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A leaked report charges that Indonesia's 24-year occupation of East Timor led to the deaths of more than 100,000 people, and alleges that many of them were deliberately starved by the Indonesian army. East Timor's president gave the report to the United Nations on Friday, but he strongly resisted making the charges public. NPR's Corey Flintoff reports.

Corey Flintoff reporting:

President Xanana Gusmao was required by East Timor's law to give the UN a copy of his country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission report. Otherwise, he may have preferred to keep it quiet. Gusmao is a former rebel leader who fought the Indonesian occupation and spent years in Indonesian jails, but he views the report as counterproductive to East Timor's current relationship with its gigantic neighbor.

President Xanana Gusmao (Indonesia): The main objective of the report is to present the situation of 24 years of war. The numbers, the figures can be disputed.

Flintoff: The report still hasn't been officially made public, but a copy that was leaked to an Australian newspaper details massive human rights violations, most of them committed by the Indonesian military during the occupation that ended in 1999.

Mr. Eduardo Gonzalez (Senior Associate, International Center for Transitional Justice): What the report says, basically, is that the absolute majority of the deaths related to the conflict are deaths that are directly related to the use of famine as a weapon of war, and that is probably one of the most shocking findings.

Flintoff: Eduardo Gonzalez works for the International Center for Transitional Justice which advised the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Gonzalez says the report shows that as many as 80,000 people died when the army encircled and starved the villages that were believed to support the East Timorese rebels.

Mr. Gonzalez: In this report there is also very shocking revelations about the use of torture, the use of sexual violence, the forced displacement of populations.

Flintoff: The report also charges that Indonesia used napalm and chemical weapons to poison food and water and burned or buried some victims alive. Indonesia set up its own human rights court to try some members of the military, but a UN report issued last summer said the process was inadequate and that perpetrators were not held accountable. Human rights campaigners called it ludicrous.

Last week Indonesia's state secretary told reporters that it won't help to look at the past. He noted that Indonesia and the East Timorese government have created a separate group called the Commission of Truth and Friendship. President Gusmao said, too, that he believed that commission was the best way to bring closure to East Timor without seeking to punish specific Indonesians.

President Gusmao: We don't advocate punitive justice but restorative justice. He happened in South Africa. It happened in other countries, also.

Flintoff: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommends that the United Nations take a stronger role in investigating abuses in East Timor, a move that would relieve the tiny country's government of the burden of taking on its powerful neighbor. Even so, Eduardo Gonzalez says East Timor must take a stand.

Mr. Gonzalez: It is important that the Timorese authorities realize that 100,000 people killed are not a footnote in the history of their country and that we are talking about enormous crime, fundamental atrocity, and it is high time to stop sacrificing the rights of the victims in the altar of political expediency.

Flintoff: The commission also recommends that reparations be paid to the victims and their families, with the bulk of the money coming from Indonesia. Reparations would also come from countries and corporations that are alleged to have supported the Indonesian occupation and that includes the United States which is accused of supplying arms to the Indonesian military.

Corey Flintoff, NPR News, Washington.