I REFER to the article on East Timor which appeared in the South China Morning Post, on December 7, the demonstrations on the same day outside the Indonesian Consulate General Building, in Hong Kong and the statement released by the Asian Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong, regarding the accusation about the disappearance of 200,000 people in East Timor. I should like to explain the situation, in the interests of truth.
As everyone knows East Timor was a Portuguese colony for around 400 years. When the Portuguese faced revolution at home, they loosened their grip on East Timor, leaving it in a dreadful condition caused by civil war.
In every civil war there are victims. This was a fact that had been concealed by the Portuguese and Fretilin in exile. Fretilin was engaged in an orgy of killing, as eyewitness, Australian journalist Frank Alcorta reported.
The accusation of 200,000 East Timorese killed by the Indonesian Army is aimed at discrediting Indonesia.
Heavy losses of human life in East Timor were caused by irresponsibility of the Portuguese authorities and the chaos they left behind, when they departed in 1974. This is the irrefutable truth of what happened in 1975, that Portugal has tried to conceal from the international community.
There were two factors that brought about changes in the population structure of East Timor.