183,000 killed in Timor Leste under RI rule: Report
183,000 killed in Timor Leste under RI rule: Report
Agence France-Presse, Lisbon
At least 183,000 people were killed in East Timor (now Timor Leste) during its 24 years of occupation by Indonesia, a government probe into past human rights violations has concluded, a media report said on Tuesday.
Seventy percent of the deaths were at the hands of Indonesian security forces or East Timorese militias trained by Jakarta, the report by the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR) found, said the results of the probe according to a copy obtained by Lusa news agency.
The more than 2,000-page report was delivered on Oct. 31 to Timor Leste's President Xanana Gusmao, who suggested to legislators last month that its findings and recommendations should not be made public.
The commission was set up in the former Portuguese colony in 2002 as an independent authority tasked with investigating human rights violations from all sides during Indonesia's occupation of its smaller neighbor.
Its findings, the product of research by dozens of East Timorese and international experts, offer the first official estimate of the number of deaths in the territory during the period of rule by Jakarta.
Estimates by human rights groups had put the figure at around 200,000.
Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975 but the country's people voted in favor of breaking away in a UN-sponsored ballot in August 1999, and it gained full independence in May 2002 after more than two years of UN stewardship.
Militia gangs, which had military officers support, went on an arson and killing spree before and after the East Timorese referendum, killing about 1,400 independence supporters.
The commission identifies by name the victims of the human rights abuses as well as those who carried them out, Lusa reported.
Among the abuses described by the report include collective executions, torture, and the forced removal of people from their homes, it said.
The United States knew well in advance of, and explicitly approved, Indonesia's invasion of East Timor in 1975, according to documents which were declassified in Washington earlier this month.
Multiple U.S. administrations tried to conceal information on atrocities carried out in Timor Leste to avoid a possible Congressional ban on weapons sales to Indonesia, the formerly secret U.S. documents show.
Opposition politicians and rights activists have decried Gusmao's decision to keep the commission's findings from the public, charging he concerned only with Timor Leste's relations with its powerful neighbor.