Guido Guilart, Dili – 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 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, a military spokesman, vehemently denied the allegations 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 brutal 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.

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.

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, the military spokesman, 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 Suharto's son-in-law, then Maj. Prabowo Subianto.

Gutteres said soldiers told her sons to attend a gathering at a field in Craras, 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.

"I could not sleep. I cried, fell to my knees and prayed all night long," Gutteres 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.

Subianto 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. Subianto has avoided prosecution because his alleged abuses in East Timor took place before the period covered by the current trials for abuses. Efforts to reach Subianto by telephone were unsuccessful Tuesday.

The reconciliation commission will hear from 20 women who have said they were raped, tortured and imprisoned as sex slaves.