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.