East Timor

In 1975 Indonesian military forces (the TNI) invaded the Portuguese colony of East Timor, then under the administration of the pro-independence Fretilin Party (the Revolutionary Front for the Independent East Timor), which had just unilaterally declared independence. From the outset, the invasion was strongly resisted by the heavily out-gunned and outnumbered Fretilin armed forces. The invaders treated the local population harshly, indiscriminately killing hundreds of mostly civilian Dili residents in the first two weeks of the occupation.

The Indonesian occupation lasted twenty-four years, until the intervention of the UN authorized Interfet force in September 1999. The UN intervention followed a plebicite in which 78.5 percent of the population rejected integration with Indonesia. In the first decade of the occupation, the treatment of the population at large by the occupying forces displayed genocidal characteristics. The worst period was between December 1975 and 1980, when intense military operations were carried out across the island. Then East Timor was closed to the outside world, and even the International Red Cross was denied access until some four years after the invasion. According to East Timorese sources, including the Catholic Church which traditionally maintained population statistics and monitored the humanitarian situation, as many as 200,000 East Timorese died. Tens of thousands were killed by troops, while many others died from disease and starvation, conditions resulting directly or indirectly from occupation policies. A study of the population decline supports these charges. East Timor's population was estimated at 688,000 in the months before the invasion, and was growing at about 2 percent per year. According to Indonesia's census assessment in 1980, the population had fallen to 550,000.

Following visits to the territory by the International Red Cross and foreign diplomats in 1979, the human rights situation began to improve, but major atrocities continued. One of the worst of these was the massacre at Creras in 1983, where more than a thousand East Timorese, including women and children, were massacred in reprisal for the killing of several Indonesian soldiers in an engagement with resistance forces of the Falintil (the Armed Forces of National Liberation of East Timor). Summary executions and disappearances continued to feature in the annual reports of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. In 1991 the massacre of more than 200 East Timorese by TNI troops at a peaceful demonstration in Santa Cruz cemetary attracted world condemnation. This atrocity had a systematic character, reflecting a determination on the part of the Indonesian authorities to eliminate opponents of integration. However, in the case of the Santa Cruz massacre the Suharto government bowed to international pressure, and a number of soldiers were tried by a military court. The few who were found guilty were given only short sentences, ranging from six to eighteen months. This punishment was in stark contrast to the long terms of imprisonment handed out to surviving demonstrators in a separate trial, where they were sentenced to periods of imprisonment ranging from six to more than twenty years.

Since Indonesia's withdrawal in 1999, UN agencies and other humanitarian organizations have had free access to East Timor, and revelations of past events reveals beyond doubt that the humanitarian costs of this act of forced integration reached genocidal proportions. The East Timor case is manifestly one of the most serious of its kind in modern history. Indonesia's education policy banned the teaching of Tetum, East Timor's lingua franca, and Portuguese. This was a clear effort to eradicate a portion of East Timorian culture. Indonesia's policy of sending thousands of Indonesian settlers into the province also seemed designed to achieve the destruction of the distinctive culture of East Timor.

The international response to Indonesia's serious violation of international law was at first characterized by indifference and irresolution. As a result, the Suharto government, despite its heavy dependence on Western economic aid, did not feel the need to respond to international concerns in a positive way. The expressions of international concern at the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the years following the invasion were so weak that Indonesian authorities became openly defiant of world opinion. In the 1980s, however, East Timor's Bishop Carlos Belo, began to expose the situation to the international media and visiting foreign dignitaries. The Santa Cruz massacre in November 1991 forced the Indonesian authorities onto the defensive. The Suharto government's concessions were nevertheless of little real significance, falling well short of popular demands by East Timor's leaders for the removal of the Indonesian military, and for the right of self-determination.

Indonesia agreed to hold a plebiscite under UN auspices, in August 1999. This concession was attributable less to international pressures than to the fall of Suharto following the Asian economic collapse. The flexible stance adopted by President Habibie and the determined efforts of Kofi Annan, the newly appointed UN Secretary-General, were the key elements in the fortuitous sequence of events that led to East Timor's liberation in September 1999, after twenty-four years of occupation. As it happened, the Indonesian military maintained its oppression until the very end. TNI generals formed a militia force with the aim of preventing the loss of the province. When the results of the plebiscite were announced, a large-scale TNI operation swung into action. Pro-independence supporters, now representing the majority opinion, were the subject of violence and intimidation. In the space of a few weeks, more than 1,500 were killed. An estimated 250,000 were deported to West Timor, and 73 percent of all building and houses were destroyed. This spate of killing and destruction was interrupted by the Interfet intervention, and by President Habibie's decision to withdraw from East Timor in the face of strong international protests.

The pattern of the atrocities carried out by Indonesian troops reveals a systemic character. Until Santa Cruz, no TNI troops or commanders were ever placed on trial for these crimes against humanity. In the case of the events of 1999, the tribunal set up by the Indonesian government was apparently designed to prevent disclosure of TNI command responsibility. The few TNI commanders placed on trial were charged not with their role in organizing the violence, but with having failed to stop it. Even so, most were acquitted, while the few who were found guilty won their appeals to a higher court.

SEE ALSO Indonesia; Peacekeeping; West Papua, Indonesia (Irian Jaya)

James Dunn