Early in the 16th century the Portuguese were the first Europeans to reach the shores of the Malay Peninsula and the islands of the Malay Archipelago (Insulindia). The Portuguese conquered Malacca (Melaka) in 1511 and established settlements on Timor and surrounding islands in 1514, initiating trade and evangelisation. In 1613 came the Dutch. In the 17th century the Portuguese and the Dutch disputed the trade of spices and sandalwood. They agreed to divide the island of Timor, by means of a series of agreements between 1859 and 1914. East Timor, plus the enclave of Oecussi-Ambeno and the smaller islands of Ataúro and Jaco, became Portuguese Timor, with capital in Díli. The Dutch got West Timor, with capital in Kupang, as well as most of the Indonesian archipelago. The Portuguese established a colonial administration and continued the Catholic evangelisation.
The Portuguese administration, language and religion helped to the development of a separate national identity in East Timor. In 1894 and 1912 there were rebellions of the Timorese against the Portuguese colonial rule. Those rebellions were violently repressed. In 1942, during World War II, the Japanese invaded Portuguese Timor. There was a guerrilla resistance formed by Australians, East Timorese and Portuguese. About 40,000 East Timorese were killed during the Japanese invasion. The resistance in East Timor helped to prevent the Japanese invasion of Australia.
In 1959 another rebellion broke out against the Portuguese colonialism; again, the East Timorese nationalists were violently repressed by the Portuguese authorities.
East Timor was an almost forgotten colony, far away in the other side of the world. The colony was a deportation camp for political prisoners and the Portuguese never invested in the development of the territory.
On 25 April 1974 a revolution in Portugal overthrew the colonial-fascist dictatorship. The colonial war finished in Africa and the African colonies became independent nations in 1974 and 1975.
In East Timor were created political parties: ASDT (Timorese Social-Democratic Association), that later became the FRETILIN (Revolutionary Front for Independent East Timor, fighting for independence); UDT (Timorese Democratic Union, proposing a federation link with Portugal); and the APODETI (Timorese Democratic Popular Association, created with the help or plainly by the Indonesians, wishing the integration of East Timor in the Indonesian Republic). In January 1975 the FRETILIN and the UDT formed a coalition, that lasted until May.
In October 1974 the Indonesian military launched "Operation Komodo", with the aim of destabilising and undermine East Timor, as a way to facilitate posterior invasion.
In the first elections in East Timor, in 1975, the FRETILIN got 55% of the votes and formed a government. A kind of civil war developed with confrontations among the political parties, promoted by the Indonesians, according to the destabilising "Operation Komodo". On 11 August 1975 the UDT tried a coup d’ état and got the power, retaken soon by the FRETILIN. On 15 August the FRETILIN proclaimed the general armed insurrection and East Timorese soldiers of the Portuguese colonial army sided with the FRETILIN.
By the end of August 1975, in the middle of the unrest, the Portuguese authorities and its military forces abandoned East Timor and the East Timorese people, escaping from Díli to the island of Ataúro, and from there to Portugal.
After some weeks of civil war the FRETILIN controlled the situation. The Indonesians continued promoting destabilisation and civil war. In September, Indonesian military, in plain clothes, made raids in East Timor.
On 28 November 1975 the FRETILIN declared unilaterally the independence of the Democratic Republic of East Timor. The new independent republic was recognised by 15 countries. But on 7 December 1975 Indonesia launched "Operation Seroja", invading East Timor by sea, by land and by air, with the approval of the U.S.A., one day after the visit of the US President Gerard Ford and the Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to Jakarta, Indonesia.
The United Nations General Assembly and Security Council condemned the invasion and ordered the withdrawal of the Indonesian troops. Several UNO resolutions against the Indonesian invasion and illegal occupation of East Timor were issued along the years. The United Nations never recognised the sovereignty of Indonesia over East Timor and always considered it a non-autonomous territory with Portugal as the de jure administrating power. Australia was the sole country that recognised, in January 1978, the annexation of East Timor by Indonesia.
In the invasion and the following years there was a massive bloodshed. The Indonesian military forces killed between 200 and 300,000 East Timorese – that was about one third of the population. Journalists, including Australians, were also killed during the invasion. The Indonesian regime of the dictator General Suharto closed the territory of East Timor to the outside world. For years, even the humanitarian organisations were not allowed to enter there. The genocide of East Timor was proportionally worst than the Viet Nam war.
The FRETILIN was forced to retire from Díli and moved to the mountains. The FALINTIL (Armed Forces of East Timor National Liberation, the guerrilla of the FRETILIN) organised the resistance from the mountains, without any military outside help.
On 17 December 1975 the Indonesian military formed a provisional government and proclaimed the integration of East Timor in the Indonesian Republic. On 31 May 1976 a puppet "People’s Assembly", created by the occupation army in Díli, "demanded" the integration of East Timor in Indonesia as its 27th province, under the name of Timor Timur, what was "approved" by the Indonesian National Assembly on 17 August 1976.
In the middle of 1977 the Indonesian army launched the campaigns of "siege and annihilation" (round up and killing). Until 1978 the FALINTIL kept a war of positions and controlled 85% of the territory and 90% of the population. But the power of the Indonesian army was overwhelming. In 1978 Nicolau Lobato, leader of the FRETILIN was killed in combat. Nevertheless, the resistance was not defeated. As usual in cases like this, it was not easy to destroy a guerrilla that is at home in the mountains and has the support of most of the population. In 1980 Xanana Gusmão was chosen as the new Commander-in-Chief of the FALINTIL and leader of the East Timorese resistance.
In 1981 the Indonesians tried again the annihilation of the FALINTIL. A new big operation was undertaken, using innocent civilians as human shields. Again, the Indonesian army failed the objective.
With the Indonesian soldiers weary of war, on 23 March 1983 in liberated territory, under the flags of the FRETILIN and the East Timor Democratic Republic, Xanana Gusmão met Colonel Purwanto, Supreme Commander of the Indonesian army in East Timor. They agreed on a cease-fire. However, the President of Indonesia, dictator General Suharto, opposed to the cease-fire because considered it as a political defeat. Therefore, Suharto substituted the whole army General Staff in East Timor and sent more and fresh soldiers.
The years 1984-1986 were terrible for the East Timorese people. The violence of the occupation army intensified, and the people’s suffering reached the highest levels.
In March 1986 the UDT and the FRETILIN agreed on actions of resistance. In December 1988 was created the CNRT (National Council of the Timorese Resistance), with Xanana Gusmão as President. The CNRT was formed by the FRETILIN and the UDT, with the support of the Catholic Church and the majority of the population.
In December 1989 Indonesia and Australia dealt the Timor Gap agreement on exploitation of the Timor Sea petroleum.
On 12 November 1991 there was a massacre in the Cemetery of Santa Cruz, in Díli. The Indonesian military killed and wounded hundreds of East Timorese civilians that attended a mass in memory of a Timorese independentist who had been killed by the Indonesian troops two weeks before. The massacre was filmed by an American journalist, Steve Cox, alerting thus the world for the terrible situation of the East Timorese people under the military occupation of the Indonesian dictatorship.
Following the Santa Cruz massacre, in 1992 begun the negotiations between Portugal and Indonesia, with the UN support, about the future of East Timor, but without the participation of the East Timorese resistance.
On 20 November 1992 Xanana Gusmão was captured by the Indonesian army and condemned to life imprisonment. Even in prison in Jakarta he continued to be the leader of the resistance and President of the CNRT.
In 1996 Ximenes Belo, the Catholic Bishop of Díli, and Ramos-Horta, representative of the CNRT abroad, were awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, what helped to make known the East Timorese tragedy world-wide.
In May 1998 the dictator General Suharto, President of Indonesia, was overthrown and replaced by Jusuf Habibie. The new President promoted democratic elections in Indonesia and decided to solve the problem of East Timor.
On 5 May 1999, in New York, with the support of the United Nations Organisation, Portugal and Indonesia reached an agreement about a popular consultation (or referendum) for self-determination in East Timor.
The referendum was organised and supervised by the UNAMET (United Nations Mission for East Timor). But the UNAMET had no armed forces and the agreement assigned to the Indonesian police and military the security in the territory during all the process. This had tragic consequences. Quickly were created bands of so-called militia pro-integration in the Indonesian Republic, similar to the Latin-American death squadrons. The militias were created, supported and armed by the Indonesian army and police forces. In many cases the militiamen were simply Indonesian military with plain or militia clothes. Those bands spread a terror campaign against the referendum with the assassination of pro-independence activists and innocent people in general.
Despite the terror and intimidation, the vast majority of the East Timorese seized the opportunity to express their will. So, on 30 August 1999, 98.6% of the census of East Timorese did vote and 78,5% refused the proposed autonomy with integration in the Indonesian Republic, therefore showing an overwhelming will to be an independent nation.
After the publication of the result of the referendum, the militias and the Indonesian army brought the terror to its utmost, killing indiscriminately thousands of people, burning whole cities, towns and villages. Hundreds of thousands of people where deported to concentration camps in Indonesia. During the weeks of pure terror, between 200 and 250,000 East Timorese were deported; the rest of the population had to get refuge in the mountains. The UNAMET had to leave the territory, as well as all the foreigners. The policy of burned land led to between 90 to 100% of destruction in many cities and towns. Two months after the referendum 65% of all houses in East Timor were destroyed and 75% of the East Timorese were still displaced.
On 15 September 1999, after strong international pressure, the Indonesian government was forced to accept the resolution 1264 of the UN Security Council that created the multinational military force INTERFET (International Force for East Timor), commanded by Australia. The task of the INTERFET was to re-establish peace and security in East Timor, control the whole territory and establish the normality of life, for the implementation of the result of the referendum, i.e. the independence of East Timor.
Indeed, the international pressure over Indonesia was effective only when the U.S.A. agreed so. Then, the US President "ordered" the Indonesians to allow the international intervention and the UN Security Council could vote the resolution 1264. What a difference from the Kosovo crisis, when there wasn’t any resolution of the Security Council, Yugoslavia wasn’t asked to agree, and the U.S.A. simply said "let’s go!".
After the multinational intervention the deported people begun to return to East Timor. But despite the efforts of the UNHCR, in November there were still concentration camps in West Timor and other places of Indonesia, some of them controlled by the so-called militias.
Before and even after the arrival of the INTERFET, the Indonesian army burned and destroyed their own former barracks and other public and private buildings, when they left East Timor.
Meanwhile, Xanana Gusmão was released from prison. By the end of October 1999 the new Indonesian parliament approved the annulment of the annexation of East Timor.
The UNO and the CNRT are creating a transition government for the independence of East Timor. During the transition period, before independence, the INTERFET will be replaced by UN blue helmet forces and the UNAMET will give place to the UNTAET (United Nations Transition Administration for East Timor).
On 28 October 1999 Xanana Gusmão was awarded the Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament.
On the beginning of November the last Indonesian soldier left East Timor. The Portuguese initiated the participation in the INTERFET with the frigate NRP "Vasco da Gama". |
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