Mr Sinclair was on board a RAAF Iroquois helicopter that crashed while on survey operations in July 1977 on a steep, jungle-clad ridge near the Baliem Valley. An Indonesian army surveyor was also on board. In his account of the crash and subsequent rescue, Mr Sinclair reports that he and another crewman had used masking tape to write the word AUSTRALIA in makeshift letters on the tail of the helicopter. Mr Sinclair says this was because Indonesian military were allegedly carrying out atrocities against the local population using Bell Iroquois aircraft painted in the same livery as the RAAF helicopters. However, another ADF source disputes this, saying AUSTRALIA was emblazoned on the tail as a way of alerting the OPM not to mistake the RAAF helicopter for an offensive aircraft. Richard Woolcott, who was Australian Ambassador to Jakarta in 1977, said he had not received reports about atrocities from Australian defence attaches at the embassy. The Hong-Kong based Asian Human Rights Commission claims the Indonesian armys 1977-78 assaults against Papuan villages constituted a neglected genocide. Read more: free-westpapuamovement.blogspot/2013/11/defence-force-may-have-known-of-west.html
Posted on: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 07:53:55 +0000
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