Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – Human rights activists have criticized the government's defensive stance on a report by an independent commission, which claims that up to 180,000 people died during Indonesia's 24-year occupation of East Timor (now Timor Leste).

The Timor Leste government submitted the report to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Saturday (Indonesian time).

Abdul Hakim Garuda Nusantara, chairman of the National Commission of Human Rights, and Ifdhal Kasim, coordinator of the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (Elsam), said Monday the government should treat the report with an open mind.

They said Indonesia and Timor Leste and should focus on peaceful, legal solutions to past human rights abuses in Timor Leste. A defensive reaction would be counterproductive and could lower Indonesia's standing in the international community.

The inability of Indonesian courts' to convict any high-ranking military officers implicated in the rioting around the 1999 UN-sponsored referendum had already tarnished Indonesia's image, they said.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has expressed his deep concerns about the report, while Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono rejected it outright.

Prepared by the independent East Timorese Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation the report alleges that the Indonesia Military used starvation and sexual violence as weapons to control the territory during the occupation. It also accused soldiers of using napalm and chemical weapons to poison food and drinking water.

The commission investigated human rights abuses that happened from 1975, when Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese colony, through 1999.

Timor Leste President Xanana Gusmao had kept the report secret for fears of irritating Indonesia, but it was leaked to the Australian media before it was sent to the government and the UN.

Ifdhal and Abdul Hakim said the report contained many truths because it was based on reports from thousands of witnesses who endured or witnessed rights abuses.

"Indonesia should also admit that president Soeharto's decision to invade East Timor was wrong and we realized later that (the decision) had neither political nor economic advantages," Abdul Hakim said.

The government should study the report, and then give its version of the story to the Timor Leste government and the international community, clarifying where the report was wrong.

"Like other countries such as Japan, Korea and South Africa, Indonesia should confess it has made mistakes and should offer an apology," he said.

"The government should lobby the UN and Timor Leste not to bring the human rights abuse cases to the International Court of Justice and to settle them through reconciliation like other countries like Peru, El Salvador and Argentina did in their transitions from authoritarian regimes to a democratic governments," he said.

Abdul Hakim believed it wouldn't be easy for the UN to take former Indonesian officials to the international court because Timor Leste would probably not want to prosecute them, preferring to maintain good relations with Indonesia for the sake of its economy.

The commission's main role in writing the report was to seek the truth about the past and then encourage reconciliation, they said. "But Indonesia has to be ready to make an apology to Timor Leste and pay compensation to all the victims of human rights abuses," Ifdhal said.