La infancia hoy

It is within the above context that the resistance movement against the Indonesian occupation of Timor-Leste must be considered. The war waged against the Indonesian regime was an identity war not just a merely ideological or political war.

The Timoroan were on their way to finally establishing a fully-fledged national identity in 1975, be it FRETILIN’s Maubere23 or UDT’s Timorense, when this ambition was

23 _{Refer to Chapter 5, Section 5.4 for a detailed discussion about Timoroan National Identity} in regards to the political ideology of Maubereismo developed around the term Maubere that used during colonial times by the Portuguese to describe the Timoroan as uneducated and backwards. The term was subsequently co-opted by Jose Ramos-Horta as a symbol for FRETILIN and became one of the most potent symbols of the Timorese resistance.

Page | 112 thwarted by the nationalist designs of Indonesia, with diplomatic pressure from western nations, to annex Timor-Leste into its fold.

Despite being yet to become politically mature, the leadership of FRETILIN, days before the invasion of Timor-Leste was nonetheless conscious that it would have to gain diplomatic support if it were to become a legitimate government and attain the same type of recognition given to Angola after it declared its independence on 11 November 1975 by some 30 nations that immediately recognised it..

Thus on 4 December 1975, José Ramos-Horta, Marii Alkatiri and Rogério Lobato, three historical figures of the independence movement and history of Timor-Leste, on orders by the Central Committee of the FRETILIN newly appointed cabinet, were sent out of Timor-Leste to attempt to gain further diplomatic support for the declaration of independence of Timor-Leste (Jolliffe, 1978). Ramos-Horta was to travel to New York to put the Timor- Leste case before the United Nations because he was already known for his diplomatic ability and had international experience. Alkatiri had strategic skills and being of Arab descent would be able to gain support from Middle Eastern countries. Lobato had army experience and was to obtain military support overseas (Scott D. , 2005).

Following the Indonesian invasion on 7 December 1975, the FRETILIN leadership proceeded to re-adapt their circumstances to face a new form of institutionalised Indonesian neo-imperialism. FRETILIN established the FALINTIL (Forças Armadas da Libertação Nacional de Timor-Leste/Armed Forces of National Liberation of East Timor) to fight a guerrilla war from the hills of Timor-Leste. At the same time and during the years of the war, but in particular following the first National Conference of the resistance inside occupied Timor-Leste in 1981 the clandestine became more structured under a new strategy that saw the establishment of a system of clandestine organization at the village level through the NUREP (Núcleos de Resistencia Popular/Nuclei of Popular Resistance) and the CELCOM (Célula de Comunidade/Community Cells) at the suku or hamlet level. It was during this conference also the first unified resistance coalition was established; the Revolutionary Council of National Resistance (CRRN) that in 1987 became the National Council of Maubere Resistance (CNRM) and in 1998 transitioned into the National Council of the Timorese Resistance (CNRT) (Durand, 2009) (CAVR, 2005).

Thus from the 1980s until the end of the war, Timoroan resistance was organised into three strategic fronts; armed, clandestine and diplomatic: armed to flight in the hills and mountains of Timor-Leste; clandestine to live among the waves of transmigrant civilian and military Indonesians that came to live in Timor-Leste and at the same time work to shelter,

Page | 113 hide and feed the fighters and smuggling letters, information and medicines to the fighters in the hills; and diplomatic to push the Timor-Leste cause in the Diaspora.

Much more so than modern politics; operating guerrilla, clandestine and diplomatic underground networks and warfare possibly came more easily to the Timoroan of time, after all this system of networks resembled the collective system of networks and affiliations that were crucial for the maintenance of the Timoroan way of life during the latter part of the Portuguese colonial rule. When looked at in this light, the Timoroan were particularly apt at undertaking resistance, and did this remarkably well.

This ability does not mean it was done without careful planning and control because it required an in-depth knowledge and insight into the character and psyche of the Timoroan. In particular the aptitude to self-preserve came at a great cost for the Timoroan whom at the end of the war had lost one-third of its indigenous population but managed to gain freedom.

Thus for the greater part of the 24 years of Indonesian occupation the Timoroan actively and strategically reverted back to a state of collective-identity existence it had grown accustomed over the period of close to 500 years of Portuguese colonial occupation.

Nevertheless and even though the Indonesian occupation was shorter compared to the Portuguese occupation it was brutally intense through a process of Rapid Indonesianisation:

Rapid Indonesianisation – cultural, political and linguistic –was at all times a paramount government objective. It was to be achieved as quickly as possible through a range of measures such as control of mass media, ideologisation through education, military and economic implantation, forced population control, massive in-migration, and elimination of Portuguese (openly stigmatised as a ‘colonial language’).

(Hajek, 2000, p. 405)

Despite the intention of rapid Indonesianisation and the pervasive ways in which this was implemented in the end it proved unsuccessful. Even though the Indonesian presence left obvious indentations in contemporary Timoroan culture, the core of the Timoroan remained intact and was able to self-preserve, in great part because the Indonesian regime, much like the Portuguese regime before it, and much like the United Nations Administration that followed, failed to truly understand the nature, character and context of the Timoroan.

This Timoroan character and spirit that took the Indonesian regime by surprise came to shine its brightest during the 30 August 1999 Popular Independence Referendum in Timor- Leste.

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