Indonesianization is an ongoing process with a missionary and racist zeal. As a former Indonesian military commander described the task: "It is the new Indonesian civilization we are bringing. And it is not easy to civilize backward people." 

The first step in this civilizing mission is physical control of the population. As early as April 1976, FRETILIN's underground radio network reported the existence of "guarded camps" in Indonesian-controlled areas. According to a July 1979 report by the Australian Council for Overseas Aid, there were fifteen camps with a population of 318,921 "displaced persons": 

[ABRI] ordered people to move from their own village or district into one or other of the fifteen centers as part of its strategy against FRETILIN. The strategy, which resembles counter-insurgency techniques employed against guerrillas in places such as Rhodesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, has increased the Indonesian army's control over the local population and allowed it, in the words of an Indonesian parliamentarian, “to separate the people from the terrorists” (i.e., FRETILIN).

The people in the camps were soon moved to "resettlement villages" that still exist today. They're located far away from the FALINTIL resistance, usually near asphalt roads to make them easily accessible to ABRI. When settling the camps, the occupation authorities deliberately broke up the traditional forms of social organization, placing people from the same villages, clans or hamlets in different resettlement villages, so that an organized resistance would be less likely to develop. 

Within the villages, the military, police and babinsas (the eyes and ears of ABRI in the settlements) have kept a tight rein on the people. According to the former bishop of Dili, "The babinsas are everywhere. They are the ones who have to know about everything happening in the villages and the settlements. Everything has to be reported to them." 

Justino, a visitor to the villages, describes the physical control and deplorable conditions found there: 

There were many resettlement villages—we call them concentration camps. There were fifty camps around Baucau in 1979. People were brought to a camp a long way from their own place. They missed their land and their belongings, their ancestors and lulik [sacred] things. The camps were for the Indonesian military to control people and keep them away from Resistance fighters.... 

The camps were open areas, no fences, with small Timorese houses made of bamboo that last a few months—people built them themselves. To get into a camp you had to get special permission. I visited sometimes with a priest. 

I didn't talk much to [the people in the camps] because there were informers and the military were always there, but I saw a lot of sick and starving people and I know many died because they weren't allowed to move far, they couldn't farm or collect enough food. If they went far outside the camp, they were suspected of contacting guerrillas and could be shot or put in prison or disappear.

Then, beginning in 1991, the Indonesian authorities requested that all private property owners convert their property certificates from the Portuguese to the Indonesian system. Since there's been massive dislocation from the war, and since Indonesia requires that land be "owner-occupied," this new system threatens both private landholdings by East Timorese living in exile abroad and traditionally-held lands, and will further concentrate land in the hands of Indonesian interests. 

But even those who still work their land face economic control. Farmers who grow coffee, for example, are forced to sell it to P. T. Denok, a military monopoly set up by General Benny Murdani and a few associates immediately after the invasion. As an Indonesian military commander in East Timor remarked, it was "the only company that landed with the marines. They came together." 

P. T. Denok's monopoly has resulted in declining incomes for small East Timorese farmers, while the company's coffee profits have allowed it to diversify. One of its subsidiaries, P. T. Scent, has a monopoly on the collection and sale of sandalwood, which have increased significantly under the Indonesian occupation. 

Today the P. T. Batara Indra Group controls P. T. Denok, P. T. Scent and ten other subsidiaries in East Timor. The group owns Dili's only movie theater and its three luxury hotels, controls the territory's marble production and imports a wide variety of consumer products. According to a leading Indonesian academic, the group virtually controls the East Timorese economy. Although the companies are nominally owned by civilians, there's little doubt that ABRI, or interests close to the military, ultimately control them. 

Outside the military-controlled areas of the economy, Indonesian business interests almost completely dominate East Timorese commerce. Indonesian entrepreneurs have filled the economic vacuum created by the slaughter and flight of most East Timor's ethnic Chinese. Basic industries that produced agricultural tools, clothing, household goods and building materials during the Portuguese era have largely disappeared, and these goods are now imported from Indonesia. A 1980 Indonesian anthropological study warned: 

There needs to be some form of protection given to prevent big business commoditizing land and commercializing everyday life in the more remote areas. Without protection the East Timorese will simply become victims of moneyed interests from other regions [of Indonesia].

A third step of Indonesianization is control of the educational system, which completely neglects any information about East Timor that doesn't correspond to Jakarta's official viewpoint. Indonesian [Bahasa Indonesia] is the only language allowed in schools. Military culture is also taught, and all students must memorize Pancasila, the supposed ideological basis of Indonesian society. 

The school system also strongly encourages physical education (which is closely connected to the militarization of society) and membership in Pramuka, the state-controlled scout organization. Said one refugee, "There is a lot of physical education, less academic work and considerable singing of songs—the Indonesian anthem, the Pancasila set to music which you must memorize, school songs and songs patriotic to Indonesia." 

But while Indonesia asserts that the number of schools in East Timor has increased dramatically since the invasion, illiteracy remains high (in 1989, it was estimated at 92%). This is probably due as much to East Timorese resistance to Indonesianization as it is to Jakarta's misplaced educational priorities. 

Not trusting that all these tactics will sufficiently Indonesianize the local population, Jakarta has resorted to other, more severe measures. They've begun a World Bank-funded program to decrease the birth rate of East Timorese women. A 1986 letter from inside East Timor describes the coercive nature of this program: 

Officials of the state planning program are present in every little village and hamlet to make people limit their number of children, and each family is only allowed to have three children. In the interior the military force our women to receive injections, and pills are being distributed to them for the same effect. All the women are being forced to take part in this. It is one way the enemy has to make our ethnic identity disappear.

While attempting to limit the East Timorese population, Indonesian authorities actively encourage Indonesians from throughout the country to migrate to East Timor. Under the guise of relieving population pressures in the relatively crowded islands like Java and Bali, and filling "empty" land in places like East Timor, Jakarta uses this "transmigration" program to try to create a pan-Indonesian identity and to serve the security needs of the military. 

Land given to the transmigrants was either formerly owned by East Timorese who were forcibly relocated, or is deemed "underutilized" by the Indonesian authorities. In neither situation are the former owners compensated. 

Jakarta hopes that transmigration will help East Timor's population reach one million by the year 2000, although the actual number who have transmigrated so far is not very high. One 1989 estimate stated that only about 500 families from outside East Timor have settled in the territory, mostly in areas that border West Timor. Recent reports indicate that the transmigration has continued; there was a target of 425 families for 1992–93. 

Another kind of migration—"spontaneous" or "voluntary" migration of people from all over Indonesia—poses an even more serious threat to East Timorese ethnic identity. Thousands of Indonesians have migrated to East Timor in search of land, economic opportunities or government jobs. 

One report states that 25,000 heads of families from other islands of Indonesia voluntarily migrated to East Timor during 1989 alone. In 1992, an estimated 100,000 Indonesians were living in East Timor (out of a total population about 750,000). 

Another thrust of Indonesianization is Jakarta's attempt to make its invasion of East Timor look like a civil war between East Timorese in favor of integration with Indonesia and those opposed to it. Two ABRI battalions of East Timorese have been formed, mostly made up of conscripts. ABRI has also formed local militias, often with compulsory participation. 

"Jorge," now a refugee in Australia, describes his experience in one such militia: 

I was in high school, a student, when the war started in Timor. I had no political ties, didn't belong to any party. My friends and I were forced to join the Indonesian army. We were warned; all who didn't join the army had to take the consequences. That means that they say you are communist. None of us wanted to but there was no way not to fight. If you don't fight, you get killed yourself. 

I went on operations to kill other Timorese, ordinary people. Then I felt strange. None of us felt good. At first we are sad, we have remorse, but after two or three years, it was easy. You get used to killing.... 

I was forced to kill my best friend. I don't want to talk about it. I don't feel good when I think about it....They knew he was my friend and I was forced to shoot him. They do these things to test you.

[For a hard copy of this book, try your local bookstore or call Odonian Press at 800 REAL STORY.  Or visit Common Courage Press]