East Timor still searches for justice, 50 years after Indonesian invasion

East Timor – It is a quiet afternoon in Lospalos.

Just the clucking of chickens, the grunt of a pig and in the distance, a transistor radio playing Portuguese reggaeton; a typical small-town soundtrack in this country of 1.4 million people situated in the Timor Sea between Indonesia and Australia’s northern territories.

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In the living room of her home, Berta dos Santos recalled the day in December 1975 when the Indonesian army brutally breached Lospalos’s tranquillity.

“They came down by parachute and started shooting,” dos Santos told Al Jazeera, recounting the attack on the rural town located some 210km (130 miles) east of the capital, Dili.

Dos Santos was only a child, but along with others, she ran to hide in the nearby mountains. The invading Indonesian forces were determined to find them – especially the women and girls.

“The army searched for us in the bush, captured us and took us back,” she said, recounting how at just nine years old she was violently raped by Indonesian soldiers.

Her mother, Helena, was dragged away and forced into sexual slavery.

The crimes committed against dos Santos, her mother and many others in Lospalos marked just the beginning of Indonesia’s savage 24-year-long occupation of East Timor.

What followed was violent military rule typified by massacres and the forced starvation of civilians, sexual violence and the torture, imprisonment and execution of those who resisted Indonesia’s occupation.

Indonesian soldiers parade with weapons during a flag-raising ceremony to mark Indonesian Independence Day at the governor’s office in the East Timor capital of Dili in 1999 [Weda/AFP]

Resistance – Ximenes’s story

East Timor was a Portuguese colony in Southeast Asia for more than 300 years.

A coup in 1974 backed by left-wing forces in Lisbon was the impetus that started Portugal’s process of decolonisation and retreat from its overseas territories, with East Timor declaring independence on November 28, 1975. It would be a short-lived celebration of freedom for the Timorese.

Under the pretext of fighting communism and backed by the United States, neighbouring Indonesia invaded the tiny half-island just over a week after independence was declared; Jakarta’s forces quickly captured East Timor’s capital, Dili, on December 7.

Some of East Timor’s young emerging leaders, such as current President Jose Ramos-Horta, were able to flee abroad at the time of the invasion and would remain overseas for years advocating for independence and keeping the international spotlight on the plight of the Timorese people.

Others fled into the mountainous jungles to embark on a decades-long armed resistance.

One of those was Major-General Americo Ximenes, also known as Sabika Besi Kulit, which translates as “Metal Skin”.

Ximenes now lives on the outskirts of Dili in a house provided through a veterans’ pension. Considered a national hero in East Timor, he is rarely seen in public and is now committed to family life after years of military action.

Major-General Americo Ximenes, also known as Sabika Besi Kulit (Metal Skin) at his home on the outskirts of East Timor’s capital, Dili. Ximenes told Al Jazeera he would wear such sandals, pictured here, when fighting the Indonesian military in the mountainous jungles for 24 years as they were ‘more comfortable’ than boots [Ali MC/Al Jazeera]

The 72-year-old was originally part of East Timor’s Portuguese-run armed forces before independence. After the 1975 invasion by Indonesia, he joined the resistance and would remain in the jungle to fight the Indonesians for almost a quarter of a century as a leader in FALINTIL (the Armed Forces for the National Liberation of East Timor).

Isolated from any outside assistance in the mountainous and jungle interior, and faced with the firepower of the US-backed Indonesian army, Ximenes said it was a struggle just to keep resisting.

“We had to find our own weapons to continue fighting, even to get food,” he said, recounting how FALINTIL fighters relied on the weapons taken from Indonesian soldiers killed in battle.

“If you have 10 or 20 guns, you’ve got to figure out how to use the guns to capture more guns,” he said, describing how fighters in his platoon would run to pick up not only weapons but “boots, food, ammunition and clothing” from slain Indonesian soldiers.

“As he shoots, he kills his target. There’s another soldier behind him without guns. He is the one that, as soon as he shoots, starts running to get the equipment,” he said.

“All this action would take only two or three minutes. Every shot, every bullet, is one kill. And by the three minutes, there will be a ceasefire, and we will collect what we need to collect and disappear,” he said.

“Metal Skin”, as he was then known due to his ability to survive many encounters with Indonesian forces, would not see his family for 24 years. He told Al Jazeera how the 1980s were a particularly difficult decade, when there was no international media attention and East Timor had no contact with the outside world.

He and his fighters, alone in the jungle, would receive just one letter a year from the political leadership of FRETILIN (Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor), the political party of which FALINTIL was its armed wing.

It was during the 1980s that much of East Timor’s civilian population was forcibly displaced and starved; an estimated 200,000 people died, almost a third of the population, in what is widely considered a genocide.

FALINTIL soldiers drill at their base in the Viqueque district in East Timor in August 1999 [File: Reuters]

Based in the mountains, Ximenes told how he and his fighters would hear of atrocities perpetrated against civilians, especially those inflicted against local women. Rather than instil fear, the outrages inspired many in FALINTIL to continue resisting, including the civilian villagers on whom the resistance relied for food, supplies and information about Indonesian troop movements.

“More villagers were willing to help us because of the atrocities against women,” he said. Despite the killing and torture, there were “more Timorese villagers that would like to support us and protect us, feed us and pass on information”.

After more than two decades of occupation and armed resistance, political advocacy by supporters abroad, and under pressure from the international community, the Indonesian government eventually agreed to hold a referendum to determine the first steps towards East Timor’s independence.

Then in 1999, a national vote was administered by the United Nations, and despite large-scale violence and intimidation from both the Indonesian army and collaborating local armed groups, 78.5 percent of East Timor’s voters cast their ballot in favour of independence.

By 2002, the long and bloody road to nationhood was complete.

While East Timor had finally achieved independence, the repercussions of Indonesia’s occupation remain deeply embedded in society.

Repercussions – Kristina Siti’s story

Kristina Siti was no ordinary child growing up in Lospalos.

She was teased mercilessly by other children and shunned by adults because of her origins.

“They considered me an illegitimate child, an Indonesian child, a child without a father. Some neighbours and even relatives wouldn’t let their children play with me,” Siti said.

Siti’s father was an Indonesian soldier. Siti’s mother had been forced into a relationship with the soldier in order to protect her brothers, who had fled to the jungle to join the resistance.

“To protect her family, my mother was forced to marry an Indonesian army commander,” the now 43-year-old told Al Jazeera.

“When I was two years old, my father left East Timor and went back to Indonesia. He never came back, and we never heard from him again,” she said.

Siti’s mother would later marry a local Timorese man, yet the horror continued. Siti told how a half sister from her mother’s second marriage was taken away by force at just two weeks old and adopted by an Indonesian soldier.

“My mother suffered a lot during the occupation. She was strong, but she was also a victim of that painful time,” Siti said.

“There are several women who suffered the same fate as my mother,” she said.

“And they also have children my age, some are younger, and some are older. In almost every village, there are women who fell victim to the Indonesian occupation for various reasons,” she added.

Two East Timorese women reunite in Dili in 1999 as others wait for the chance to meet with missing friends and relatives from a flight carrying refugees from West Timor [File: Reuters]

Accountability

The exact number of women who were subjected to sexual and other forms of violence under Indonesian occupation remains unknown, and few of the Indonesian soldiers and commanders who committed human rights abuses during the occupation have ever been brought to justice.

Neither have Timorese collaborators, who led armed groups to terrorise their own people and left behind a devastated country before fleeing to West Timor after the 1999 referendum that eventually resulted in independence.

Hugo Fernandes, the director of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (known by the Portuguese acronym CAVR), described East Timor in 1999 after the rampages by Indonesia’s local collaborators as the nation’s “Year Zero”.

“Almost 90 percent of infrastructure was burned down and people were still mourning those killed. A lot of mass atrocities happened,” he said.

In 2005, CAVR released a 2,500-page report detailing the human rights abuses committed during the occupation. While the truth and reconciliation process brought a form of healing for many, Fernandes told Al Jazeera that one of the key unresolved aspects of the decades-long occupation remains bringing perpetrators to justice.

East Timor forensic police check a construction site as they search for more human skeletons in Liquisa on the outskirts of Dili, East Timor, in 2010. The construction of a luxury hotel near East Timor’s capital uncovered mass graves containing the skeletons of people who may have been killed during the country’s occupation by Indonesia, scientists say [Lirio Da Fonseca/Reuters]

While East Timor’s current President Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao “definitely prefer to talk about reconciliation”, others “still demand justice”.

Even efforts within Indonesia to bring perpetrators to justice for crimes in East Timor have been stymied by a “lack of political will” and the fact that some perpetrators are considered “national heroes” among Indonesians, according to Human Rights Watch.

Only one conviction – that of Eurico Guterres, a pro-Indonesian Timorese militia leader – stood among 18 people prosecuted by an “ad hoc” court established in Indonesia in 2001 to investigate human rights abuses in East Timor.

But demands for justice have reached the highest level of the Indonesian government, including the current President Prabowo Subianto. A former Kopassus special forces commander in East Timor, Subianto has been the focus of allegations regarding severe human rights abuses.

Subianto has strenuously denied his involvement in such abuses, including a massacre in 1983 that led to an area in East Timor being referred to as “Valley of Widows” after more than 200 local men were killed there.

Despite the history of violence, Fernandes told Al Jazeera that the current East Timor government prioritises a good relationship with Indonesia.

“A good relationship with Indonesia is important, more important than anything,” Fernandes said.

Indonesia is also one of East Timor’s most important trading partners, and Jakarta recently backed Dili’s successful quest for inclusion in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

An abandoned United Nations vehicle in the town of Lospalos, East Timor. The UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) operated from October 1999 to May 2002, with a mandate to administer the country, maintain security, provide humanitarian assistance, help with institution building, and oversee the transition to full independence [Ali MC/Al Jazeera]

Justice

For those with still vivid memories of Indonesian rule, differing views on justice prevail.

Kristina Siti told Al Jazeera that she was not seeking justice for what happened during the occupation.

“What our family experienced was only a small part of the consequences of the war,” she said.

“Many people suffered far more than I did,” she told Al Jazeera.

“Some died in the war, some were separated from their wives and children, some had their children taken to Indonesia, and some disappeared without a trace,” she said.

For Major-General Ximenes, justice needs to begin at home.

He told Al Jazeera that he was deeply disappointed with the direction his country has taken and condemned politicians who “steal from the people”.

“Only those who have fought in the jungle, they’re the ones that understand each other,” he said.

While Berta Dos Santos suffered more than most at the hands of Indonesian troops while still a very young girl, she said justice involves “healing and reconciliation”.

“I have let go of my pain, my anger, my resentment and my bitterness long ago,” Dos Santos said.

“The joy that independence has brought is worth more than my pain and anger and bitterness,” she added.

Berta dos Santos, left, and her mother Helena dos Santos outside their home in Lospalos [Ali MC/Al Jazeera]