Many people will wonder what is hoped to be achieved by conducting an investigation into the killing of five Australian journalists in the East Timor town of Balibo in 1975.
A lot of recrimination can be laid on the heads of a lot of people by events at that time.
Indonesia brutally invaded a neighbouring country with the covert blessing of the then Australian government. Portugal - in political disarray - walked away from it's former colony and dissent within was fast leading to civil war.
There was a wide opinion in many countries that East Timor was too small and too poor to have any hope of establishing itself as an independent nation. Integration with Indonesia was probably a reasonable idea - except that the ruling Indonesian military saw it as a means to subject it's new citizens to brutality, seize their commercial interests and enrich themselves at their expense.
The five Australian journalists were after a news scoop. They were aware of the dangers, and yet they persisted in putting themselves in the way of harm, believing that Indonesia would respect their safety because of their nationality.
There seems no doubt that they were deliberately executed because they witnessed an invasion that Indonesia tried to cover up. Some of the people who made that decision are now high status retirees and there is no possibility that Indonesia will allow them to be extradited to face trial.
So - what will this enquiry achieve ?
It will be an irritant to Australian/Indonesian relations, but probably only a minor one because Indonesia has emerged from it's military dominated dictatorship as a more reasonable democratic country.
The best that we can hope for is a finding that the Balibo five were murdered in the heat of an invasion by known people - who should - but won't be put on trial for murder.
That might satisfy the purists - but in reality it will have achieved nothing !
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