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Octaviana do Santos was only six years old when her civil-servant father, who was involved in East Timor's pro-independence movement, was taken away.
DILI (AlertNet) - Octaviana do Santos was only six years old when her civil-servant father, who was involved in East Timor's pro-independence movement, was taken away.
On April 4, 1999 - a few months before the landmark referendum in which the Timorese people voted overwhelmingly for independence from Indonesia - the family went to the local church in Liquica district to hide from pro-Jakarta militia. They came the next day, together with the military.
Santos, now 17, says she has not seen her father since.
As the sole breadwinner, "he gave us money and food and everything we needed", explains the secondary school student, sitting in the spartan living room of the one-storey house she shares with her mother and two siblings.
"After he passed away, we started again from zero."
"Until now we have not found the grave," she says. "From my point of view, we want justice. I want to know where (the militia) took my father, what they did and where they put the body."
This sentiment is echoed by other Timorese I spoke to who lost their loved ones during Jakarta's bloody 24-year rule. It runs contrary to the Timorese government's repeated call for forgiveness and reconciliation.
GOODBYE CONFLICT, HELLO DEVELOPMENT
But the idea of justice - at least in the sense of bringing to trial the perpetrators of a crime or getting them to accept responsibility - is rather taboo these days, as East Timor (Timor-Leste), one of Asia's poorest nations, works to improve ties with its former occupier and closest neighbour.
Both Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao and President and Nobel Laureate Jose Ramos-Horta have emphasised the need to move on and criticised those who have called for an international tribunal.
Different processes over the years have attempted to bring the perpetrators to book, but local rights groups say none has provided true accountability.
Ramos-Horta - who lost two brothers whose bodies have yet to be found - told AlertNet the best way to help people who experienced the atrocities "is not always to think about the worst, living in nightmares ... but to think of what is positive today."
Eight years after full independence, the government's motto is "goodbye conflict, hello development".
But for families of the missing and the dead, the insistence on forgiveness adds to their pain and sorrow, especially when the alleged perpetrators live freely in Indonesia.
"We are sacrificing ourselves for the country but we have not received anything from the government," says 26-year-old university graduate Dores Maria da Silva.
Her father was a victim of the post-referendum violence, stabbed three times and burned as he tried to hide in a high school compound. They found his body a week later, identifying him by his T-shirt and necklace.
MISSING BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
It is estimated that up to 180,000 people were killed during Indonesia's occupation, including 1,000 in the aftermath of the referendum, but there are no accurate statistics on how many are missing.
Almost every person I met remembers vividly the mayhem that occurred during those years, and many have friends and relatives who were killed or are still missing.
There is no centralised database or information repository on the missing, according to Zurab Burduli, East Timor head for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which traces missing people and restores links between family members separated by the conflict.
Two months ago, the agency helped reunite two brothers - who were nine and 13 when separated from their family in 1999, and are now living in Indonesia - with their relatives in East Timor.
"The ICRC estimates tens of thousands (are missing). People keep unearthing human remains or accepting the death of their beloved ones even without finding the bodies," Burduli says.
And politicising the issue can be counter-productive.
"Focusing on retributive justice makes (the already sensitive issue) even more delicate, when Timor-Leste and Indonesia spare no effort to normalise their mutual relationship," he says.
Yet the families of the missing need "some sort of closure after so many years of anguish", he adds, ideally by being able to retrieve their remains and bury them properly in a traditional ceremony.
NEEDS OF SURVIVORS
A recent ICRC report on the families of the missing found that almost a third are still seeking the truth about their loved ones' fate.
"In some cases, the impact of the ambiguity of their loss remains severe, even decades after disappearance," it said.
The same proportion would like recognition from the state for the sacrifice their relatives made, but the largest number - over 60 percent - said they needed economic assistance, especially those who lost husbands and fathers back in 1999.
Aid agencies like ICRC argue that, beyond the call for justice, the additional needs of affected families should not be overlooked.
Two draft laws currently in parliament have at least raised hopes that East Timor can find a balance between cementing relations with Indonesian leaders and not forgetting those who died in the conflict.
The laws allow for the establishment of an institute to remember the victims, and reparation for their families.
Meanwhile, surviving relatives soldier on.
"Now my mother has to work and try to feed us," Santos says. "We are hoping that Timor-Leste can live in peace and harmony. We don't want past problems or wars repeated in the future."
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