Timor-Leste was a Portuguese colony for over 450 years, from around 1515 until 197535. Initially attracted there by the trade in sandalwood, Portugal’s first two centuries in Timor-Leste revolved around missionary activities, and it was only in the early 18th century that a seat of government was established there. On the whole, this period of colonisation in Timor-Leste’s history is often characterised as one of neglect as Portugal did little to assist Timor-Leste to develop until the 1960-70s. Dunn (2003) reminds us to keep Portugal’s size in mind, and also that their power declined over the period they colonised Timor-Leste. These factors affected their ability to provide for Timor-Leste36. As their most distant colony, Timor-Leste was a low priority for Lisbon (the seat of Portuguese government) to attend to, and received little attention or resources.
Portuguese management of Timor-Leste’s forest resources, particularly sandalwood, was indicative of its lack of concern for the long-term welfare of the colony and its local communities. Timor-Leste’s sandalwood was renowned and highly lucrative, and Portugal did not hesitate to plunder the reserves ensuring that revenue from this resource dwindled to a trickle (McWilliam 2003)37. Essentially the Portuguese managed the forest resources in exactly the opposite way (i.e. unsustainably) to which Timor-Leste needs to manage its petroleum resources (i.e. sustainably). Dunn (2003) writes that with the decline of the trade in sandalwood, and Portugal’s position in Europe in the 19th century, that Timor-Leste became more and more isolated and investment in the colony declined further.
The Portuguese lack of enthusiasm for Timor-Leste’s welfare is illustrated by their feelings about going to live there. ‘A posting to Dili was a kind of penance… seldom visited by top- ranking officials...’ and Timor-Leste was seen as ‘a poor, backward territory with an uncertain
35 The Portuguese were not the first malae (foreigners) to set foot in Timor-Leste. The sandalwood trade bought the Chinese to Timor-Leste some decades earlier and thus the seed of a Chinese-East Timorese community was born (Dunn 2003). The Chinese have played a significant role in the economic development of the country throughout the years. Despite Chinese people having lived in Timor-Leste for generations, they are still distinguished as foreigners today.
36 Dunn (2003) writes ‘If we take account of Portugal's small size and weakness as a European power after the seventeenth century, it is remarkable that Lisbon was able to maintain an empire, let alone an outpost like East Timor... no funds available for its social or economic development. In Lisbon, Timor was known for its modest production of high-quality coffee and as a safe, distant place of exile for opponents of the Salazar regime... On the eve of World War II the capital Dili, had no electricity and no town water supply; there were no paved roads, no telephone services (other than to the houses and offices of senior officials) and not even a wharf for cargo handling’ (Dunn 2003 :18).
37 McWilliam (2003) reported ‘Sandalwood continued to figure in revenues from the Portuguese colony and was sold in declining quantities into contemporary times. However, the reputed great forests of sandalwood disappeared long ago... Sandalwood never accounted for more than 10 per cent of the colony's exports after 1920 and in 1926, the colonial forestry service officially prohibited the cutting of the tree’ (McWilliam 2003 :312).
future’ (Dunn 2003 :31). Yet Portugal’s influence in Timor-Leste has left lasting legacies38 and Dunn, in his very detailed account of Timor-Leste’s history, notes that Timor-Leste was, in many ways, ‘better off than the neighbouring Indonesian province’ (Dunn 2003 :37)39. Unfortunately, the benefits of Portuguese colonisation were limited to an elite East Timorese. Education was available to only a few, but even then the quality of government schools was poor40.
A better education was available from the Catholic schools, which further solidified the idea of a connection between the Portuguese and an elite East Timorese. Catholicism remains one of the greatest institutional legacies of Portuguese times. The first Europeans to arrive in Timor were Portuguese monks (Anon. 1930) and thus began the rise of the Catholic church in East Timorese culture. The lack of contact between the Portuguese and the wider population is evident in the fact that, by the end of colonisation, the number of baptised East Timorese Catholics was only about one third of the population (Dunn 2003). This is much lower than the 98% of East Timorese that are Catholic today (World Bank 2005b), which suggests that the rise of the Catholic Church during Indonesian times was significant politically, as well as culturally, and also shows that Catholicism no longer exists just within the realm of the elite.
The imbalance, between Portugal’s interactions with the East Timorese elite and the local community, is also illustrated by the way in which Timor-Leste was administered. The Portuguese ruled the territory through the local kings and that rule was at least partially administered via the military41. Hohe (2002) provides analysis of the interaction between the East Timorese and the Portuguese (as well as the Indonesians and the United Nations). Most contact between local communities and the Portuguese government was for the purpose of
38 Some direct benefits from Portuguese times can be seen today. People whose parents or grandparents were civil servants during Portuguese times are relatively well off because their parents collect pensions from the Portuguese government.
39 Dunn (2003) explained further, citing the experience of a visitor to Timor-Leste, who described a ‘hospital in Dili [as] a “first-class institution, with a well-equipped operating room and a full staff of doctors... successful vaccination campaigns” ... Whatever the shortcomings of the Portuguese system, health and nutrition conditions appeared to have been no worse than in the adjacent Indonesian islands’ (Dunn 2003 :37-38).
40 In a UNESCO/Oxfam Report, Victorino-Soriano (2004) wrote ‘During the Portuguese time, only a few boys and girls went to school… mostly the children of the Liurai and chef de suco [Chief of the Village] were sent to school… The few that benefited from the Colonial education system were the Assimilados (East Timorese who were assimilated into a higher standing) and Mesticos (those of mixed blood), while the Chinese and the Moslems ran their own [schools]’ (Victorino-Soriano 2004 :26).
41 Hohe (2002) found: ‘A Portuguese commander headed each district, with civilian and military tasks, and a small number of soldiers. The commanders were responsible for peace in their districts and had to work with the local kings. The idea was to strengthen Portuguese rule by influencing the local kings and pacifying them... the choice of a new king had to be approved by the colonial government... The king’s position was now replaced by the Portuguese administration at the sub-district level... Only at the very top level, the kings established relations with the Portuguese... the Portuguese were never in frequent contact with the population’ (Hohe 2002 :573-574).
collecting taxes and often this was implemented via government-appointed East Timorese officials42.
The way in which Timor-Leste was governed by the Portuguese may have ramifications for the wise management of petroleum revenue today. The Portuguese perpetrated a system that distinguished between an ‘elite’ and the people43. Today the distance between those in power and those in the villages is perceived to be great. Many of those with the power to make decisions continue to have strong links to Portugal and other Portuguese colonies (Phillips 2004; Toohey 2004). Mari Alkatiri (the former Prime Minister), Madalena Boavida (the Minister of Planning and Finance) and Anna Pessoa (the Minister of State Administration), are sometimes referred to as the Mozambique clique or the Mozambique mafia because they spent time in that country (also a former Portuguese colony) as East Timorese diaspora escaping the Indonesian occupation. During the crisis in April 200644, when Ana Pessoa was tipped to take over from Alkatiri as the Prime Minister, one critic said ‘She's very Portuguese, very formal and it will be difficult for her to be accepted by the people’ (Tigor Naispolos quoted in Kearney 2006). Some East Timorese are critical of the decision-makers and those with power in the Government because they did not fight in the local resistance during the struggle against Indonesian occupation.
As a result of these personal connections with Portugal, some recently created institutions also link to Timor-Leste’s Portuguese colonial past and this has alienated critics further. The most notable of these is the choice of Portuguese as one of Timor-Leste’s two official languages (the other being Tetum, a widely-spoken local language). Portuguese is the official language of instruction in schools, although teachers often rely on Tetum (or Indonesian) to explain things (World Bank 2004a). This language decision has alienated a large portion of the East Timorese community, mostly young men, who do not speak Portuguese because they were educated in Indonesian times and thus speak mainly Indonesian45. A discussion of the merits of Timor- Leste’s language policy is not pertinent here. Rather, it is necessary to acknowledge that a
42 Dunn (2003) also wrote about the relationship between the Portuguese and local East Timorese communities: ‘Until the 1970s most of these people had only infrequent direct contact with representatives of the metropolitan power. Official dealings, such as they were, amounted to little more than the annual collection of population figures, levying a head tax on the adult males, and collecting levies on livestock. In most cases these onerous and, in hard times, unpleasant tasks were not the lot of Portuguese officials, but of the chefe de suco (head of the tribe), an East Timorese appointed by the Government to carry out administrative duties at the tribal level, but his responsibilities were fairly limited, with other aspects of social and political authority remaining in the hands of the traditional local rulers’ (Dunn 2003 :4).
43 Hohe (2002) and McWilliam (2005) both explain, in detail, how Portuguese (and Indonesian) attempts to subvert the local social order to their gain were not very successful.
44 A crisis erupted in Timor-Leste in April 2006, which resulted in 38 deaths and around 150,000 internally displaced people in the months that followed. The crisis is explored in section 3.1.3.
45 Kingsbury (quoted in Kearney 2006) suggested that one of the problems with Ana Pessoa taking the position of Prime Minister was that she did not speak Tetum.
common language is necessary to communicate, and therefore crucial to the relationship between government and civil society.
Timor-Leste has also utilised its links to Portugal as it develops new institutions. One example is that Timor-Leste’s constitution is ‘loosely based’ on that of Portugual’s (Shoesmith 2003). Most notably executive power is exercised by the Prime Minister, and not the President of the Republic. During the April 2006 crisis this problem (with the Constitution) became apparent; the conflict between the (then) Prime Minister and the (then) President ultimately led to the resignation of the Prime Minister46. The failings of the Constitution will not be explored further, but its similarities to the Portuguese system are noted. Further links are illustrated by the current Portuguese government’s bi-lateral commitments to Timor-Leste (significant amounts of aid, particularly in the form of Portuguese teachers and police assistance). Such institutional, social and cultural associations confirm that Timor-Leste’s ties to its former coloniser are still strong. By and large the formal links and donor relations are beneficial, but the informal associations, like an elite connected to Portugal, may be problematic (or perceived to be).
Although this description of Timor-Leste’s history is brief, it is important to mention that conflict was a part of East Timorese society well before Indonesian occupation. East Timorese living today remember the occupation of Timor-Leste by Japan, who invaded during World War II. More than 20,000 Japanese troops landed in Timor-Leste and fought Australian and other allied forces. The Australian troops were protected and assisted by many East Timorese and this was perhaps the first significant connection in the Australia Timor-Leste relationship. After the Australian troops withdrew, allied bombing and reprisals from the Japanese left farms abandoned, buildings destroyed, many East Timorese and Portuguese starving, and upwards of 40,000 East Timorese dead (Dunn 2003). Conflict amongst local groups was also apparent during Portuguese times (sometimes orchestrated by the Portuguese)47. Gunn (1999) provides a thorough analysis of the last 500 years of Timor-Leste’s history, including a litany of rebellions. The Viqueque rebellion of 1959, which Gunn (1999) describes as ‘extremely bloody with between 500 and 1,000 killed’ (Gunn 1999: 260) would also remain in the minds of East Timorese today.