Yunus again denies role in foreign journalists' murder

Yunus again denies role in foreign journalists' murder

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Information Lt. Gen. Muhammad Yunus
Yosfiah has again denied involvement in the killing of five
foreign journalists in Balibo, East Timor, 23 years ago while
serving there with the military.

Yunus said he neither shot nor ordered his troops to shoot the
journalists. He said he had never even met them and became aware
of their deaths only in 1981.

"First of all I express my sympathy to the families of the
five journalists murdered in East Timor in 1975, but I deny the
allegation that I was involved," Yunus said after attending a
monthly cabinet meeting on the economy at the Bina Graha
presidential office.

Olandina Maya Guteres, an East Timorese exile currently living
in Portugal, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation last
month that she herself saw then Captain Yunus order his soldiers
to shoot the journalists.

Yunus said it was impossible that Olandina, a member of the
pro-Portuguese UDT party, was present in Balibo because the area
was controlled by the party's rival, Fretilin.

"As a religious man, I know that I will be responsible for
whatever I have said in the hereafter," he added.

Tom Sherman, a former Australian government lawyer who
conducted a two-year investigation into the case spanning 1995
and 1996, reported that the journalists were caught in crossfire
and that Indonesian troops had no intention of killing them.

Yunus was in command of a unit of the Army's Special Force
(Kopassus) during the war in the territory.

Olandina said Yunus ordered his troops to fire at four of the
journalists through the windows of a house in which they were
taking refuge. The fifth was then stabbed in the back after he
was ordered out of the house.

"My presence in Balibo at that time was for humanitarian
purposes. Along with other volunteers I helped to evacuate East
Timorese citizens out of the civil war zone," Yunus noted.

Meanwhile, Minister of Defense and Security/ Armed Forces
(ABRI) Commander Gen. Wiranto reiterated that the military has
withdrawn some troops from East Timor, despite recent reports to
the contrary.

He said troops had been withdrawn in phases so as not to
disturb security and stability in the province. He pointed out
that the troop withdrawal had been undertaken with the approval
of President B.J. Habibie.

"Now, there is a ruckus and suggestions that the stated
withdrawal was just a cover for a build up of troops. That is not
true. ABRI is not going to play hide-and-seek like that," Wiranto
stressed.

Wiranto strongly refuted a report that appeared in the
Australian press alleging that Jakarta has deployed around 21,000
troops in East Timor.

According to Wiranto, some troops have been dispatched to East
Timor to replace soldiers pulled out after serving there without
their families for two consecutive years.

"It is just a rotation of territorial units. It is routine.
The replacements must not be thought of as extra troops," he
said. (prb)