead up to invasion later that year. Then on October 16th they were killed and their bodies burnt in circumstances long contested. The official line has always been that the men were accidentally cross fire as Indonesian and Fretilin forces battled to control Balibo. So far, a number of East Timorese witnesses have appeared before the inquest, providing evidence contradicting the official findings of previous inquiries by the Australian government. One of the people who has long sought the truth of the matter is Maureen Tolfrey, sister of Brian Peters.