JAKARTA, March 30 (Reuters) - The Indonesian military did not arm pro-Jakarta militia groups that went on a rampage in East Timor before and after a 1999 vote on independence , a former general said on Friday.

Major General Adam Damiri was speaking during a public hearing by a truth commission set up by Indonesia and East Timor to examine what happened around the bloody August 1999 referendum.

"TNI had never and would never have given weapons to them," Damiri told the commission. TNI is the abbreviation for the Indonesian armed forces.

Damiri said he had ordered his subordinates to empty armouries and ship weapons to Java before the vote to prevent them from being raided by rioters.

Damiri was the commander of a Bali-based regional garrison, which included East Timor, at the time of the violence.

The United Nations estimates that about 1,000 East Timorese died during the post-vote mayhem, which was blamed largely on pro-Jakarta militias backed by elements of the Indonesian army.

Damiri dismissed the estimated death toll as "nonsense."

"In his briefing to UNAMET and reporters, the then martial law commander said not more than 100 people were killed," he said, referring to the U.N. Mission in East timor.

"These include independence supporters, pro-integration people as well as military and police personnel," he said. "So if anyone suggested that 1,000 people died, it's nonsense."

The truth commission's second series of hearings began on Monday, with ex-Dili bishop and Nobel Peace Prize winner Carlos Belo saying Indonesian soldiers had taken part in attacks on church property and clergymen before and after the vote.

Critics of the truth commission say it is toothless because it lacks the power to punish those found responsible for abuses.

Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975 and annexed East Timor later that year, maintaining a huge and sometimes harsh military presence and fighting rebels for more than two decades.

East Timorese voted overwhelmingly to split from Indonesian rule but some pro-Jakarta voters say the referendum was rigged by the U.N., despite the presence of numerous independent observers who concluded the ballot was largely fair.

East Timor became fully independent in May 2002 after a U.N. transitional administration.

A militia leader, Eurico Guterres, is the only person jailed in Indoneisa for the violence and is serving a 10-year sentence at a Jakarta prison.

Some of the 17 other defendants tried in Indonesia's ad-hoc human rights court over the 1999 events received jail sentences at certain court stages, but all were eventually acquitted by the appellate court or Indonesia's Supreme Court.

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