Mark Dodd, Dili – The Australian wife of the independence leader Mr Xanana Gusmao has blasted Indonesian authorities over their lack of action in securing the freedom of an East Timorese teenage girl raped then abducted by a militia leader as a sex slave.
Ms Kirsty Sword Gusmao, a strong supporter of greater justice for East Timorese victims of sexual violence, said repeated promises by Indonesia to free Juliana dos Santos, now 16, had not been fulfilled.
In September 1999, Juliana, a survivor of the Suai cathedral massacre, was raped at the district military headquarters before being abducted as a war prize by the Laksaur militia leader Igidio Mnanek and taken across the border to Indonesian West Timor, where she remains.
Ms Sword Gusmao claims Juliana saw Mnanek murder her brother in the cathedral massacre on September 6, which left as many as 200 people dead. East Timorese human rights officials say Juliana became pregnant after being raped repeatedly in the refugee camps of West Timor.
Ms Sword Gusmao said refugees returning from West Timor in December had delivered a letter allegedly written by Juliana but denounced by her distraught parents as a trick by her captor husband Mnanek. They said Juliana was now living in Wamasa village, about a kilometre inside the West Timor border.
In the letter, Juliana says she gave birth to a boy on November 27 and wished to be left alone to live with her husband. Ms Sword Gusmao said the letter contained a veiled threat to her parents – "Don't meddle in our affairs and don't try to separate us." It appeared to have been dictated by Mnanek, she added.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees had attempted to secure Juliana's release and her case was raised with Indonesian authorities last year during a visit to West Timor by a team of senior diplomats from the Security Council.
"Basically, there has not been any progress whatsoever in getting her released and in touch with her family in East Timor," Ms Sword Gusmao said.
Despite assurances by Indonesian government and military representatives to the Security Council that efforts would be made to reunite Juliana with her family in Suai, there was no evidence of any concrete steps being taken.
"What Juliana has endured to date is inhuman by anybody's standards," Ms Sword Gusmao said. Other East Timorese women being held in West Timor by militia in similar circumstances must also be returned, she said.
She accused Indonesian officials of failing to uphold their promise, made at a meeting of the Joint Border Committee in Bali in January, to resolve Juliana's case.
"Both sides agreed that Juliana and her baby should be placed in a safe environment free from duress so as to enable her to make her own free choice [to return home or not]," she said.
Mnanek is believed to be in the protective custody of Indonesian security forces after ignoring a summons to appear before the Indonesian Attorney-General, Mr Marzuki Darusman, to answer charges related to his role in the Suai massacre.