The East Timor genocide refers to the "pacification campaigns" of state terrorism which were waged by the Indonesian New Order government during the Indonesian invasion and occupation of East Timor. The majority of sources consider the Indonesian killings in East Timor to constitute genocide,[4][5][6] while other scholars disagree on certain aspects of the definition.[7][8]
From the start of the invasion in August 1975, the TNI forces engaged in the wholesale massacre of Timorese civilians.[9] At the start of the occupation, FRETILIN radio sent the following broadcast: "The Indonesian forces are killing indiscriminately. Women and children are being shot in the streets. We are all going to be killed... This is an appeal for international help. Please do something to stop this invasion."[10] One Timorese refugee told later of "rape [and] cold-blooded assassinations of women and children and Chinese shop owners".[11] Dili's bishop at the time, Martinho da Costa Lopes, said later: "The soldiers who landed started killing everyone they could find. There were many dead bodies in the streets—all we could see were the soldiers killing, killing, killing."[12] In one incident, a group of fifty men, women, and children—including Australian freelance reporter Roger East—were lined up on a cliff outside of Dili and shot, their bodies falling into the sea.[13] Many such massacres took place in Dili, where onlookers were ordered to observe and count aloud as each person was executed.[14] It is estimated that at least 2,000 Timorese were massacred in the first two days of the invasion in Dili alone. In addition to FRETILIN supporters, Chinese migrants were also singled out for execution; five hundred were killed in the first day alone.[15]
The mass killings continued unabated as Indonesian forces advanced on the Fretilin-held mountain regions of East Timor. A Timorese guide for a senior Indonesian officer told former Australian consul to Portuguese Timor James Dunn that during the early months of the fighting TNI troops "killed most Timorese they encountered."[16] In February 1976 after capturing the village of Aileu - to the south of Dili - and driving out the remaining Fretilin forces, Indonesian troops machine gunned most of the town's population, allegedly shooting everyone over the age of three. The young children who were spared were taken back to Dili in trucks. At the time Aileu fell to Indonesian forces, the population was around 5,000; by the time Indonesian relief workers visited the village in September 1976 only 1,000 remained.[17] In June 1976, TNI troops badly battered by a Fretilin attack exacted retribution against a large refugee camp housing 5–6,000 Timorese at Lamaknan near the West Timor border. After setting several houses on fire, Indonesian soldiers massacred as many as 4,000 men, women and children.[18]
In March 1977 ex-Australian consul James Dunn published a report detailing charges that since December 1975 Indonesian forces had killed between 50,000 and 100,000 civilians in East Timor.[19] This is consistent with a statement made on 13 February 1976 by UDT leader Lopez da Cruz that 60,000 Timorese had been killed during the previous six months of civil war, suggesting a death toll of at least 55,000 in the first two months of the invasion. A delegation of Indonesian relief workers agreed with this statistic.[20] A late 1976 report by the Catholic Church also estimated the death toll at between 60,000 and 100,000.[21] These figures were also corroborated by those in the Indonesian government itself. In an interview on 5 April 1977 with the Sydney Morning Herald, Indonesian Foreign Minister Adam Malik said the number of dead was "50,000 people or perhaps 80,000".[22]
The Indonesian government presented its annexation of East Timor as a matter of anticolonial unity. A 1977 booklet from the Indonesian Department of Foreign Affairs, entitled Decolonization in East Timor, paid tribute to the "sacred right of self-determination"[23] and recognised APODETI as the true representatives of the East Timorese majority. It claimed that FRETILIN's popularity was the result of a "policy of threats, blackmail and terror".[24] Later, Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas reiterated this position in his 2006 memoir The Pebble in the Shoe: The Diplomatic Struggle for East Timor.[25] The island's original division into east and west, Indonesia argued after the invasion, was "the result of colonial oppression" enforced by the Portuguese and Dutch imperial powers. Thus, according to the Indonesian government, its annexation of the 27th province was merely another step in the unification of the archipelago which had begun in the 1940s.[26]
As a result of the destruction of food crops, many civilians were forced to leave the hills and surrender to the TNI. Often, when surviving villagers came down to lower-lying regions to surrender, the military would execute them. Those who were not killed outright by TNI troops were sent to receiving centers which were prepared in advance. These camps were located in close proximity to local military bases where Indonesian forces "screened" the population in order to single out members of the resistance, often with the aid of Timorese collaborators. In these transit camps, the surrendered civilians were registered and interrogated. Those who were suspected of being members of the resistance were detained and killed.[27]
These centers were often constructed of thatch huts with no toilets. Additionally, the Indonesian military barred the Red Cross from distributing humanitarian aid and no medical care was provided to the detainees. As a result, many of the Timorese - weakened by starvation and surviving on small rations given by their captors - died of malnutrition, cholera, diarrhea and tuberculosis. By late 1979, between 300,000 and 370,000 Timorese had passed through these camps.[28] After a period of three months, the detainees were resettled in "strategic hamlets" where they were imprisoned and subjected to enforced starvation.[29] Those in the camps were prevented from traveling and cultivating farmland and were subjected to a curfew.[30] The UN truth commission report confirmed the Indonesian military's use of enforced starvation as a weapon to exterminate the East Timorese civilian population, and that large numbers of people were "positively denied access to food and its sources". The report cited testimony from individuals who were denied food, and detailed destruction of crops and livestock by Indonesian soldiers.[31] It concluded that this policy of deliberate starvation resulted in the deaths of 84,200 to 183,000 Timorese.[32] One church worker reported five hundred East Timorese dying of starvation every month in one district.[33]
World Vision Indonesia visited East Timor in October 1978 and claimed that 70,000 East Timorese were at risk of starvation.[34] An envoy from the International Committee of the Red Cross reported in 1979 that 80percent of one camp's population was malnourished, in a situation that was "as bad as Biafra".[35] The ICRC warned that "tens of thousands" were at risk of starvation.[36] Indonesia announced that it was working through the government-run Indonesian Red Cross Society to alleviate the crisis, but the NGO Action for World Development charged that organisation with selling donated aid supplies.[33]
Indonesian pacification operations
Operasi Keamanan: 1981–82
In 1981, the Indonesian military launched Operasi Keamanan (Operation Security), which some have named the "fence of legs" program. During this operation, Indonesian forces conscripted 50,000 to 80,000 Timorese men and boys to march through the mountains ahead of advancing TNI troops as human shields to foreclose a FRETILIN counterattack. The objective was to sweep the guerillas into the central part of the region where they could be eradicated. Many of those conscripted into the "fence of legs" died of starvation, exhaustion or were shot by Indonesian forces for allowing guerillas to slip through. As the "fence" converged on villages, Indonesian forces massacred an unknown number of civilians. At least 400 villagers were massacred in Lacluta by Battalion 744 of the Indonesian Army in September 1981. An eyewitness who testified before the Australian Senate stated that soldiers deliberately killed small children by smashing their heads against a rock.[37] The operation failed to crush the resistance, and popular resentment toward the occupation grew stronger than ever.[38] As FRETILIN troops in the mountains continued their sporadic attacks, Indonesian forces carried out numerous operations to destroy them over the next ten years. In the cities and villages, meanwhile, a non-violent resistance movement began to take shape.[39]
'Operation Clean-Sweep': 1983
The failure of successive Indonesian counterinsurgency campaigns led the commander of the Dili-based Sub regional Military Resort Command, Colonel Purwanto to initiate peace talks with FRETILIN commander Xanana Gusmão in a FRETILIN-controlled area in March 1983. When Xanana sought to invoke Portugal and the UN in the negotiations, ABRI Commander Benny Moerdani broke the ceasefire by announcing a new counterinsurgency offensive called "Operational Clean-Sweep" in August 1983, declaring, "This time no fooling around. This time we are going to hit them without mercy."[40]
The breakdown of the ceasefire agreement was followed by a renewed wave of massacres, summary executions and "disappearances" at the hands of Indonesian forces. In August 1983, 200 people were burned alive in the village of Creras, with 500 others killed at a nearby river.[37] Between August and December 1983, Amnesty International documented the arrests and "disappearances" of over 600 people in the capital city alone. Relatives were told by Indonesian forces that the "disappeared" were sent to Bali.[41]
Those suspected of opposing integration were often arrested and tortured.[42] In 1983 Amnesty International published an Indonesian manual it had received from East Timor instructing military personnel on how to inflict physical and mental anguish, and cautioning troops to "Avoid taking photographs showing torture (of someone being given electric shocks, stripped naked and so on)".[43] In his 1997 memoir East Timor's Unfinished Struggle: Inside the Timorese Resistance, Constâncio Pinto describes being tortured by Indonesian soldiers: "With each question, I would get two or three punches in the face. When someone punches you so much and so hard, it feels as if your face is broken. People hit me on my back and on my sides with their hands and then kicked me.... [In another location] they psychologically tortured me; they didn't hit me, but they made strong threats to kill me. They even put a gun on the table."[44] In Michele Turner's book Telling East Timor: Personal Testimonies 1942–1992, a woman named Fátima describes watching torture take place in a Dili prison: "They make people sit on a chair with the front of the chair on their own toes. It is mad, yes. The soldiers urinate in the food then mix it up for the person to eat. They use electric shock and they use an electric machine...."[45]
Violence against women
Indonesian military abuses against women in East Timor were numerous and well-documented.[46] In addition to suffering arbitrary detainment, torture, and extrajudicial execution, women faced rape and sexual abuse—sometimes for the crime of being related to an independence activist. The scope of the problem is difficult to ascertain, owing to the intense military control imposed during the occupation, compounded by the shame felt by victims. In a 1995 report on violence against women in Indonesia and East Timor, Amnesty International USA wrote: "Women are reluctant to pass on information to non-governmental organizations about rape and sexual abuse, let alone to report violations to the military or police authorities."[47]
Other forms of violence against women took the form of harassment, intimidation, and forced marriage. The Amnesty report cites the case of a woman forced to live with a commander in Baucau, then harassed daily by troops after her release.[47] Such "marriages" took place regularly during the occupation.[48] Women were also encouraged to accept sterilisation procedures, and some were pressured to take the contraceptive Depo Provera, sometimes without full knowledge of its effects.[49]
In 1999 researcher Rebecca Winters released the book Buibere: Voice of East Timorese Women, which chronicles many personal stories of violence and abuse dating to the earliest days of the occupation. One woman tells of being interrogated while stripped half-naked, tortured, molested, and threatened with death.[50] Another describes being chained at the hands and feet, raped repeatedly, and interrogated for weeks.[51] A woman who had prepared food for FRETILIN guerrillas was arrested, burned with cigarettes, tortured with electricity, and forced to walk naked past a row of soldiers into a tank filled with urine and feces.[52]
During a memorial mass on 12 November 1991 for a pro-independence youth shot by Indonesian troops, demonstrators among the 2,500-strong crowd unfurled the Fretlin flag and banners with pro-independence slogans, and chanted boisterously but peacefully.[53] Following a brief confrontation between Indonesian troops and protesters,[54] 200 Indonesian soldiers opened fire on the crowd killing at least 250 Timorese.[55]
The testimonies of foreigners at the cemetery were quickly reported to international news organisations, and video footage of the massacre was widely broadcast internationally[56] causing outrage.[57] In response to the massacre, activists around the world organised in solidarity with the East Timorese, and a new urgency was brought to calls for self-determination.[58]TAPOL, a British organisation formed in 1973 to advocate for democracy in Indonesia, increased its work around East Timor. In the United States, the East Timor Action Network (now the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network) was founded and soon had chapters in ten cities around the country.[59] Other solidarity groups appeared in Portugal, Australia, Japan, Germany, Ireland, The Netherlands, Malaysia and Brazil. Coverage of the massacre was a vivid example of how growth of new media in Indonesia was making it increasingly difficult for the "New Order" to control information flow in and out of Indonesia, and that in the post-Cold War 1990s, the government was coming under increasing international scrutiny.[60] A number of pro-democracy student groups and their magazines began to openly and critically discuss not just East Timor, but also the "New Order" and the broader history and future of Indonesia.[58][60][61]
Sharp condemnation of the military came not just from the international community, but from within parts of the Indonesian elite. The massacre ended the governments 1989 opening of the territory and a new period of repression began.[62] Warouw was removed from his position and his more accommodating approach to Timorese resistance rebuked by his superiors. Suspected Fretilin sympathisers were arrested, human rights abuses rose, and the ban on foreign journalists was reimposed. Hatred intensified amongst Timorese of the Indonesian military presence.[63] Major General Prabowo's, Kopassus Group 3 trained militias gangs dressed in black hoods to crush the remaining resistance.[62]
Number of deaths
Precise estimates of the death toll are difficult to determine. The 2005 report of the UN's Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor (CAVR) reports an estimated minimum number of conflict-related deaths of 102,800 (+/- 12,000). Of these, the report says that approximately 18,600 (+/-1,000) were either killed or disappeared, and that approximately 84,000 (+/-11,000) died from hunger or illness in excess of what would have been expected due to peacetime mortality. These figures represent a minimum conservative estimate that CAVR says is its scientifically based principal finding. The report did not provide an upper bound, however, CAVR speculated that the total number of deaths due to conflict-related hunger and illness could have been as high as 183,000.[64] The truth commission held Indonesian forces responsible for about 70% of the violent killings.[65]
Researcher Ben Kiernan says that "a toll of 150,000 is likely close to the truth," although one can throw out an estimate of 200,000 or higher.[66] The Center for Defense Information also estimated a total close to 150,000.[67] A 1974 Catholic church estimate of the population of East Timor was 688,711 people; in 1982 the church reported only 425,000. This led to an estimate of 200,000 people killed during the occupation, which was widely reported around the world.[68] Other sources such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also support an estimate of over 200,000 killed.[69]
According to specialist Gabriel Defert on the basis of statistical data available from the Portuguese and Indonesian authorities, and from the Catholic Church, between December 1975 and December 1981, approximately 308,000 Timorese lost their lives; this constituted about 44% of the pre-invasion population.[3] Similarly Indonesian Professor George Aditjondro, formerly of Salatiga University in Java, concluded from his study of Indonesian Army data that in fact 300,000 Timorese had been killed in the early years of the occupation.[70]
Robert Cribb of the Australian National University argues that the toll was significantly exaggerated. He argues that the 1980 census that counted 555,350 Timorese, although "the most reliable source of all," was probably a minimum rather than a maximum estimate for the total population. "It is worth recalling that hundreds of thousands of East Timorese disappeared during the violence of September 1999, only to reappear later," he writes. The 1980 census becomes more improbable in the face of the 1987 census that counted 657,411 Timorese—this would require a growth rate of 2.5% per year, nearly identical to the very high growth rate in East Timor from 1970 to 1975, and a highly unlikely one given the conditions of the brutal occupation, including Indonesian efforts to discourage reproduction. Noting the relative lack of personal accounts of atrocities or of traumatised Indonesian soldiers, he further adds that East Timor "does not appear—on the basis of news reports and academic accounts—to be a society traumatized by mass death...the circumstance leading up to the Dili massacre of 1991...indicate a society which retained its vigor and indignation in a way which would probably not have been possible if it had been treated as Cambodia was treated under Pol Pot." Even Indonesian military strategy was based on winning the "hearts and minds" of the population, a fact that does not support charges of mass killing.[2]
Kiernan, starting from a base population of 700,000 Timorese in 1975 (based on the 1974 Catholic Church census) calculated an expected 1980 population of 735,000 Timorese (assuming a growth rate of only 1% per year as a result of the occupation). Accepting the 1980 count that Cribb regards as at least 10% (55,000) too low, Kiernan concluded that as many as 180,000 may have died in the war.[71] Cribb argued that the 3% growth rate suggested by the 1974 census was too high, citing the fact that the church had previously postulated a growth rate of 1.8%, which would have produced a figure in line with the Portuguese population estimate of 635,000 for 1974.
Although Cribb maintained that the Portuguese census was almost certainly an underestimate,[71] he believed it to be more likely correct than the church census, due to the fact that any church attempt to extrapolate the size of the total population "must be seen in light of its incomplete access to society" (less than half of Timorese were Catholic). Assuming a growth rate in line with the other nations of South East Asia, then, would yield a more accurate figure of 680,000 for 1975, and an expected 1980 population of slightly over 775,000 (without accounting for the decline in the birth rate resulting from the Indonesian occupation).[71] The deficit remaining would be almost exactly 200,000. According to Cribb, Indonesian policies restricted the birth rate by up to 50% or more, thus around 45,000 of these were not born rather than killed; another 55,000 were "missing" as a result of the Timorese evading the Indonesian authorities who conducted the 1980 census.[2] A variety of factors—the exodus of tens of thousands from their homes to escape FRETILIN in 1974–75; the deaths of thousands in the civil war; the deaths of combatants during the occupation; killings by FRETILIN; and natural disasters—diminish further still the civilian toll attributable to Indonesian forces during this time.[2] Considering all this data, Cribb argues for a much lower toll of 100,000 or less, with an absolute minimum of 60,000, and a mere tenth of the civilian population dying unnaturally, for the years 1975–1980.[2]
Kiernan responded, however, by asserting that the influx of migrant workers during the occupation and the increase in the population growth rate typical of a mortality crisis justifies accepting the 1980 census as valid despite the 1987 estimate, and that the 1974 church census—though a "possible maximum"—cannot be discounted because the church's lack of access to society might well have resulted in an undercount.[71] He concluded that at least 116,000 combatants and civilians were killed by all sides or died "unnatural" deaths from 1975 to 1980 (if true, this would yield the result that about 15% of the civilian population of East Timor was killed from 1975 to 1980).[71] F. Hiorth separately estimated that 13% (95,000 out of an expected 730,000 when accounting for the reduction in birth rates) of the civilian population died during this period.[2] Kiernan believes that the deficit was most probably around 145,000 when accounting for the reduction in birth rates, or 20% of East Timor's population.[71] The mid-value of the UN report is 146,000 deaths; R.J. Rummel, an analyst of political killings, estimates 150,000.[72]
Accurate numbers of Indonesian casualties are well-documented. The complete names of around 2,300 Indonesian soldiers and pro-Indonesian militias who died in action as well as from illness and accidents during the entire occupation is engraved into the Seroja Monument, located in TNI Headquarters in Cilangkap, East Jakarta.[73]
Genocide classification
Many observers have called the Indonesian military action in East Timor an example of genocide.[74]Oxford held an academic consensus calling the event genocide and Yale University teaches it as part of their "Genocide Studies" program.[4][75] In a study of the word's legal meaning and applicability to the occupation of East Timor, legal scholar Ben Saul concludes that because no group recognized under international law was targeted by the Indonesian authorities, a charge of genocide cannot be applied. However, he also notes: "The conflict in East Timor most accurately qualifies as genocide against a 'political group', or alternatively as 'cultural genocide', yet neither of these concepts are explicitly recognised in international law."[76] A similar argument was made by David Bisson, who argues that the conflict would have been classified as a genocide if the East Timorese had been able to form their own nation state prior to the invasion, yet because the Indonesian invasion deliberately pre-empted this from occurring, it paradoxically created a loophole that technically excludes the Indonesian military's actions from the charge of genocide.[77] The occupation has been compared to the killings of the Khmer Rouge, the Yugoslav wars, and the Rwandan genocide.[78]
↑ Precise estimates of the death toll are difficult to determine. The 2005 report of the UN's Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor (CAVR) reports an estimated minimum number of conflict-related deaths of 102,800 (+/− 12,000). Of these, the report says that approximately 18,600 (+/− 1,000) were either killed or disappeared, and that approximately 84,000 (+/− 11,000) died from hunger or illness in excess of what would have been expected due to peacetime mortality. These figures represent a minimum conservative estimate that CAVR says is its scientifically-based principal finding. The report did not provide an upper bound, however, CAVR speculated that the total number of deaths due to conflict-related hunger and illness could have been as high as 183,000. The truth commission held Indonesian forces responsible for about 70% of the violent killings. * This estimates comes from taking the minimum killed violently applying the 70% violent death responsibility given to Indonesian military combined with the minimum starved. "Conflict-related Deaths in Timor Leste, 1954–1999. The Findings of the CAVR Report"(PDF). "The CAVR Report". Archived from the original on 13 May 2012.
1 2 3 4 5 6 Cribb, Robert (2001). "How Many Deaths?: Problems in the statistics of massacre in Indonesia (1965-1966) and East Timor (1975-1980)". In Wessel, Ingrid; Wimhöfer, Georgia (eds.). Violence in Indonesia. Hamburg: Abera-Verl. Meyer. pp.82–98. ISBN978-3-934376-16-8. Archived from the original on 14 May 2020. Retrieved 14 February 2022.
↑ Carey, p. 51; Jardine 1999, p.16. The Portuguese solidarity group A Paz é Possível em Timor Leste compiled a careful surveyArchived 2018-08-14 at the Wayback Machine of the massacre's victims, listing 271 killed, 278 wounded, and 270 "disappeared".
Aditjondro, George. "Prospects for development in East Timor after the capture of Xanana Gusmão". International Law and the Question of East Timor. London: Catholic Institute for International Relations, 1995. ISBN1-85287-129-6. pp.50–63.
Aditjondro, George. "The Silent Suffering of Our Timorese Sisters". Free East Timor: Australia's Culpability in East Timor's Genocide. Random House Milsons Point: Australia Pty Ltd, 1998. ISBN0-09-183917-3 pp.243–265.
Amnesty International. East Timor Violations of Human Rights: Extrajudicial Executions, "Disappearances", Torture and Political Imprisonment, 1975–1984. London: Amnesty International Publications, 1985. ISBN0-86210-085-2.
Amnesty International. East Timor: The Santa Cruz Massacre. London: Amnesty International, 1991. OCLC28061998
Amnesty International USA. Women in Indonesian & East Timor: Standing Against Repression. New York: Amnesty International USA, 1995. OCLC34283963
Carey, Peter. "Historical Background". Generations of Resistance. By Steve Cox. London: Cassell, 1995. ISBN0-304-33252-6. pp.13–55.
Chinkin, Christine. "Australia and East Timor in international law". International Law and the Question of East Timor. London: Catholic Institute for International Relations / International Platform of Jurists for East Timor, 1995. ISBN1-85287-129-6. pp.269–289.
Clark, Roger S. "The 'decolonisation' of East Timor and the United Nations norms on self-determination and aggression". International Law and the Question of East Timor. London: Catholic Institute for International Relations / International Platform of Jurists for East Timor, 1995. ISBN1-85287-129-6. pp.65–102.
Gunn, Geoffrey C. Complicity in Genocide: Report to the East Timor "Truth Commission" on International Actors (Macau: author, 2006) ISBN99937-706-4-7
Horner, David (2001). Making the Australian Defence Force. The Australian Centenary History of Defence. Vol.IV. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. ISBN0-19-554117-0.
Hainsworth, Paul and McCloskey, Stephen (eds.) The East Timor Question: The Struggle for Independence from Indonesia. New York: I. B. Tauris Publishers, 2000, ISBN1-86064-408-2
Hill, Helen Mary (1978). FRETILIN: the origins, ideologies and strategies of a nationalist movement in East Timor. Canberra: Centre for Continuing Education, Australia National University. OCLC07747890.
Indonesia. Department of Foreign Affairs. Decolonization in East Timor. Jakarta: Department of Information, Republic of Indonesia, 1977. OCLC4458152.
Indonesia. Department of Foreign Affairs and Department of Information. The Province of East Timor: Development in Progress. Jakarta: Department of Information, Republic of Indonesia, 1981.
Jardine, Matthew (1999). East Timor: Genocide in Paradise. Monroe, ME: Odonian Press. ISBN1-878825-22-4.
Kohen, Arnold; Taylor, John (1979). An Act of Genocide: Indonesia's Invasion of East Timor. London: TAPOL. ISBN0-9506751-0-5.
Krieger, Heike, ed. East Timor and the International Community: Basic Documents. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1997. ISBN0-521-58134-6.
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Martin, Ian (2002). Self-Determination In East Timor: The United Nations, The Ballot and International Intervention. International Peace Academy Occasional Paper Series. Boulder: Rienner.
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Taylor, Jean Gelman (1991). Indonesia's Forgotten War: The Hidden History of East Timor. London: Zed Books. ISBN1-85649-014-9.
Wesley-Smith, Rob. "Radio Maubere and Links to East Timor". Free East Timor: Australia's Culpability in East Timor's Genocide. Milsons Point: Random House Australia, 1998. pp.83–102.
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Portuguese Timor was a colonial possession of Portugal that existed between 1702 and 1975. During most of this period, Portugal shared the island of Timor with the Dutch East Indies.
East Timor, officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. The country comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor and the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco. The first inhabitants are thought to be descendant of Australoid and Melanesian peoples. The Portuguese began to trade with Timor by the early 16th century and colonised it throughout the mid-century. Skirmishing with the Dutch in the region eventually resulted in an 1859 treaty for which Portugal ceded the western half of the island. Imperial Japan occupied East Timor during World War II, but Portugal resumed colonial authority after the Japanese surrender.
The Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor is a centre-left political party in East Timor. It presently holds 23 of 65 seats in the National Parliament. Fretilin formed the government in East Timor until its independence in 2002. It obtained the presidency in 2017 under Francisco Guterres but lost in the 2022 East Timorese presidential election.
Pro-Indonesia militias in East Timor, commonly known as Wanras, were active in the final years of the Indonesian occupation leading up to the 1999 independence referendum. They were groups of armed civilians trained by the Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI) to maintain peace and order in their region on official orders. The Indonesian Constitution of 1945 and the Defence Law of 1988 stipulate that civilians have the right and duty to defend the state by receiving basic military training.
Same is a town in the Same administrative post in the interior of East Timor, 81 kilometres (50 mi) south of Dili, the national capital. Same has a population of 7,413 and is the capital of Manufahi municipality, which was known as Same District in Portuguese Timor.
The Indonesian invasion of East Timor, known in Indonesia as Operation Lotus, began on 7 December 1975 when the Indonesian military (ABRI/TNI) invaded East Timor under the pretext of anti-colonialism and anti-communism to overthrow the Fretilin regime that had emerged in 1974. The overthrow of the popular and short-lived Fretilin-led government sparked a violent quarter-century occupation in which approximately 100,000–180,000 soldiers and civilians are estimated to have been killed or starved to death. The Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor documented a minimum estimate of 102,000 conflict-related deaths in East Timor throughout the entire period from 1974 to 1999, including 18,600 violent killings and 84,200 deaths from disease and starvation; Indonesian forces and their auxiliaries combined were responsible for 70% of the killings.
The Indonesian occupation of East Timor began in December 1975 and lasted until October 1999. After centuries of Portuguese colonial rule in East Timor, the 1974 Carnation Revolution in Portugal led to the decolonisation of its former colonies, creating instability in East Timor and leaving its future uncertain. After a small-scale civil war, the pro-independence Fretilin declared victory in the capital city of Dili and declared an independent East Timor on 28 November 1975.
The Timorese Popular Democratic Association was a political party in East Timor established in 1974, which advocated for integration into Indonesia. Along with another East Timor party, the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT), it signed the Balibo Declaration in 1975 calling for Indonesia to annex the region. The party led the Provisional Government of East Timor that was formed following the Indonesian invasion of East Timor later that year. Since 2000, the party used the suffix Pro-Referendo (Pro-referendum). A renaming to Partido Democrata Liberal was considered. The party is said to have been dissolved.
East Timor and Indonesia established diplomatic relations in 2002. Both share the island of Timor. Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975 and annexed East Timor in 1976, maintaining East Timor as its 27th province until a United Nations-sponsored referendum in 1999, in which the people of East Timor chose independence. Following a United Nations interim administration, East Timor gained independence in 2002. Indonesia already had a consulate in Dili during the Portuguese colonial period, though Indonesia formalized their relations by establishing an embassy in Dili. Since October 2002, East Timor has an embassy in Jakarta and consulates in Denpasar and Kupang. Relations between the two countries are generally considered highly positive, despite various problems. Numerous agreements regulate cooperation in different areas. East Timorese are visa-free in Indonesia.
The Santa Cruz massacre was the murder of at least 250 East Timorese pro-independence demonstrators in the Santa Cruz cemetery in the capital, Dili, on 12 November 1991, during the Indonesian occupation of East Timor and is part of the East Timor genocide.
Rosa Filomena "Muki" Cardoso Bonaparte Soares was an East Timorese revolutionary and women's rights activist. Born in what was then Portuguese Timor, in 1973 she won a scholarship to study in Portugal, where she joined the Casa dos Timores and became involved in Marxist and anti-colonial politics. Returning to Timor in late 1974, she was a founding member of Fretilin and served on the party's central committee. Known for her intensity and small figure, she was called "the petite revolutionary", "Rosa Luxemburg", and to her Fretilin comrades, "Muki".
The Indonesia–Timor Leste Commission on Truth and Friendship was a truth commission established jointly by the governments of Indonesia and East Timor in August 2005. The commission was officially created to investigate acts of violence that occurred around the independence referendum held in East Timor in 1999 and sought to find the "conclusive truth" behind the events. After holding private hearings and document reviews, the commission handed in the final report on July 15, 2008 to the presidents of both nations, and was fully endorsed by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, providing the first acknowledgement by the government of Indonesia of the human rights violations committed by state institutions in Timor. The commission is notable for being the first modern truth commission to be bilateral.
The 1959 Viqueque rebellion was an uprising against the Portuguese rule in the southeastern part of East Timor. It was concentrated in the remote regions of Uatolari and Uatocarbau. It was an anti-colonial rebellion against the Portuguese, who had been the colonial masters of East Timor since the sixteenth century. The rebellion is significant in East Timorese history because it was the only rebellion that erupted after World War II. For the longest time, due to lack of information and research, there were speculations and assumptions made about the origins of the rebellion which focus more on external factors, like the role of Indonesia. However, in the last decade, there has been more research done that has helped to illuminate this part of East Timor's history and it has also highlighted the agency of the East Timorese for participating in the rebellion.
Toko Lay is a commercial building in the centre of Dili, East Timor.
The Indonesian invasion of Dili occurred on 7 December 1975 when Indonesian marines and paratroopers landed in the East Timorese capital of Dili. The attack was the start of a military operation which resulted in the Indonesian occupation of East Timor.
Anarchism in East Timor has its roots in the country's history as a penal colony, when many anarchists were deported there. The movement eventually evolved into an anti-colonial struggle against succeeding occupying powers: first the Portuguese Empire, then the Japanese Empire and the Indonesian New Order, before the country finally achieved independence in 2002.
João da Costa Tavares was the Commander-in-Chief of the pro-Indonesian Militia in East Timor. He was also a pro-integration militiamen.
The Democratic Republic of East Timor, was a state that was unilaterally proclaimed on the territory of present-day East Timor on 28 November 1975 by Fretilin prior to the Indonesian invasion of East Timor nine days later on 7 December 1975.
The Provisional Government of East Timor (PGET),, was an Indonesian supported puppet provisional government in present day East Timor that was formed on 17 December 1975 following the Indonesian invasion of East Timor and disbanded on 17 July 1976 when the region was annexed by Indonesia as the province of Timor Timur.
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