The Baguia Fort is emblematic of Baguia’s tumultuous history over recent decades, which has left it in ruins. The fort, also known as a postu (P) and benteng (I), was constructed by the PCA as part of a Portuguese pacification campaign to build 20 new postu between 1912 and
57 1918, following the Manufahi Rebellion in 1912.35 The fort housed the Portuguese
administrative centre. As a headquarters of the Portuguese colonial administration in the region, the fort was located in Baguia due to its strategic location between Viqueque in the south coast and Baucau in the north coast. The area and the ‘natives from the mountains of Fatu-Mate-Bian’ had developed a reputation for lawlessness in 1904, as reported by the Governor of Timor36, which possibly contributed to a fort and the colonial presence being
strengthened in the area.
The towers of the fort were used by the PCA as a prison until 1975. Thereafter Indonesian commanders appropriated the fort for their military operations in the region. In 2014 plans were underway to redevelop the fort as a potential heritage site and tourist destination, by the RDTL Government.37 The derelict condition of the Baguia Fort is a metaphor for the
trauma inflicted upon the region and its people since the early decades of the twentieth century.
Figure 1.9: ‘Haus des Kommandanten von Baaguia’ (The Commander’s house in Baguia). Baguia Fort, Baguia Villa.
Source: Museum der Kulturen Basel, MKB (F)IIc 1175. Photograph by Dr Alfred Bühler, 1935.
35 Flavio Miranda, interview with author, Dili, 2 October 2014. 36 Roque, “Mountains and Black Races,” 275.
58
Figure 1.10: Entrance to the Baguia Fort, Baguia Villa, 2014.
Figure 1.11: Side view to Baguia Fort, Baguia Villa, 2014.
An historical overview of the past century provides insights into the conditions under which Timorese people lived at the time of Bühler’s visit to Baguia in 1935, and the events that have shaped the Baguia community prior to and since then. Change, disruption and oppression reveal themselves as common experiences of the Makasae people. This historical
59 overview draws largely on national history, and some more regionalised experiences, such as the 1959 uprising, all of which have affected and shaped the Makasae people.
Colonial Portuguese Timor endured for over 400 years but it is widely regarded as having failed to comply with ‘“modern” moral, economic and technical standards which then ought to guide the Western “civilizing mission”: the profitable exploration of the country, the military power, the moral improvement of the “natives”, or the territorial extension of an efficient state administration’.38 Having failed to deliver significant economic returns after
three centuries, proposals in the 1880s to relinquish the colony were over-ridden by imperialist-nationalist ideologies of the 1890s. ‘In Timor, the empire could be adrift; but in the name of a glorious imperial past, no colony, not even Timor, could be given away.’39
The PCA experienced its first major political turmoil of the twentieth century between 1911 and 1912 when the Manufahi revolt occurred. Led by Dom Boaventura, a reino40 and liurai41
of Manufahi on the south coast of Timor, this revolt found its origins in protests against local taxes (finta, T) and the foreign colonial presence. Central to the revolt, which ended with more than 3,000 people being massacred, was the obligatory payment of finta.42
The Manufahi revolt marked the formation of nationalist aspirations by the Timorese. The announcement of the establishment of the Republic in the Province of Timor in October 1910, following the ousting of the monarchy in Portugal, contributed to mounting tensions that caused unrest amongst the liurai who had embraced the royal Portuguese insignia, depicted on the flag of Portugal as a sacred, lulik, object. Thus ‘this climactic about-face by the Portuguese administration in doing away with symbols of the monarchy was achieved
38 Ricardo Roque, “The Unruly Island: Colonialism’s Predicament in Late Nineteenth-Century East Timor,” Portuguese Literary and Cultural Studies, vol. 17, no. 18 (2010): 303–330.
39 Roque, “The Unruly Island,” 305.
40 A rei was a Portuguese appointed authority figure, in a specific region. Often the traditional liurai were
appointed as rei by the Portuguese administration to infiltrate existing indigenous power and authority structures.
41 A liurai is a traditional, indigenous ruler of a village or aldeia.
42 Geoffrey C Gunn, Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years (Macau: Livros do Oriente, 1999), 178. Gunn cites Raphael da
Dores, Apontamentos para um Diccionario Chrographico de Timor, Imprensa Nacional, Lisbon, 1903, 46. Gunn describes Manufahi as ‘a south coast reino forming part of the military district of Alas in line with the
rationalization of 1860’. In 1903, it was estimated that $96,000 was paid in taxes from a population of 42,000, or 6,500 households, in Manufahi.
60
over the head of the Timorese as if it were an exclusive matter for metropolitans and civilisé’.43
The Manufahi revolt subsequently erupted and stands out as an epic event in both Portuguese colonial history and Timorese history, with over 12,000 troops required to control the uprising.44
A commission in 1910 had estimated that 98,920 heads-of-family in Portuguese Timor paid taxes collected by approximately 75 local reinos and liurai on behalf of the Portuguese, in return for a percentage kick-back.45 The datos also acted on behalf of the liurai by infiltrating
the villages and implementing colonial orders to recruit labour, collect taxes and introduce the growing of plantation coffee.46 When finta was increased circa 1911, several local reino
requested reconsideration of the decision. As the tensions escalated, over 1,000 Timorese people fled into the Dutch West Timor enclave of Maucatar to avoid Portuguese attack. This crisis, although far from Baguia, reflects the onerous obligations placed on the Timorese at that time to augment the income of the Portuguese colony. Increases in taxes of two patacas, the Mexican silver coin used as currency by the Portuguese, was levied for each tree cut, for the registration of livestock and coconut trees, and five patacas was levied for the slaughter of livestock.47 As Timorese culture revolves around animal sacrifice this tax incensed the
Timorese who had limited access to patacas in their barter economy.48
By 1915 the economic situation of Timor was in crisis according to the metropolitan Revista
Colonial (25 July 1915), a condition that continued throughout WWI and the Great
Depression into the 1930s.49 Portugal verged on bankruptcy and, as a result, the development
of Timor was neglected.50 In the 1930s taxes increased, including the introduction of a tax
on bridewealth payments in order to recoup deficits from dwindling coffee production initiatives. By 1936, 98 per cent of the adult male population paid an annual tax of 11 patacas,
43 Gunn, Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years, 176. 44 Gunn, Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years, 177. 45 Gunn, Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years, 179.
46 According to customary authority structures in Timor, dato are akin to a minister of the liurai and may have
specific administrative, ritual or military responsibilities. See Gunn, Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years, 178–179, 188.
47 Gunn, Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years, 183.
48 Patacas were used to pay salaries for the Portuguese officials and military. From a Timorese perspective,
their high silver content made them desirable for making jewellery.
49 Gunn, Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years, 192. 50 Gunn, Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years, 199.
61 which was equivalent to four months’ labour. Those unable to meet this tax were taken into
corveé, where Timorese worked in chains and were beaten by Timorese soldiers (moradores,
T)51 with bamboo rods and wooden paddles (palmatori, M, T). Palmatori were used to strike
the victim’s palm, with up to 200 strikes, causing pain and bleeding.52 Bühler collected a
palmatori in 1935, evidence of their existence at that time.53
Although these impositions of tax and labour were wrought on the Timorese, little opportunity existed for them to accumulate private wealth. The Timorese remained illiterate, with Portuguese hardly spoken.54 The isolation of rural communities and an unswerving
adherence by the Timorese to customary practices and sacrifices also meant the rate of conversions to Catholicism in the 1930s only totalled approximately 19,000 people, after 300 years of religious proselytisation.55 Despite this limited success, influences such as the
historical ‘civilising’ role of the church, the role of the colonial military and the creolised
moradores, together with Portuguese state rituals, left a Latinised imprint upon this Melanesian
lineage-based society.56
During WWII, in December 1941, Timor was invaded by Dutch and Australian forces whose mission was to prevent its use as a base for a foreign invasion into Australia. This pre-emptive allied invasion into neutral Portuguese Timor led Japan to also invade on 20 February 1942, with approximately 20,000 Japanese troops entering the island.57 The Timorese provided on-
the-ground assistance to Australian forces who eventually withdrew from the island in February 1943. Thereafter Japanese reprisals including torture and death were directed towards those Timorese who had assisted the allied troops.58 As Japanese occupation
continued, American and Australian bombing raids destroyed over 90 per cent of Dili’s
51 Morador refers to a Timorese or creole soldier or guard who protected and acted on behalf of the liurai and
enacted local indigenous law (as distinct from Portuguese soldiers).
52 Gunn, Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years, 212. 53 See MKB IIc 6597.
54 Gunn, Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years, 214. 55 Gunn, Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years, 214. 56 Gunn, Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years, 220–221.
57 James Dunn, Timor: A People Betrayed (Milton, Brisbane: The Jacaranda Press, 1983), 22. The day before,
Japanese aircraft had repeatedly bombed Darwin, Australia.
58 Tania Correia and João Ferro, Dare memorial, honouring the memory, nurturing the future (Dili: Arquivo and
62
buildings. Targeted Japanese bombing had destroyed Portuguese postu and the 600-strong Portuguese community was interned into concentration camps.59
In Baguia in 2014, senior men recall the harshness of Japanese occupation and working in construction gangs. They built roads from Baguia Villa to Hae Coni, Osso Huna and Afaloicai village, and Uatolari and Uatocarbau villages in neighbouring Viqueque District.
During this time … we did not use tractors and cars but only crowbar and machetes to make the roads. The width of the road we built was determined by the width of the car … In the Japanese period, when people did not do the work they were ordered to do, the Japanese would hit them with a wooden stick until the Timorese people almost died … During the Japanese period, Timorese people were still continuing with their culture as usual … we as men were wearing a loincloth, as there were no shirts and pants to wear, we just used a loin-cloth and a piece of handwoven cloth ... Also women used female and man’s cloth as clothing until they rotted. The cotton used to make these
tais was grown before the Japanese came.60
In addition to memories of hardship and scarcity under Japanese occupation, recollections of the introduction of weapons, predominantly machetes, remain in Baguia. One style of sword known as the samurai was, in 2014, a reminder of the Japanese occupation. The introduction of metal drinking flasks and aluminium cooking posts was also associated with this period.
Famine and forced labour on road-building programs contributed to extremely harsh conditions in East Timor during WWII. The war devastated the livelihoods, food production and cotton growing for many Timorese. Most available food was taken by the Japanese.61 In
1946 a census carried out by the Australian Government indicated that between 40,000 and 70,000 East Timorese died due to war, related hunger and disease during WWII. 62 This was
59 Gunn, Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years, 224–225. Portuguese people were sent to Liquica and Maubere
concentration camps.
60 Celestino Guterres, interview with author, Bahatata, Hae Coni, Baguia Sub-district, 8 October 2014. 61 Dunn, Timor: A People Betrayed, 24, 25.
63 equivalent to 10–15 per cent of the pre-war population estimated to be 450,000 people. In terms of loss of life relative to population, East Timor was one of the great catastrophes of WWII.63 In the late 1940s and 1950s life expectancy was below 30 years of age.64 Records of
post-war infant mortality rates are scant, but in the early 1970s the infant mortality rate in East Timor was reportedly at a staggering 50 per cent.65
After the war, Timor’s extreme isolation persisted, with the exception of contact with Portugal and its colonies.66 Post-war tax reached 20 patacas per male, which contributed to
an annual revenue of 2,000,000 patacas.67 Together with other direct or indirect imposts, these
taxes ensured the colony ran a balanced budget.68 However, over time the Portuguese
Timorese ranked as one of the world’s poorest people with their meagre wealth being unevenly distributed.69 In 1958, the patacas currency was replaced with the escudos, which was
non-exchangeable outside the Portuguese trading bloc.
Resistance to Portuguese rule occurred again in 1959, in the form of the Viqueque uprising. This rebellion emanated from the Naueti, Makasae and Midiki-speaking area of Viqueque District and was orchestrated by Indonesian members of Permesta, an outer-island regionalist movement from the South Moluccas that fought against Sukarno’s centralising government. In 1958 the PCA granted asylum to Permesta members from Indonesia, most of whom settled in eastern Portuguese Timor.
Upon observing the treatment of the Timorese by the Portuguese, the Permesta refugees gained influence with the local liurai and orchestrated a revolt against the Portuguese administration between 7 and 20 June 1959.70 This anti-colonial rebellion commenced in
Uatolari and spread to Viqueque Villa, Uatocarbau and Baguia Villa. The Portuguese quelled
63 Dunn, Timor: A People Betrayed, 26.
64 Martin Shanahan, “Southeast Asia and Australia/New Zealand,” in A History of the Global Economy: 1500 to the Present, edited by Joerg Baten, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016, 299.
65 Dunn, Timor: A People Betrayed, 45.
66 Portugal’s colonies consisted of Macau, Mozambique, Angola and Goa.
67 Gunn, Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years, 194. The term patacas was derived from the Mexican eight reales, known as
Pataca Mexicana or silver dollar coin.
68 Gunn, Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years, 251.
69 Gunn, Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years, 251–252. In 1974, labourers earned $1 per week compared with clerks
who earned $25 per week.
64
the uprising, with the assistance of Fataluku militia, resulting in between 500 and 1,000 casualties.71 The rebellion ended in Baguia with approximately 65 leaders arrested, some of
whom were exiled to Angola. This uprising has been interpreted as an early attempt by Indonesia to destabilise Portuguese Timor or as the beginnings of the post-war nationalist movement. Although the 1959 uprising was virtually unreported internationally because of the colony’s isolation from the broader world, it nonetheless marked a critical turning point in post-war colonial history.72 This uprising had a lasting impact on the political awareness
of the Timorese.73
As of 1963, Timor became a province of Portugal with its own administration and structure of Governor, District Administrator (Administrador do Concelho, P)74, Chief of Administrative
region (Chefe de Postu, P) and Timorese village head (Chefe de Suco, P), who headed each settlement (suco, T; povoação, P). Each postu employed several Timorese police officers and the
Chefe de Postu collected the taxes, supervised indigenous labour forces and attended to
administration and supervision of the Chefe de Suco.75 These administrative structures are
reflected today in the positions of District Administrator, Sub-district Administrator and Xefe
de Suco. Also, there is now the role of Xefe de Aldeia, who reports to the Xefe de Suco.
By the 1960s, basic consumer goods imported from Macau and Hong Kong were available for purchase through a network of Chinese-Timorese owned stores that existed across Portuguese Timor. Retail trade in the hands of the Chinese resulted in a range of foodstuffs and goods being too expensive for consumption by local subsistence farmers.76 Local reports
in Baguia recall that Chinese merchants arrived in 1973 and left at the time of Indonesian invasion, suggesting that commercial products arrived in Baguia later than in other less remote areas.77 Some infrastructure development, such as the building of the Baucau airstrip
71 Gunn, Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years, 260. 72 Gunn, Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years, 259, 261.
73 Frédéric Durrand, “Three Centuries of Violence and Struggle in East Timor (1726–2008),” Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence, (14 October 2011), 7–8. Published 14 October 2011.
<http://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/en/document/three-centuries-violence- and-struggle-east-timor-1726-2008>. Accessed 28 March 2017.
74 The 13 conchelo, P are reflected in the 13 districts that form modern-day Timor-Leste. There were 60 postu or
administration offices established by the Portuguese colonial administration in Portuguese Timor.
75 Gunn, Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years, 244–245. In contemporary Tetun orthography Chefe is spelt Xefe. 76 Dunn, Timor: A People Betrayed, 30.
77 Francisco Raimero da Silva, personal communication with author, Afaloicai, Baguia Sub-district, 1 October
65 in 1963, led to the opening up of the territory to foreign, particularly Australian, tourists.78 A
coffee boom in the 1960s and 1970s also boosted the economy.79 However, road and bridge
construction was limited, particularly in areas as remote as Baguia, leaving Portuguese Timor with abysmal infrastructure.
Exploration for oil and gas had occurred on the coast of Timor from 1947 onwards, with activities concentrated around Sai and Aliambata. Subsequent negotiations occurred between Australia and Portugal over sea boundaries, with Australia securing 70 per cent of the seabed between north Australia and Timor, leaving a 250 km ‘gap’, which became known as the internationally contested Timor Gap. However, no major oil and gas excavation occurred prior to 1975. Portuguese Timor continued to experience the State’s inability to effectively develop extractive industries along the model of northern European colonialism.80
After 400 years of colonial rule, Timor received independence from Portugal in November 1975. This independence was prompted by the fall of the conservative and authoritarian
Estado Novo (Second Republic) regime in Portugal on 25 April 1974 due to the Carnation
Revolution in Lisbon, a military coup by left-wing Portuguese military officers from the Movement of the Armed Forces. This ended 48 years of dictatorship in Portugal and commenced the process of Portugal divesting itself of its colonies, including Timor.
Timor’s independence, proclaimed on 28 November 1975 by Xavier Francisco do Amaral, was fleeting. In December of the same year Indonesia invaded. East Timor was established as the 27th Province of the Republic of Indonesia.81 A resistance to integration and
occupation ensued. Simultaneously, Suharto sought to ‘develop’ Indonesia, including a ‘fight against atheism.’ As the population of Portuguese Timor was predominantly animist, Benedict Anderson maintains that Indonesia’s mission of ‘[m]aking them [the Timorese] “Indonesian” meant “raising” them from animism to having a proper religion, which given existing realities meant Catholicism’.82
78 Dunn, Timor: A People Betrayed, 29. 79 Gunn, Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years, 250. 80 Gunn, Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years, 241. 81 East Timor became Propinsi Timor-Timur.
66
The spread of Catholicism was to become a vexed question for Indonesian authorities as papal Rome insisted on bypassing the Indonesian Catholic hierarchy and dealing directly with the East Timorese archdiocese. Between 1975 and the 1990s, the membership of the Catholic Church increased from 30 per cent to over 90 per cent in East Timor, suggesting the