The Indonesian Occupation of East Timor was a violent example of modern colonialism where the New Order government in Indonesia occupied East Timor and carried out a campaign of repression so brutal some have considered it to be a genocide.
Background
Crimes Against Humanity
Content warning: this article will discuss extreme forms of violence
Conscription
In 1981, the Indonesian army conscripted 80,000 East Timorese men and children to be used as human shields against Fretilin guerillas. Many of those conscripted died of starvation, exhaustion or were shot by Indonesian forces for allowing guerillas to slip through.
Economic Warfare
The military confiscated land and businesses
Enforced Starvation
Massacres
Sex Slavery
Indonesian soldiers enslaved thousands of women and teenage girls and subjected them to sexual slavery, forced marriages and random rapes. Helicopters frequently flew around villages to abduct teenage girls who were walking alone. Some women were chained up and sexually abused for weeks by multiple soldiers.
Torture
Torture methods used by the Indonesian military included rape, electric shocks, beatings, forced ingestion of urine and feces,
End
International Response
Australia
Starting under the most left-wing government in Australian history, Australia became the most enthusiastic supporter of Indonesia's occupation internationally. Australia signed a deal with Indonesia to be allowed to exploit East Timor's oil reserves and ignored Indonesia's killing of Australian journalists covering the conflict. Also, East Timorese resistance members who set up radio stations in northern Australia were arrested and the radios destroyed. Every single government in Australia, both Labor and Liberal, enthusiastically supported the occupation in the name of 'stability' and 'security', despite mass protests by Australians, including Australian World War II veterans who fought alongside East Timorese against the Japanese Empire. To this day, the Australian government has refused to investigate the death of Australian journalists (despite saying they would) and has not issued any kind of apology to the people of East Timor, nor arrested any of their politicians arrested for violating the nuremberg principles.
Canada
Canada abstained from voting in UN resolutions about East Timor, and opposed three. The Canadian government regularly sold weapons to Indonesia during the occupation, and in the 1990s approved over CDN$400 million in exports for spare weapons parts.
India
Japan
Portugal
Portugal became the strongest critic of the occupation,
The day after the invasion, Portugal cut diplomatic ties with Indonesia and went on to support UN resolutions condemning the invasion. However, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Portuguese government appeared reluctant to push the issue; American Indonesia specialist, Benedict Anderson suggests this stemmed from uncertainty at the time over its application to the European Community.[207] Portugal's criticism mounted sharply from the mid-1980s, and due to public pressure, the country became one of the highest profile campaigners in international forums for East Timorese self-determination.[219] Throughout the 1990s, Portugal took part in UN-brokered mediations with Indonesia.[220]