TY - CHAP
T1 - Displacement and Detention on Atauro Island During the Indonesian Occupation of East Timor
AU - Loney, Hannah
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Hannah Loney.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - Ataúro Island
KW - East Timor
KW - Indonesian occupation of East Timor
KW - detention
KW - detention camps
KW - displacement
KW - prison island
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85134291058&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1163/9789004512573_007
DO - 10.1163/9789004512573_007
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:85134291058
T3 - Social Sciences in Asia
SP - 100
EP - 116
BT - Social Sciences in Asia
A2 - Cribb, Robert
A2 - Twomey, Christina
A2 - Wilson, Sandra
PB - Brill Academic Publishers
ER -