Juliana dos Santos says she had been a “conflict trophy” for 22 years when she determined it was time to flee the person she claims stored her a prisoner and a slave.
Days after Timor Leste’s independence poll in 1999, Juliana was kidnapped at 15 by a pro-Indonesia militia chief and taken throughout the border to Indonesian West Timor.
She stated she was raped, compelled to marry her alleged kidnapper Egidio Manek, and gave start to his youngster on the age of 16.
“He took different wives, the fifth one lived with us,” she stated.
“I used to be handled like a slave and compelled to serve him and his spouse. All of the family chores, together with tending the fields, have been left to me.”
Juliana stated her captor was abusive.
“Typically he would beat me till my eyes have been black and swollen,” she stated.
“I might simply keep silent as a result of the kids have been nonetheless small and I attempted to be affected person.”
However in January this yr, Juliana may take no extra.
Along with her youngsters’s encouragement, she made a daring sprint for the border.
However she stated her captor was not keen to let her go and not using a battle.
‘He grabbed my hand and stated I needed to marry him’
Juliana dos Santos and her household nonetheless reside with the trauma of the day she disappeared.
It was per week after the Timorese had voted overwhelmingly to help independence and an finish to the 24-year Indonesian occupation.
For months main as much as the vote, militia gangs waged a marketing campaign of terror throughout Timor Leste, murdering and torturing those that supported independence, burning their properties and livestock, and deporting Timorese civilians by the truckload to West Timor.
Professional-Jakarta militiamen are accused of waging a marketing campaign of terror in Timor after folks voted overwhelmingly for independence. (Reuters)
Juliana and her household have been amongst tons of who had fled to the Catholic Church at Suai on Timor Leste’s south coast, as militia thugs backed by Indonesian troopers circled with rifles, swords and machetes.
Her 13-year-old brother Carlos was murdered, together with as much as 200 different those who day.
One of many militia leaders who ordered the killings at Suai, Egidio Manek, seized the then-15-year-old Juliana and compelled her into a close-by automobile.
“As we tried to flee the church, Egidio was ready on the door,” she stated.
“He grabbed my hand and stated I needed to marry him. I did not even know him. He compelled me right into a automobile that was closely guarded by his males.
“I used to be crying uncontrollably when my mother and father got here out of the church, however I could not even embrace them as a result of I used to be locked contained in the automobile.”
‘Once we’re older, we’ll observe you’
Juliana stated she was within the possession of Egidio Manek, then deputy commander of the Laksaur militia, which carried out the Suai bloodbath.
The United Nations-administered Particular Panel for Critical Crimes later indicted him and 13 others with crimes in opposition to humanity.
Egidio Manek was charged with a number of counts of homicide, torture, rape, enforced disappearance, deportation and inhumane acts, a lot of them regarding the slaughter at Suai.
