Mount on Murdani. (Letters).

SIR: Frank Mount is plainly in earnest (Letters, December 2001) in wanting to defend the reputation of Benny Murdani, but he's got himself into a twist as regards his argument with me. I simply argued, in my essay of November 2000, that there was a prima facie case for believing that General Murdani could have been recorded by Australian signals intelligence instructing Colonel Dading to ensure that the journalists did not remain as witnesses to the covert Indonesian invasion of East Timor on 16th October 1975. If there was such a recording, I pointed out, it would go far toward explaining the whole history of obsessive secrecy about Balibo--because Murdani was the head of Indonesian military intelligence at the time.

My essay made perfectly clear that the case was not closed and allowed that the recording, which I called M-15 for shorthand purposes, might never have been made. The only way for this to be clarified is for the signals intelligence records of that period to be declassified. So far, they have not been. It is my understanding that Bill Blick has completed his inquiry and submitted both a classified and an unclassified version of his findings to the office of the Minister of Defence. Neither, hog ever, has been released to the public The classified version may clear Murdani. Frank Mount cannot do so.

He can feel as strongly about the "disparagement" of his friend as he likes; but this is pretty much irrelevant. It is as if a friend of Henry Kissinger's was to dismiss the charges levelled by Christopher Hitchens with the observation that Henry is a great and good man. I have nothing against Murdani personally and I am not convinced of his guilt in this matter. I have simply found what evidence I could find, in a tightly guarded domain, and drawn what seemed to me to be the logical conclusions.

In his latest letter, Mount goes to great lengths to show that Murdani cannot have participated in the slaughter of communists and others in 1965-66, because he was posted outside Indonesia. He even goes so far as to state that Murdani "was just as surprised and appalled at what happened as most people". Key people at the time, however; were not appalled. The cable traffic from the Australian embassy in Jakarta in late 1965 and early 1966, which I studied last summer, makes it plain that the prevailing sentiment was a hope that the Indonesian army (not the Muslims) would "finish the job".

Would Mount claim that Murdani was also "surprised and appalled" in December 1975, when troops under his direct command came ashore in Dili shooting indiscriminately, ...