RI military forced E. Timorese women into sex slavery, Carascalao says

RI military forced E. Timorese women into sex slavery, Carascalao says

Guido Guilart, Associated Press, Dili, East Timor

The Indonesian military systematically forced dozens of East
Timorese women to become sex slaves for officers during its 24-
year occupation of the half-island, a former governor said on
Tuesday.

During a two-day hearing on violence against women in the
former Indonesian territory, witnesses said rape, torture and
murder were part of an organized campaign by the military to
intimidate the East Timorese people.

Col. Djazairi Nachrowi, an Indonesian military spokesman,
vehemently denied the allegations on Tuesday, saying the former
governor who made them was "probably ... unstable."

East Timor finally won its independence last May following two
centuries of Portuguese rule and 24 years of Indonesian
occupation during which thousands died. Tuesday's hearing was
organized by a truth and reconciliation commission that aims to
uncover past abuses and promote justice.

During the chilling testimony, a woman said she was tortured
by soldiers after trying to determine the fate of her two sons,
who she said were shot to death by soldiers under the command of
the son-in-law of former Indonesian dictator Soeharto.

Mario Vegas Carascalao, governor of East Timor from 1982 to
1992, described how officers subjected the wives of pro-
independence fighters to sexual violence.

"The Indonesian military forced women married to East Timorese
freedom fighters to become sex slaves," he told the hearing.
"Soldiers then killed their husbands."

He said he received thousands of letters recounting rapes and
killings.

"I have kept the letters but I tore and destroyed many more to
protect the women's identities," he said. "There were
intelligence officers who broke into my house, took the letters
and murdered the writers."

The abuse was part of "a systematic and organized effort to
crush the mentality of the East Timorese people so they will be
easier to control and dominate," Carascalao said.

Nachrowi said "there were absolutely no such systematic and
organized operations."

"I think we have to take into account that the statements came
from a former governor who had betrayed his own country," he
said. "He is probably frustrated or unstable because of
psychological stress."

Former officials and army officers in East Timor have been
tried in both Indonesian and UN-sponsored East Timorese courts
for crimes against humanity that took place before and after a
1999 pro-independence ballot in which more than 1,000 people were
killed. Most of the military officers believed responsible for
the brunt of the abuse have been acquitted in proceedings that
human rights groups have called a sham.

On Tuesday, Beatrice Gutteres testified that her two teenage
sons were among 116 men from the village of Craras shot to death
in 1983 by firing squads under the command of ex-dictator
Soeharto's son-in-law, then Maj. Prabowo Subianto.

Gutteres said soldiers told her sons to attend a gathering at
a field in Craras, 180 kilometers (110 miles) east of the capital
Dili. She said they demanded to know the whereabouts of rebels
who allegedly killed an Indonesian soldier.

She never saw her sons again.

"The soldiers told mothers and girls that they could not leave
their houses even to get water or feed the farm animals,"
Gutteres said.

"I could not sleep. I cried, fell to my knees and prayed all
night long," she said. "I could only look for them the next
morning."

Gutteres said she was jailed for trying to find her sons -
even though she was three months pregnant.

"I broke down the glass door of the room and I kept yelling: I
have suffered so much. I am pregnant and I want to give birth at
home."

She said Prabowo's men jabbed lit cigarettes into her arms and
kicked her head with their boots while asking her about rebels.

Prabowo rose to become the commander of the feared elite
forces Kopassus and Kostrad in the 1990s, but was dismissed in
1998 after the military held him responsible for the kidnaping
and torture of pro-democracy leaders in Indonesia.

Efforts to reach Prabowo by telephone were unsuccessful on
Tuesday.