Are the combatants (e.g. Indonesian soldiers, officers, and police officials, as well as the resistance fighters) who died in the conflict included in the estimate of 18,600 killings?
No. Although some combatant deaths were reported in the CAVR’s statement-taking process and Retrospective Mortality Survey, these data sources did not have sufficient coverage of combatant deaths to produce valid statistical estimates of combatant deaths. Given the focus of CAVR’s mandate on human rights violations and the Commission’s limited time and resources, the CAVR decided not to include killings of combatants in its mortality estimates. Widening the scope of statistical estimates to include “combatant” deaths would have required large-scale data collection work in West Timor and other parts of Indonesia where Indonesian military and pro-autonomy militias were located in 2002-2004 when the CAVR was collecting data. The CAVR initially did try to collect data in West Timorese refugee camps, and managed to collect 86 interviews within the camps. However, due to security concerns for CAVR staff and interviewees, the Commission was forced to halt these data collection efforts. Since
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