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CAVR Timor-Leste Data Publication

These files contain the data used in the calculations made and presented in Benetech-HRDAG's Report to the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR). This extends the analysis published in the CAVR's 2,500-page final report "Chega!" (Portuguese for 'no more, that's enough'), as its "Profile of Violations in Timor-Leste, 1974 to 1999" chapter and "Annexe on Data and Statistical Methods."

In accordance with Benetech-HRDAG's Memorandum of Understanding with the CAVR, these data are published on the Internet so that others can use the material to replicate our findings and continue research on past human rights violations in Timor-Leste. In order to protect the privacy of the people who suffered, the information in the files below contains only data on fatal violations, and there is no personal identifying information about the victims or witnesses of the violations. In particular, the names (firstnames, lastnames and nicknames) of individual victims are not published. Also, geographic location information and date information are published in aggregated forms: locations are published only at the district level, and dates are given only with the year and month.

Below, we present four anonymized datasets which HRDAG developed jointly with the CAVR:

HRVD

the graveyard census database, called the Graveyard Census Database (GCD)
the fatal violations data from the Retrospective Mortality Survey (RMS)
the Multiple Systems Estimation (MSE) data file

Additional information on how these datasets were collected and processed is available in the report cited above. If corrections or additions to the data or to the documentation are required, we will post them on this website.

Human Rights Violations (HRVD) Data

The Human Rights Violations Database (HRVD) consists of a collection of narrative statements from deponents to the Commission's statement-taking process, qualitative reports from Amnesty International (AI) and data collected by Fokupers, a local Timorese NGO.

The published HRVD data contains the following data-fields:

Variables	Description
victid	Unique identifier for each reported victim
source_id	Unique Identifier for a narrative statement (CAVR & Fokupers) / Report (Amnesty International)
violation	Abridged violation classification
date	Date of violation (year and month)
birth	Date of birth
victage	Age of victim in years
actor_match_group	Identifier for each unique victim
datasource	Source of data
victage_grp	Age categories with 5 year period ( 0-4, 5-9, ... , 75-79, 80+ )
vict_sexc	Victim sex
pe_ind	alleged perpetrators include Indonesian Military and Police
pe_time	alleged perpetrators include Timorese Collaborators of Indonesian Military
pe_res	alleged perpetrators include Resistance & Pro-Independence Groups
pe_oth	alleged perpetrators include Other
pe_civpopn	alleged perpetrators include Civilian Population
pe_aut	alleged perpetrators include Pro-Autonomy Groups
pe_nor	alleged perpetrators were Not Reported
in_cavr_hrvd	documented by CAVR testimonies
in_cavr_fokupers	documented by Fokupers
in_cavr_amnesty	documented by Amnesty
vln_0	Original violation classification
lo_dist	district
in_falantil	victim was affiliated with Falantil
in_fretilin	victim was affiliated with Fretilin
in_apodeti	victim was affiliated with Apodeti
in_udt	victim was affiliated with the UDT
in_civildefense	victim was affiliated with the Civil Defense
in_civilianpopn	victim was affiliated with the Civil Defense
in_proindepgroups	victim was affiliated with Other Pro-independence groups
in_proautonomygroups	victim was affiliated with Other Pro-autonomy groups
in_church	victim was affiliated with Catholic Church
in_tim	victim was affiliated with Timorese collaborators of the TNI & Police
in_res	victim was affiliated with Other Resistance groups

This dataset should be cited as Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation & Benetech Human Rights Data Analysis Group. "Human Rights Violations Database." published 9 February, 2006. http://www.hrdag.org/resources/timor-leste_data.shtml

Graveyard Census Database (GCD) Data

The Graveyard Census Database (GCD), was a comprehensive census of public graveyards in each of Timor-Leste's thirteen districts. The published GCD data contains the following data-fields:

Variables	Description
grave_id	Unique identifier for a grave
cemetery_id	Unique identifier for a cemetery
sex	Sex (Imputed from Name) (M = Male, F= Female, B = Possibly Both, U = Unknown)
lo_dist	District
dob	Date of death (YYYYMM)
dod	Date of death (YYYYMM)

This dataset should be cited as Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation & Benetech Human Rights Data Analysis Group. "Graveyard Census Database." published 9 February, 2006. http://www.hrdag.org/resources/timor-leste_data.shtml

Retrospective Mortality Survey (RMS) Data

The Retrospective Mortality Survey (RMS) was a random-sample household survey used to measure displacement and mortality during the CAVR's mandate period.

The CAVR and HRDAG undertook a Retrospective Mortality Survey to provide a probability-based estimate of displacement and deaths. This survey drew a stratified random sample of households, and used a structured questionnaire to collect information about deaths in the family of the sampled household. The survey enabled statistical estimates of the extent of natural mortality, famine related deaths, conflict-related deaths, and migration.

NOTE: this file contains all reported deaths. To accurately estimate total deaths, the deaths which were reported more than once must be deduplicated. This means that in each group of records defined by a common match_id, only one record may be used in estimation.

The published RMS data contains the following data-fields:

Variables	Description
people_id	id for reported deaths
match_id	id for unique deaths
sex	sex of the victim
age	age of the victim
dob_yr	year of birth
dob_mo	month of birth
birth_geo1	district of birth (see codes in TL-desc)
vln_rms	type of death (1 death by execution/torture/ill-treatment 2 death by hunger/illness 3 combatant death 4 other/unknown)
dod_yr	year of death
dod_mo	month of death
death_geo1	district of death (see codes in TL-desc)
was_buried	1=yes, 2=no, 3=unknown
death_geo1	district of death (see codes in TL-desc)
cem_geo1	district of cemetery
cluster_id	sample cluster id
urban_rural	0=rural, 1=urban (of the sampled aldeia, for stratification)
altitude	altitude of the sampled aldeia, for stratification
sample_geo1	district of the sampled aldeia, for stratification
stratum_id	identifies stratification
hh_no	household id in this aldeia
pps_wt_1990	household weight given 1990 household distributions
pps_wt_2004	household weight after adjustment using 2004 census
rels_in_hh	number of decedent's living relatives living in the sampled household
known_rels	number of decedents' relatives known to be living
est_rels	this decedent's sampling weight
sampling_wt	vln_rms

NOTE: the population and household data for Timor-Leste districts and subdistricts in 1990 and 2004 is available from the Central Bureau of Statistics of Timor-Leste; those data are not reproduced here.

This dataset should be cited as Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation & Benetech Human Rights Data Analysis Group."Retrospective Mortality Survey Database." published 9 February, 2006. http://www.hrdag.org/resources/timor-leste_data.shtml

Multiple Systems Estimation (MSE) Data

The combined data from all three of the Commission's data streams - the HRVD, the RMS, and the GCD - were used to make independent demographic estimates of the total extent, pattern, trend, and levels of responsibility for past fatal violations in Timor-Leste.

The published MSE data contains the following data-fields:

Variables	Description
mse_id	identifies this death
dob_yr	year of birth
dob_mo	month of birth
birth_geo1	is the district of birth; these codes follow the same classifications as defined in the TL-desc dataset
sex	is the victim's sex (male, female, unknown)
vln	type of death (1 civilian killing or disappearance 2 hunger/illness 3 combatant 4 other/unknown)
dod_yr	year of death
dod_mo	month of birth
victage	is the age of the victim at death (sometimes reported in preference to DOD)
death_reg	is region of death: 1 Western 2 Central 3 Eastern 4 Oecussi
death_geo1	is the district of death; these codes follow the same classifications as defined in the TL-desc dataset
hrvd	1 if this death was found in the hrvd testimonies
rms	1 if this death was found in the rms survey
gcd	1 if this death was found in the graveyard census
pe_*	the variables pe_* follow the same classifications as defined in the TL-desc dataset. pe_aut pe_civpopn pe_ind pe_oth pe_res pe_tim

This dataset should be cited as Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation & Benetech Human Rights Data Analysis Group."Multiple Systems Estimation Datafiles". published 9 February, 2006. http://www.hrdag.org/resources/timor-leste_data.shtml

The materials contained herein represent the opinions of the authors and editors and should not be construed to be the view of the Benetech Initiative, any of Benetech's constituent projects, the Benetech Board of Directors or the donors to Benetech.

These data are copyright © 2006 by
The Benetech Initiative
480 S. California Ave., Suite 201
Palo Alto, CA 94306-1609

Certain rights are granted under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license, available on the web at:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/1.0/legalcode

The license terms are summarized here:

Attribution: The licensor permits others to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work. In return, licensees must give the original author credit.

Noncommercial: The licensor permits others to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work. In return, licensees may not use the work for commercial purposes, unless they get the licensor's permission.

Share Alike: The licensor permits others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the one that governs the licensor's work.

Contact Information:
The Benetech Initiative
tel: +1 650-644-3400
fax: +1 650-475-1066
Email: info@benetech.org
Web: http://www.benetech.org

Last updated: 13:41 PDT 10 February, 2006

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