Displacement and Detention on Atauro Island During the Indonesian Occupation of East Timor

Research output: Contribution to Book/Report typesChapterpeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

The small island of Ataúro, located approximately twenty-five kilometres off the north coast of East Timor, has a long history of being used as a prison island. The Portuguese colonial administration did so over a long period, as did the Japanese occupying forces during the Second World War. The Government of Indonesia, which occupied East Timor from 1975 to 1999, implemented a similar policy. From 1980 until 1984, Ataúro was used as a holding centre for an estimated 4,000 people from across the territory - most of whom were women, children, and the elderly - as part of a military administrative strategy of isolating, detaining, and surveilling individuals and families who were considered a possible support base for the East Timorese resistance. This chapter examines life on Ataúro Island for those detainees. Conditions on the island changed across the course of the period, but daily life was generally marked by a harsh regime of deprivation, isolation, and disease. Following their release, former detainees continued to be subjected to various systems of surveillance, sporadic interrogation and detention, and restrictive policies on movement. This chapter argues that the use of Ataúro as a "prison island"is emblematic of the occupying regime's systematic attempts to displace local populations, to cut off ties between civilians and the resistance and, in so doing, to deeply disrupt the social fabric of East Timorese societies.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationSocial Sciences in Asia
EditorsRobert Cribb, Christina Twomey, Sandra Wilson
PublisherBrill Academic Publishers
Pages100-116
Number of pages17
DOIs
StatePublished - 2022

Publication series

NameSocial Sciences in Asia
Volume41
ISSN (Print)1567-2794

Keywords

  • Ataúro Island
  • East Timor
  • Indonesian occupation of East Timor
  • detention
  • detention camps
  • displacement
  • prison island

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