Behind this Timorese hotel's elegant facade lies a dark history of abuse

From the street, Baucau's Hotel Flamboyan appears elegant and historic, its aging façade a reminder of Timor-Leste's Portuguese colonial past.

But for Maria de Fátima the building holds very different memories.

Warning: This story contains references to sexual abuse and degradation.

During Indonesia's occupation of Timor-Leste, the hotel in the country's second-largest city was used by the military and became notorious as a place of detention, torture and sexual violence.

Ms de Fátima says she was first arrested in 1975 after her brother was suspected of supporting Fretilin, the movement that led the country's resistance to Indonesian rule.

Indonesian forces targeted Fretilin's supporters and their families.

While some took up arms in the jungle, women often suffered in order to protect male members of their families who joined the liberation movement.

"They arrested me and took me to this house," Ms de Fátima said, standing inside the hotel compound.

"They beat me, held me under water, beat me again, and then threw me to the ground."

Ms de Fátima says she was among dozens of women arrested and taken to the Hotel Flamboyan.

That night in 1975, she says she and another woman were later forced into a bathroom at gunpoint.

Their clothes were torn from their bodies before they were raped by a group of Indonesian soldiers.

The assault was not the end of Ms de Fátima's ordeal.

She says Indonesian soldiers continued to abuse her periodically for more than 20 years as a way to pressure her into giving up her brother's whereabouts.

She never did.

But repeated arrests and abuse left her with multiple pregnancies, which resulted in four children.

The abuse only ended with the Indonesian withdrawal in 1999, but the trauma and uncertainty remain.

Now a book has been launched documenting the stories of women who endured violence during the occupation.

The book includes testimonies from survivors, like Ms de Fátima, who have spent decades struggling to speak openly about what happened.

"I don't know the fathers of my four children," she said.

Hidden truth

Ms de Fátima's youngest daughter, Fernanda, was born in 1997, near the end of the occupation.

Ms de Fátima said she was too afraid and ashamed to explain the circumstances of her children's births.

When people asked about their father, she told them he had died.

"What were we supposed to do?"

"I remained silent. I just accepted it," she said.

Fernanda nevertheless heard rumours from neighbours that her father had been Indonesian.

When she questioned her mother, Ms de Fátima became angry and repeated that her father was dead.

The absence of a recognised father affected Fernanda throughout her childhood.

She said other students excluded her at school and told her she was different.

"I was always discriminated against … classmates often said, 'Don't play with her. She doesn't have a father,'" she said.

Even her baptism became complicated.

Fernanda said a priest refused to record her father as unknown, so Ms de Fátima invented a name commonly used in Java: Warto.

But the truth was finally revealed years later when Ms de Fátima was interviewed for a film about the women detained at Hotel Flamboyan.

"They brought the footage back and showed it to me," Fernanda said.

"I was shocked. I learned that I was the child of an Indonesian soldier."

Fernanda says she continues to wrestle with conflicting feelings towards the man whose identity she will probably never know.

"This thought always crosses my mind," she said.

Legacy of sexual violence

Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese colony in December 1975 and occupied it for 24 years.

Timor-Leste's Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation later documented 853 cases of sexual violence during the conflict and occupation, the vast majority committed by Indonesian forces.

The commission warned that the real number was likely far higher because many survivors were frightened or ashamed to speak publicly.

Maria Leong Pereira, from the survivor advocacy organisation ACbit — Chega Ba Ita, said the violence experienced by Ms de Fátima formed part of a broader strategy targeting Timorese women.

"During the war, they used sexual violence as a weapon to intimidate women and break their will to resist," she said.

"They used it as a tactic to destroy people."

Ms Leong Pereira said women suspected of supporting the resistance, or related to resistance members, were detained, threatened and assaulted.

She said some survivors were forced into relationships with Indonesian soldiers, while others were repeatedly raped in military facilities and private homes.

She said many had lived with the psychological, social and economic consequences for decades.

"Many are traumatised and afraid to marry again," Ms Leong Pereira said.

"Some harbour hatred towards men, and some simply continue to hide what happened."

The consequences have also been inherited by the children born from the violence.

Ms Leong Pereira said these children could appear to be living ordinary lives while carrying pain that remained largely invisible to the people around them.

"Children born from the war suffer deeply," she said.

"They continue to live with mistreatment, stigma and bullying."

Breaking decades of silence

Hugo Fernandes, executive director of Centro Nacional Chega, Timor-Leste's national memory and human rights centre, said stigma remained one of the main reasons survivors had stayed silent.

"Women are still not comfortable talking about it," he said.

"The second issue is the stigma that the public attaches to them, without knowing why someone was sexually violated."

Human rights museum Centro Nacional Chega works to preserve the history of the conflict, promote human rights and support the implementation of recommendations made by Timor-Leste's truth commissions.

The organisation is behind the launch of the book that details accounts from survivors who spent decades concealing what happened.

The book's English translation is Fireflies: Light in the Darkness.

For the women involved, publicly recording their testimony is a small but significant step.

"Recognition and reparation are important," Ms de Fátima said.

Indonesia's military didn't respond to the ABC when approached for comment, but Indonesia has previously acknowledged that serious human rights violations occurred and has expressed regret over the violence.

Survivors and advocates, however, continue to call for a formal apology, meaningful reparations and greater assistance for women and children still living with the consequences.

Survivors say justice is not only about courts or what is written in history books, but also about being believed, having their suffering recognised and ensuring their children are no longer treated with shame.

Despite what she has endured, Fernanda says she does not blame her mother.

"My story is indeed sad, but I am proud of my mother," she said.

"She was not ashamed of us. She did not hurt us, and she cared for us until we grew up.

"I do not hate my mother because it was not her wish for us to be here. If there had been no war, perhaps we would not be here."