Eurico Guterres | |
---|---|
Born | Waitame, Uatolari, Viqueque, Portuguese Timor | 4 July 1969
Allegiance | Aitarak |
Years of service | 1999 | –2000
Other work | Leader of PAN East Nusa Tenggara (2005–2015) |
Eurico Barros Gomes Guterres (born in Waitame, Uatolari, Viqueque, Portuguese Timor, 4 July 1969) [1] is a pro-Indonesian, anti-Timorese independence militiaman recruited by the Indonesian military during East Timor's bid for independence between 1999 and 2000. He was involved in several massacres in East Timor, and was a chief militia leader during the post-independence massacres and destruction of the capital Dili.
Indonesia officially convicted and sentenced Guterres to ten years imprisonment in November 2002, for which he was incarcerated in 2006 until 2008. In August 2003 he formed Laskar Merah Putih (The Red and White Warriors) in Indonesian Papua.
Elsham leader Aloysius Renwarin reported Guterres had 200 members consisting of Indonesian expatriates from Maluku, Timor and Sulawesi in December 2003 when Guterres requested the local government to provide his organisation offices in Timika, Papua.
Guterres was born in Uatulari (near Viqueque), East Timor. His parents were killed in 1976 by Indonesian TNI forces due to their known pro-Fretilin views. Guterres later accused Fretilin of their deaths, after his allegiance to Indonesia was established.[ citation needed ]
Young Guterres was brought up by an Indonesian civilian until he was sent to attend the Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic school in Becora, Dili. He left senior high school and became involved in petty crime, including involvement in a government-protected gambling hall at Tacitolu, Dili.[ citation needed ]
In 1988, Indonesian military intelligence detained him for his alleged involvement in a plot to assassinate President Suharto, who was to visit Dili in October. At this time, Guterres switched from being pro-independence to being pro-Indonesia. He became an informer for the Army's Kopassus special forces and a double-agent against the independence movement, which expelled him around 1990.[ citation needed ]
A counter-insurgency officer, Prabowo Subianto, recruited Guterres into Gardapaksi in 1994, an organisation that gave cheap loans to start small businesses, but also used borrowers as informants and in pro-military vigilante squads. East Timor Governor José Abílio Osório Soares supported Gardapaksi, which developed a record of human rights abuse. [ citation needed ]
In 1997, with a high school certificate supposedly provided by the military, he began attending the Economics Institute in Dili. Though the Sekolah Tinggi Ilmu Ekonomi (STIE) was run by pro-integrationist Filomeno Hornay, Guterres attended only three semesters. He is married to the niece of Bishop Nascimento of Baucau, and has three children.[ citation needed ]
He is the primary suspect in the Liquiçá Church Massacre of April 1999, according to information gathered by the UNTAET Crime Scene Detachment. [2] He was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment in 2002 by a special court, and began serving his sentence in 2006. [3] In 2008, he was released from prison following an appeal to the Supreme Court of Indonesia. [4]
He was part of the National Mandate Party (Partai Amanat Nasional or PAN) between 2003 and 2004. He served as leader of PAN East Nusa Tenggara from 2005 to 2015. And then became PAN East Nusa Tenggara Counselor and PAN Central Leader Council. In October 2017, he resigned from PAN, as several of his friends had earlier quit the party. [5]
Timor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is divided between the sovereign states of East Timor on the eastern part and Indonesia on the western part. The Indonesian part, known as West Timor, constitutes part of the province of East Nusa Tenggara. Within West Timor lies an exclave of East Timor called Oecusse District. The island covers an area of 30,777 square kilometres. The name is a variant of timur, Malay for "east"; it is so called because it lies at the eastern end of the Lesser Sunda Islands. Mainland Australia is less than 500 km away, separated by the Timor Sea.
East Timor is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania known as Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste. 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 National Mandate Party, frequently abbreviated to PAN, is an Islam-based political party in Indonesia.
East Timor was a de facto province of Indonesia that existed between 1976 and 1999 during the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. Its territory corresponded to the previous Portuguese Timor and to the present-day independent country of Timor-Leste.
During the East Timor independence referendum in 1999, pro-Indonesia militias refers to paramilitary militias in East Timor that were loyal to the Indonesian government. They operated during the final years of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor.
Aitarak was the name of one of the most feared pro-Indonesia militia groups in East Timor during the late 1990s. On April 17, 1999, the group conducted 12 murders at the Manuel Carrascalão House massacre in Dili. That same month members took part in the Liquiçá Church massacre. At its height, the group was led by Eurico Guterres.
Manuel Guterres Viegas Carrascalão was an Indonesian parliamentarian and prominent East Timorese independence leader. The Carrascalão family is of mestiço ancestry;
The Armed Forces for the National Liberation of East Timor originally began as the military wing of the political party FRETILIN of East Timor. It was established on 20 August 1975 in response to FRETILIN's political conflict with the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT).
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 briefly 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 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.
José Maria Vasconcelos, popularly known as Taur Matan Ruak, is an East Timorese politician who has served as the prime minister of East Timor since 22 June 2018. He was also President of East Timor from 20 May 2012 to 20 May 2017.
Parliamentary elections were held in East Timor on 30 June 2007. The new composition of East Timor's national parliament (Parlamento Nacional de Timor-Leste) was determined by the country's population. 529,198 voters were entitled to vote, 708 polling stations were ready.
José Abílio Osório Soares was an Indonesian politician. He was the last governor of the Indonesian province of East Timor before the country's independence.
The Indonesian occupation of East Timor began in December 1975 and lasted until October 1999. After centuries of Portuguese colonial rule in East Timor, a 1974 coup 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 National Front Party is a political party in Indonesia. It was founded by Vence Rumangkang, former member of the Democratic Party advisory board.
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.
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.
Johnny Gerard Plate is an Indonesian politician and businessman who is serving as the current Minister of Communication and Information Technology in Joko Widodo's Onward Indonesia Cabinet since 2019. Previously, he served in the People's Representative Council for five years, and had been reelected for a second term in the 2019 election. He is a graduate of Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia.
Hernâni Filomena Maria Coelho da Silva, also known by his nom de guerreNatan, is an East Timorese politician and diplomat, and a member of the Fretilin political party. He has been the East Timorese Ambassador to both Australia and South Korea. Between February 2015 and September 2017, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, and from October 2017 to June 2018 he was Minister of Petroleum.
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