Indonesia blamed for 100,000 deaths in East Timor

A report on Indonesia’s 24-year occupation of East Timor blames over 100,000 deaths and massive human rights violations including starvation and the use of napalm primarily on Indonesian security forces, Timorese officials said today.

East Timor’s President Xanana Gusmao was to deliver the report by the independent Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation to Secretary-General Kofi Annan later this evening. It was not released to the public but copies were leaked after it was presented to the Timorese parliament and cabinet in November.

The report chronicles widespread torture, starvation, sexual enslavement and the use of napalm by the security forces.

Investigators found that at least 102,800 people were killed or disappeared from 1975 to 1999, Pat Walsh, an adviser to the commission, said earlier this month. At least 84,200 others died from “excess” hunger and illnesses directly related to the conflict.

Gusmao confirmed that the figure was over 100,000 and that the report cited the use of napalm. He said it was up to the commission to release the report, which took over three years to compile, and he was abiding by the law requiring him to present it to the Timorese parliament and government and the UN secretary-general.

In anticipation of the report, Indonesia denied using napalm or deliberately starving civilians.

“This is a war of numbers and data about things that never happened,” Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono told reporters in Jakarta. “How could we have used napalm against the East Timorese? Back then we didn’t even have the capacity to import, let alone make napalm.”

Napalm, or jellied gasoline, is a flammable weapon that was widely used by American forces in the Vietnam War. The United Nations banned the use of napalm against civilian populations in 1980.

Gusmao, asked about the Indonesian comments, said “as a state we didn’t comment on the result,” noting that the commission also cited human rights violations committed by the Timorese resistance against the Timorese people.

According to the International Centre for Transitional Justice, a human rights group, the report says violations by Indonesian security forces were “massive, widespread and systematic” and Indonesian forces used starvation as a weapon of war, committed arbitrary executions, and routinely tortured anyone suspected of sympathising with pro-independence groups.

It found that 85% of the human rights violations reported to the commission were committed by Indonesian security forces acting alone or through government-backed militias and about 10% were committed by pro-independence forces led by Gusmao.

During the commission’s hearings, Gusmao said, pro-independence groups “more or less recognised their involvement in hurting people” and apologised.

“We respect the result” of the commission’s report, he told a news conference. “The main objective is to present the situation of 24 years of war.”

“The numbers, the figures, can be disputed, but the essential (point) is to remind not only our future generation not to commit all that happened before again in East Timor, but also to remind the international community to try every day (to ensure) that it doesn’t have happen again elsewhere,” Gusmao said.

“We accepted the result of the report as a way to tell the truth (about) what happened, as a way to heal the wounds in the people’s minds, even in the people’s bodies,” he said.

“We need this. If we hide the truth, we will not be courageous enough to look at (each) other eye-to-eye. That is why I believe it is not so important to look at the figures but it’s more important to look at the lessons … for us and for everybody,” Gusmao said.

Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975 and ruled the tiny half-island territory with an iron fist until 1999, when a UN-organised plebiscite resulted in an overwhelming vote for independence. Withdrawing Indonesian troops and their militia auxiliaries destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure and killed at least 1,500 people.

The United Nations sent a UN peacekeeping force and administered the territory until East Timor became independent in 2002. A UN political mission is scheduled to wrap up its operations in May.

Gusmao said he and Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta would be meeting UN Security Council members to ask for the United Nations to maintain a small political office to continue helping East Timor.

The international community pressured Jakarta in 2002 to establish a special tribunal to prosecute Indonesians allegedly responsible for the violence. But the trials have been widely criticised as a sham, with all 17 police and military commanders indicted receiving acquittals. The other, a Timorese militia leader, is free on appeal.

Indonesia and East Timor have repeatedly said they don’t want to open old wounds and have rejected recommendations made in the 2,500-page report. Among them are that Indonesian troops involved in the bloodshed face new trials and that international arms suppliers and nations that supported the violent 1975 invasion compensate victims.

“We don’t advocate the punitive justice, but retrospective justice,” Gusmao said, pointing to South Africa as a model.

For East Timor, he said, “the best justice” was after Indonesian President Suharto stepped down in 1998 and the international community started looking “at our rights".