Chapter 7.3: Forced Displacement and Famine
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Chapter 7.3: Forced Displacement and Famine Chapter 7.3: Forced Displacement and Famine...................................................................................................1 Chapter 7.3: Forced Displacement and Famine...................................................................................................3 7.3.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................3 7.3.2 Definitions and methodology ........................................................................................................................5 Displacement ..........................................................................................................................................................5 Famine ....................................................................................................................................................................7 Gathering information............................................................................................................................................8 7.3.3 Displacement and hunger caused by internal conflict (1974-1975) ...........................................................9 Displacement due to political rivalries (1974-1975) ............................................................................................9 Displacement caused by the internal conflict......................................................................................................10 The flight to West Timor.......................................................................................................................................11 Forcible transfer to West Timor...........................................................................................................................12 Refugee numbers in West Timor ..........................................................................................................................13 Conditions and humanitarian assistance in West Timor ....................................................................................14 Food shortages and humanitarian assistance in Timor-Leste............................................................................15 Hunger and deaths................................................................................................................................................16 7.3.4 Displacement and famine during the Indonesian occupation (1975-1979)..............................................17 Invasion, displacement and evacuation 1975-1977 ............................................................................................17 Life and death in the mountains (1976 to 1978)..................................................................................................25 On the run (1976 to 1978)....................................................................................................................................35 Surrender, camps and famine (1978-1981).........................................................................................................49 Resettlement camps...............................................................................................................................................60 Emergency humanitarian response (1979-1980)................................................................................................68 7.3.5 Forced displacement and localised famine in the 1980s...........................................................................79 Retaliatory internment and collective punishment: Ataúro and other internment camps.................................89 Alternatives to internment on Ataúro: Raifusa and Dotik ..................................................................................99 7.3.6 Displacement before and after the Popular Consultation, 1999.............................................................105 Early signs (November 1998 to March 1999) ...................................................................................................106 First mass displacements, April 1999................................................................................................................110 The quiet before the storm (May to August 1999).............................................................................................117 Massive displacement and deportation, September 1999.................................................................................122 Refugees in West Timor......................................................................................................................................137 Returning home...................................................................................................................................................142 7.3.7 Findings .....................................................................................................................................................143 - 1 - The internal conflict August-September 1975 ...................................................................................................144 The invasion........................................................................................................................................................145 Food crops and livestock destroyed...................................................................................................................147 Life and death in the mountains.........................................................................................................................147 Camps and settlements under Indonesian military control ..............................................................................148 Humanitarian aid ...............................................................................................................................................149 Strategic relocation villages and internment.....................................................................................................150 Displacement before and after the Popular Consultation in 1999...................................................................151 - 2 - Chapter 7.3: Forced Displacement and Famine 7.3.1 Introduction 1. As part of its mandate to establish the truth regarding past human rights violations, the Commission conducted an inquiry into displacement and famine in Timor-Leste during 1974- 1999. This inquiry was critical to understanding the story of human suffering and human rights violations associated with the conflict because displacement was a defining feature of the years of conflict in Timor-Leste. Almost every East Timorese person who lived through these years suffered some form of displacement, and many were displaced several times. 2. Displacement and its consequences occurred repeatedly during the period of the Commission’s mandate. - 3 - • As early as 1974 the Commission learned there were cases of villagers fleeing the violent consequences of growing inter-party tensions. • The civil war of August-September 1975 caused tens of thousands of people to be displaced, most for short periods within Timor-Leste, but some forcibly to Indonesian West Timor. • The Indonesian invasion of 7 December 1975 triggered the evacuation of a majority of the population into mountain and forest areas under Fretilin control, in numbers that were so large that they put an unbearable strain on Fretilin’s resources and organisational capabilities. Even after Indonesian forces stepped up their attacks and ended the relatively settled lives of those living in these areas, the Fretilin leadership went to great lengths to prevent people from coming out of the forest and mountains, including by the use of harshly punitive measures against those suspected of wanting to do so. • The massive campaigns waged by Indonesian forces between mid-1977 and late 1978 made the already difficult conditions in which hundreds of thousands of East Timorese people in the forest and mountains were living intolerable, finally forcing the leadership to permit them to surrender to Indonesian forces. • Once in Indonesians hands they faced an even worse fate in “resettlement camps”: there the Indonesian military made utterly inadequate provision for their everyday needs and placed restrictions on their freedom of movement which made it impossible for camp inmates to provide for themselves. The result was a famine which took thousands of lives, largely because the Indonesian military permitted international relief agencies to operate in Timor-Leste only once it decided that it had achieved its military objectives. • In the 1980s some of those living in the camps were allowed to return to their home villages but they continued to live under restriction. Others were moved to “new villages” and other locations explicitly selected for their strategic value to the Indonesian military. • In the same period displacement continued to be used as an integral part of the Indonesian counter-insurgency strategy. As the Resistance began to recover from its near destruction in the late 1970s, the military responded by displacing people suspected of having links with it, whether as members of a clandestine network or simply because they had family members in the bush. Beginning in 1980 thousands of people, the majority of whom were women and children, were transported to the barren island of Ataúro.