The Indonesian military used starvation and sexual violence as weapons to control the province of East Timor during a 24-year occupation that caused the deaths of up to 180,000 civilians, according to a UN report cited yesterday by The Australian newspaper.
The newspaper said it obtained a copy of the 2,500-page report by the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation, which is due to be handed to UN headquarters in New York by East Timor President Xanana Gusmao today.
The report claims the policies of Indonesia's military against East Timor's civilian population caused the deaths of between 84,000 and 183,000 people -- up to a third of the territory's population -- between 1975 and 1999.
More than 90 percent of the deaths were due to hunger and illness, it said.
The Indonesian security forces "consciously decided to use starvation of East Timorese civilians as a weapon of war," the report says.
"The intentional imposition of conditions of life which could not sustain tens of thousands of East Timorese civilians amounted to extermination as a crime against humanity committed against the East Timorese population," it said.
Of 18,600 unlawful killings or disappearances reported in East Timor during the occupation, Indonesian police or soldiers were to blame for 70 percent of the deaths, it said.
The Australian said the report detailed how Indonesian soldiers employed napalm and chemical weapons to poison food and water supplies during the 1975 invasion of the territory.
The report was based on interviews with almost 8,000 witnesses as well as Indonesian military papers and intelligence from international sources.
It gave details of thousands of summary executions and the torture of 8,500 people, including the burying and burning alive of victims and the cutting off of ears and genitals to display to families, the paper said.
Thousands of East Timorese women were allegedly raped and sexually assaulted during the occupation.
"Rape, sexual slavery and sexual violence were tools used as part of the campaign designed to inflict a deep experience of terror, powerlessness and hopelessness upon pro-independence supporters," the commission was quoted as saying.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of