§ Annabelle EwingTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1) when he next plans to discuss with the(a) Indonesian and (b) Australian Governments the deaths of Malcolm Rennie and Brian Peters; [103923]
(2) whether the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Indonesian and East Timor papers from 1975–76 released in late 2002 represent all the Indonesian and East Timor papers held by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; [103966]
(3) how many diplomatic written communications were sent or transmitted (a) by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the British Embassy in Jakarta and (b) by the British embassy in Jakarta to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in (i) 1975 and (ii) 1976 concerning Indonesia and East Timor; [103965]
(4) what recent discussions he has had with UN officials concerning the UN investigation into the deaths of Malcolm Rennie and Brian Peters; [103962]
(5) if he will make a statement on the (a) Foreign and Commonwealth Office telegram of 28 October 1975 and (b) Foreign and Commonwealth Office telegram number 394 of 24 October 1975 sent from the British embassy in Jakarta to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on the deaths of Malcolm Rennie and Brian Peters; [103964]
(6) when the UK Government first made representations to the Indonesian Government about the deaths of Malcolm Rennie and Brian Peters. [103963]
73W
§ Mr. Mike O'BrienI have no plans at present to discuss the deaths of Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie with the Indonesian and Australian Governments.
The Permanent Under Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office discussed the UN investigation into the Balibo murders with the UN Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) to East Timor in November 2002. The SRSG explained that the investigation is unable to proceed until the Indonesian Government permits the interviewing of Indonesian witnesses. I refer the hon. Member to my answer of 25 February 2003, Official Report, column 434W, to my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd), for details of when we last raised this matter with the Indonesian authorities.
The FCO papers from 1975–76, released in November 2002, show that the Australian Government led on this issue as all five journalists were based in Australia and were working for Australian TV stations at the time of their deaths. The Australian Government raised the case with Indonesia but their attempts to obtain clarification had only limited success.
We are unable to provide details of when the British government first made representations to the Indonesian government about the deaths of Malcolm Rennie and Brian Peters. There would be disproportionate costs involved in researching the answer, as we would have to look through around 25 years' of files, and if, as is possible, the relevant papers were put on a consular file, these files would have been destroyed seven years after the last action they record.
The FCO has released all its files from 1975–76 relevant to the Balibo murders. No papers were withheld from the files that were released, but minor deletions were made to a few documents in accordance with Sections 3(4) and 5(1) of the Public Record Acts. The hon. Member may wish to consult the files at the Public Record Office. I do not wish at this stage to comment on the decisions made by the then Government on their handling of the Balibo murders.