Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has asked the Indonesian Government to investigate findings that its armed forces lured villagers to their deaths by using a helicopter disguised to look like a Red Cross transport.

The ICRC believes the deaths occurred while Indonesian military forces were making "perfidious use" of their mediating role in storming a village where West Papuan rebels held foreign and Indonesian hostages in 1996.

An independent investigation commissioned by the ICRC backs some of the main findings of a documentary on the ABC's Four Corners program last year, titled Blood on the Cross. It concluded Britain's Special Air Service may have been involved in the rescue mission during which eight civilians died.

The ICRC's director-general, Mr Paul Grossrieder, told journalists in Jakarta yesterday that the organisation's investigation had concluded Indonesian soldiers used a white helicopter in the operation that was probably seen by local villagers as an ICRC helicopter. Misuse of the ICRC's emblem is regarded by the organisation as a serious violation of international law.

The ICRC's investigation confirmed accounts that Westerners were on the helicopter and said that only a "serious and transparent investigation" by government authorities would establish who they were. The operation was led by former army lieutenant-general Prabowo Subianto, son-in-law of former president Soeharto, who was forced to resign from the armed forces after widespread bloodshed in Jakarta in mid-1998.

The ICRC had frequently flown its own helicopter to the southern highlands of Irian Jaya, now being renamed Papua, in the early months of 1996 to try to negotiate the release of a team of seven European biologists and Indonesian researchers held hostage by Free Papua Organisation (OPM) guerillas.

Officially, eight OPM rebels were killed by Indonesian Kopassus or special forces troops in a battle that reached its climax after two of the Indonesian captives had been killed by the guerillas. But Mr Daniel Start, one of the captives, told the ABC that civilians had been lured to their deaths by a Red Cross flag and gunned down by four or five white people and Indonesians behind them.

The ICRC's investigation concluded that the Westerners were either members of the SAS, mercenaries from the British-based company Sandline, or Indonesians of European extraction. "It is nevertheless certain that Western advisers ... helped the Indonesian forces prepare the operation," the investigation report said. "What is certain ... is that a white helicopter appeared ... on the afternoon in question and that it could have been perceived by the local population only as an ICRC helicopter, whether displaying the red cross emblem or not. Deceiving the local population in this manner could have had only one effect in military terms: total surprise."

Mr Grossrieder said he had asked Indonesia's Foreign Minister, Mr Alwi Shihab, to launch an official inquiry into the possible misuse of the ICRC's emblem. "There can be no doubt that the military forces ... made perfidious use of the ICRC's role in the affair ... for example the white helicopter," the investigation report said. "They may also have misused the emblem, though this has not been definitely proved."

The report denied that any ICRC member was involved in the military operation but criticised the Geneva-based organisation for not properly dealing with its staff and the media after the rescue mission.