We are all in solidarity. In other words, interdependent, regarding situations such as climate change, pandemics or international relations. In the case of Timor, there was interdependence among the Timorese, different political forces and people who showed solidarity.

The Timorese resisted either through armed resistance, clandestine action or by simply defending their identity and rejecting the invader. They were the driving forces behind the whole process, but the solution depended largely on national and international political powers. As a former colonising power and an administrative power, under international law, Portugal had a central responsibility, namely in the UN.

In the vast international arena, at least 84 groups, in 24 countries, in five continents, formed with the specific purpose of solidarity with Timor-Leste. Many other organisations and individuals supported this cause on a continuous or occasional basis. The geographical extension of solidarity was a constant source of pressure on political forces across many countries, while its social, political and religious diversity has facilitated awareness among different targets.

In 1974 Portugal decolonised, in compliance with the United Nations’ resolutions. The US had signed the Paris agreements to disengage from Vietnam in 1973, and the Vietcong conquered Saigon in 1975. The American domino theory, then in vogue, proclaimed that the fall of one country would cause the fall of others into the communist fold. Indonesia, which had participated in the Vietnam War as a UN commission member, stirred up fears of the communist threat in Timor and obtained US support.

Given the small size of Timor-Leste, Portugal and Indonesia considered independence unfeasible: Timor had to be Portuguese or Indonesian. The first option contradicted the decolonisation underway in the other colonies; as for the second option, Portugal accepted it with one condition: Indonesia would have to obtain the consent of the Timorese. They failed to do this. In December 1975, Indonesia invaded Timor-Leste.

Without disregarding the great number of intervening parties during the 24 years of occupation, or all the support that Portugal received from groups and individuals from other countries, this report analyses the interdependence between three levels: the Timorese, the Portuguese State and solidarity movements in Portugal. For practical reasons, the 24 years have been divided into five periods.

1975-1981

Fleeing the invasion, many Timorese sought refuge in the mountains. Indonesia had military superiority, but its acceptance was in inverse proportion to its military activity. Portugal assumed its status as an “administering power” but asserted its incapacity to act. Fewer and fewer states defended international law. Timor was unknown; the first task of Portuguese solidarity was to create awareness around what was happening on the ground.

Timor

Five months after the invasion, the provincial superiors of the Jesuits and the Society of the Divine Word, in Indonesia, were authorised to visit Timor-Leste (Felgueiras and Martins 2006). They wrote: “The total population of villages and towns occupied by the Indonesian forces amount to 150,000 people.”[1] They estimated the number of deaths to be between 50,000 and 100,000. Two thirds of the Timorese had taken refuge in the mountains or had already been killed.

The armed resistance organised by Fretilin hindered, but did not stop, the advance of the Indonesian armed forces. In December 1978 Fretilin Commander Nicolau Lobato was killed in action and the Armed Resistance was left unorganised.

Decimated by three years of war and famine, the population that remained in the mountains was forced to descend into Indonesian-controlled areas. According to Indonesian official sources, 170,000 people came down from the mountains in two months at the end of 1978 (Fundação Mário Soares 2002).[2] They were placed in guarded camps where they suffered various forms of mistreatment and starvation.

The Catholic Church, tolerated by the occupiers, was the only Timorese organisation that could provide any assistance to the population; the churches were the only places where the population could gather and collectively use the Indigenous Tetum language. The Church became a refuge at the same time as an affirmation of identity. In 1974 Catholics represented 36% of the population, this number would grow to 78% in 1978, according to the Indonesian Defence and Security Assistant.

Xanana Gusmão, one of the few survivors of Fretilin’s Central Committee, sought to know how many fighters remained in the mountains, where “a long period of adaptation to the guerrilla phase” began.[3]

In 1981 Indonesia launched a military operation in which the entire male population was used as living shields to surround and annihilate the guerrillas. Its objective failed, and when the people returned to their homes, a missionary wrote: “one feels everywhere a reinvigoration of energies and firmness for the resistance and fight for independence.”[4] Martinho da Costa Lopes, apostolic administrator of the diocese of Dili, denounced the massacres and is supposed to have stated before the Indonesian military that he didn’t see nothing wrong with the fact that the men of Fretilin, having a Catholic formation, were fighting for independence.

The Portuguese state

In 1975 the Security Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations condemned the invasion. Portugal informed the UN that it did not renounce its status as an administering power but that its effective sovereignty had ceased due to the presence of Indonesian forces, and therefore it could not provide information about the situation. Portugal’s silence allowed Indonesia to disseminate the idea that the Timorese had self-determined and had chosen integration.

In 1980, the Francisco Sá Carneiro government, the twelfth Portuguese government in six years, stated that none of the previous governments tried to define a program for Timor: “Portugal will propose talks to Indonesia, with the proviso that they will not involve recognition of the situation.” Indonesia rejected talks at an international level.[5]

Every year the UN General Assembly voted in favour of Timor’s “right to self-determination and independence,” but between 1975 and 1981 the number of states voting in favour of Indonesia increased from 9 to 40. This came as a warning of a future diplomatic defeat for Portugal as an administering power.

Portuguese solidarity

Portugal had a privileged position in international solidarity because of its ties to its colony. The Fretilin Overseas Leadership (DFSE) was established in Lisbon. The Centre for Anti-Colonial Information and Documentation (CIDAC),[6] in solidarity with the movements for the independence of the colonies, was among the first to release information about the situation in occupied Timor. It published the Boletim Timor-Leste, contacted journalists, and organised information sessions, but the Portuguese public was focused on the country’s own transition to democracy.

To alert international public opinion, CIDAC took advantage of previous relations with anti-colonialist and internationalist groups and publications. An international conference in Lisbon in 1979 called on the Portuguese government to break its silence on Timor at the United Nations and to help the refugees who left Timor before the invasion.

In 1981 CIDAC organised in partnership with the DFSE a session by the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal with talks by international experts and two missionaries who had left Timor, one of them after having been with the refugee population in the mountains for several years. This session of the Tribunal in Lisbon gave rise to the Commission for the Rights of the Maubere People (CDPM).

1982-1985

During this period the guerrillas achieved successes that led to a ceasefire. Portugal was trying to push its responsibilities onto the UN Secretary-General (S-G). Solidarity found diverse allies, sometimes politicians who did not agree with their own governments.

Timor

With the transformation of the armed resistance into guerrillas, “1982 was a year of military successes,” wrote Xanana. Under the orders of Andi Mohammad General Yusuf, Indonesia’s Defence Minister, conversations with the guerrillas began in March 1983 where they demanded “a referendum process… under UN supervision.” During the ceasefire, Indonesia tried to seduce the guerrilla commanders and used this time to structure contacts between the guerrillas and the population of the occupied zones.[7] When the ceasefire ended, several units of “hansips” (East Timorese armed by the Indonesian army to fight the guerrillas), joined the guerrillas.

In 1985 Monsignor Carlos Belo, who succeeded Monsignor Martinho da Costa Lopes as Apostolic Administrator of Dili, asked the Timorese university students in Indonesia to “help the leaders of the Church to take a political-religious position that was not contrary to the aspirations of the majority of the people.”[8] The students formed the Timor-Leste Catholic Youth Organisation and responded that, following its teachings, the Church could not oppose self-determination and independence. Xanana welcomed the position of the students and encouraged them to continue because: “Resistance by armed means is only one aspect of popular resistance … we are not capable of expelling the military.”[9] It is the first document in which the insufficiency of the armed struggle was affirmed. Clandestine organisations of young Timorese multiplied, both in Timor and Indonesia.

The Portuguese State

The vote at the UN in 1981 worked as a wake-up call for Portuguese politicians. In 1982, a Commission on the Future of Timor was created by the Portuguese Parliament, President Ramalho Eanes asked all ambassadors to raise the subject of Timor, and Prime Minister Pinto Balsemão declared at the UN that Timor was the main priority for Portuguese foreign policy.

Following a proposal by Portugal, the UN approved, with a slim majority (50-46), Resolution 37/30 which requested the Secretary-General to “initiate consultations with all the parties directly concerned with a view to finding … a comprehensive solution.” Indonesia reported that: “is categorically opposed to all kinds of UN discussions or deliberations (…) on the political and legal status of East Timor.”[10] Perez de Cuéllar entrusted Under-Secretary-General Rafeeuddin Ahmed to conduct the talks endorsed in the resolution. Portuguese diplomacy managed to interrupt the annual votes and postpone the expected negative vote, but returned to silence under the pretext that now the issue was in the hands of the Secretary-General.

In 1983 some NGOs (Pax Romana, Pax Christi and the Ligue Internationale pour les Droits et la Libération des Peuples) forced the UN Commission on Human Rights to examine the situation in Timor. The Portuguese representative, Fernando Reino, underlined that this was the first time and that it was “an initiative by independent experts.” He took the opportunity to break the diplomatic silence and stated that Portugal’s objective was “a decolonization process in accordance with international law.”[11]

In a letter to Prime Minister Mário Soares, 48 US Congressmen declared: “We are aware of Portuguese diplomatic efforts, most recently at the UNHCR in Geneva, to help secure the internationally-recognised rights of the East Timor people. We applaud these moves by Portugal and hope they will be intensified in the future.”[12] But this was not the government’s view. Foreign Affairs Minister Jaime Gama called the letter “demagogy” and “political marketing.” [13] His statements caused controversy in the USA: “I was troubled and puzzled by remarks attributed to Foreign Minister Jaime Gama,” wrote one signatory.[14] There were repercussions in the Portuguese press, which mentioned that Gama, before the Parliamentary Commission of Foreign Affairs, had called the annexation a fait accompli. An editorial in the Portuguese newspaper Diário de Notícias declared the “question irreversible… with no room for more utopias.”[15] There were also protests and Gama promised to defend self-determination in his next speech to the UN but ultimately only spoke of a “global solution” without mentioning the right to self-determination.[16]

In 1982 President Ramalho Eanes appointed Maria de Lurdes Pintasilgo as his special advisor for Timor-Leste and pressed the Government to define a strategy on the matter; he received no response. In 1984 he met, successively, with Msgr da Costa Lopes, the Timor Futures Commission, and the Commission for the Rights of the Maubere People (CDPM). To overcome their public differences, the President and the PM issued a joint statement affirming “the inalienable right of East Timorese people to self-determination as defined by the principles and practices of the United Nations.“[17] Written in English, the statement was addressed to the UN, but the Government did not release it to the public.

The Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo stated that “the Portuguese Government will propose to Indonesia the recognition of Jakarta’s sovereignty over East Timor in exchange for autonomy with a guarantee of cultural and religious freedom.“[18] A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Lisbon declined to comment.[19] In 1985, before the General Assembly, the UN revealed that the talks addressed the repatriation of former Timorese officials, religious freedom and the preservation of the Portuguese cultural heritage.[20]

In his speech to the General Assembly, Jaime Gama confirmed these themes and made a complete turnaround, stating: “in a process of self-determination, in which the people of the territory are the main subject, they cannot be ignored when their destiny is decided.“[21] He met Ramos-Horta the following day, confiding that he had “talked at length with Bishop Belo in Lisbon.“[22] It was later known that it was this meeting between Belo and Soares that changed the government’s position (Henriques 2020). Bishop Belo had reported that the Timorese people were with the guerrillas, that the Indonesian repression was fierce and that they did not accept integration.

The Portuguese government and presidency were finally on the same page, but Prime Minister Soares lost the legislative elections and was replaced by Aníbal Cavaco Silva. The process had moved backwards.

Portuguese solidarity

At the beginning of this period, in 1982, Pope John Paul II visited Portugal. Religious ex-missionaries in Timor-Leste decided to question the Pope and were supported by Portuguese people who had been in Timor before the invasion as well as Christian groups that, around the newspaper Libertar created the association A Paz é Possível em Timor-Leste (APPTL) [Peace is Possible in Timor-Leste]. This new group received information directly from the Church in Timor. This diversified the sources of information and the target audiences: the CDPM was more oriented towards political aspects, the APPTL towards human rights and religious circles.

Mgr. da Costa Lopes, forced into exile, brought to Lisbon photographs of the ceasefire that contradicted the version of the guerrilla surrender spread by Indonesia with the support of Australia and some receptivity in Portugal. The DFSE showed the photos of the resistance during the ceasefire to journalists and international solidarity organisations.[23]

In 1984, the Portuguese Episcopal Conference spoke out for the first time: “Timor aspires to the full expression of its own individuality, and to prevent it translates into… a genocide….” The following year, 94 Portuguese MPs supported a declaration in favour of Timor-Leste presented by Lord Avebury and signed by more than 400 European parliamentarians.

CDPM in Porto and a Christian group called “Paz e Justiça para Timor-Leste” (Peace and Justice for Timor-Leste) organised solidarity activities in the northern part of the country.

1986-1990

In response to internal and external pressures, Indonesia partially opened the territory of Timor-Leste, closed since 1975. Resistance split the military and political leadership. The Portuguese government removed self-determination from its programme and negotiated a visit to Timor by Portuguese parliamentarians. Former “repatriated” Timorese officials from the Portuguese administration brought their testimonies to Portugal.

Timor

In 1986, a first group of 750 families of Indonesian transmigrants arrived and was given farmland on the southwest coast, while others were sent to Dili. A high representative of the World Council of Churches visited Timor at the invitation of the Protestant Churches of Indonesia and wrote that the transmigrants arrived “to ‘take over’ jobs in the public administration, in commerce, or to appropriate the best land, they enjoy a special status”. Young Timorese were the first to protest.

In 1987 Xanana wrote to the youth of Dili: “The guerrillas have the hope and the certainty that your experiences of clandestine combat will be the decisive element….”[24] The structure of the resistance changed: Xanana was left with the task of defining the strategic and political guidelines; Taur Matan Ruak, the military forms of action.[25] Against the preference given to the children of transmigrants accessing different levels of education, hundreds of students threatened to join the guerrillas.[26] Governor Mário Carrascalão requested the opening of the territory so as to calm the revolt, which he attributed to the difficulty in finding jobs. Opening the border allowed foreigners to visit. Timorese youth took advantage, to express their opposition to integration: “there is a climate of rebellion in Dili” according to diplomats posted in Jakarta.

At the end of 1987, the Indonesian intelligence services (Intel) reported the deaths, in less than a month, of two successive guerrilla commanders. The head of Intel proclaimed the “failure of the armed struggle.” At the same time, he noted increased activity in the political field: a Fretilin flag in a school, Indonesian flags torn up, anti-Indonesian demonstrations and writings, and aggressions against Indonesians. He realised that, more than in the military field, the Timorese were increasing their activity in the political field, and recommended punishing the youth more severely.[27] In 1989 Bishop Belo wrote to Perez de Cuéllar requesting a referendum, but he received no reply.

The Portuguese State

Portugal was admitted to the European Community (EC) in January 1986. Mário Soares, elected President of the Republic, addressed the European Parliament to seek support for self-determination and independence. A Parliamentary resolution won 163 votes in favour, 3 against and 4 abstentions, and Portugal asked its EC partners to back its position on Timor. These countries, which had abstained in the 1982 vote that proposed talks at the UN, now declared their support. But in these talks, the Portuguese Government continued to try to transfer its responsibilities to the UN: it informed the S-G in 1987 that it had “nothing to add to the information provided … in its note dated 6 April 1979.”[28]

In 1987, UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar handed the Portuguese and Indonesian representatives a proposal for integration: In exchange for Indonesia’s promise to grant autonomy with respect for cultural, linguistic and religious differences, it asked Portugal to withdraw the subject of Timor from the UN. In a speech to Mr Perez de Cuéllar on a visit to Portugal, Prime Minister Cavaco Silva stated that he was “in search of a political solution that would highlight the dignity, cultural and religious identity and the aspirations of the people of Timor,“[29] without giving any details about these “aspirations”. President Mário Soares convened Council of State, in July, in which he disapproved of the agreement being prepared, but it was the government that negotiated in New York.

Portuguese diplomacy seemed to have difficulty defending the government’s positions. At the UN Decolonization Committee, the Portuguese representative referred to the numerous petitioners (21) who intervened that year over Timor, but declared: “I will dispense from further comments in view of the current phase of consultations in which we have embarked.”[30] In the CHR, where a young diplomat had arrived, Portugal showed itself to be more combative, contradicting the Indonesian representatives on several occasions, and also relying on the interventions of NGOs. Cavaco Silva was elected for a second mandate, and his government’s programme advocated “a dignified solution to the subject of Timor;” the government spokesman explained that Portugal “dropped the demand for self-determination because it is seeking a rapid solution.” The Jakarta Post noted Portugal’s “more realistic attitude.”[31]

At the end of the month, in his speech to the UN, Foreign Affairs Minister João de Deus Pinheiro repeated Cavaco Silva’s words but changed them in meaning by specifying: “the legitimate aspirations of the Timorese people”… in observance of the fundamental and unquestionable principle of self-determination as defined by UN General Assembly resolutions 1514 and 1541.”[32]

During this time, talks in New York dealt with the possibility of a Portuguese Parliamentary Delegation visiting Timor. The Parliament received an invitation from the Indonesian Parliament in March 1988. A fortnight later, Ali Alatas, Indonesian negotiator since 1984, promoted to Minister of Foreign Affairs, noted at his first press conference as Minister that there was resistance in Portugal: “If the UN still did not recognise Jakarta’s sovereignty, it was due to internal differences among the Portuguese.”[33]

In 1990 Perez de Cuéllar sent letters to the presidents of Portugal and Indonesia about the delegation’s visit. The Jakarta Post reported the letter received by Suharto and claimed that the visit would take the Timor issue out of the UN. Confronted with this claim, USG Rafeeuddin Ahmed said that this was an Indonesian interpretation, the letter was only meant to encourage the visit; but he told the Japanese Diet President “if it [the visit] were to take place it would lead to the solution of the issue and therefore [its] removal at the United Nations.”[34]

Portuguese solidarity

Former officials in the Portuguese Timor administration brought testimonies that were published in several languages and countries.[35] Their presence allowed for sessions to divulge the Timorese culture and contacts with participants of international meetings where they directly witnessed their experience of the invasion and occupation.

At the end of 1985, CDPM established a contact that allowed journalists to interview Xanana in writing. In 1987, CDPM and APPTL received letters from Xanana expressing the interest with which the guerrillas learned of publications by the two organisations. The channel used by Xanana for these letters – Timorese students in Indonesia – was a two-way street: detailed information on human rights violations was organised and forwarded to the specialised agencies of the United Nations. In the other direction, useful information about Portugal, the international context and the UN mechanisms was sent to the resistance. At the request of international solidarity groups, CDPM and APPTL created the Timor-Leste Information Centre, which produced detailed information for these groups and other interested parties.

Solidarity organisations regularly spoke at the UN Decolonization Committee and the Commission on Human Rights. In order to multiply their interventions and raise the status of petitioners, the two organisations encouraged MPs and the bishop of Setúbal, Manuel Martins, to participate in the Decolonization Committee. From 1988 onwards they promoted the participation in the CHR of Timorese refugees who testified on human rights violations from their own experience. The government financially supported the travelling costs of these Timorese, as a sign of solidarity.

Government and solidarity organisations had different ways of intervening but, since they had the same ultimate goal, they found opportunities to support each other. Some combined initiatives could be developed by solidarity in circumstances where the Government still felt constrained by the ongoing UN talks.

In 1989, the “Jornadas de Timor-Leste” (Timor-Leste workshops) were held at the University of Porto, bringing together specialists from several countries and later including, for the first time, Indonesians living in Indonesia who were aware of the issue. They continued annually. In 1990 a campaign was organised with the bishop of Setubal in support of Bishop Belo’s letter to Perez de Cuéllar in favour of a referendum. The campaign gathered letters from 166 bishops from 19 countries and numerous Christian communities.

1991-1996

In these years, three events projected Timor onto the international scene: the Santa Cruz massacre, Xanana’s arrest and trial, and the Nobel Peace Prize. 

Timor

Xanana went to Dili to prepare for the visit of the Portuguese parliamentarians. Mário Carrascalão warned that the Timorese “will look on this moment as the last chance to show their feelings.“[36] The Indonesian military was threatening anyone who took part in demonstrations.

The visit was cancelled by Portugal, the evening before, with the excuse of a refusal of a visa to a member of the delegation, but foreign observers were already in Dili ready to cover the visit. They photographed and filmed a demonstration that was taking place despite the withdrawal of the Portuguese parliamentarians. The Indonesians carried out their threats, and the world watched the Santa Cruz massacre on television. General Rudy Warouw, the military commander, praised the Armed Forces: “The GPK (Disturbers of Order, the name by which the military called the guerrillas) are not only in the bush, they are also in Dili and in all the villages. We will look for them all and we will eliminate them.” The video of the massacre forced many governments to speak out, but the protests were short lived. Indonesia “has never felt sufficiently aggrieved” by international resolutions, wrote Xanana, “Because commercial relations [are] maintained, including with Portugal.”[37]

In 1992 Xanana was captured from his hiding place in Dili and shortly afterwards his successor Mau Huno was arrested, and in turn replaced by Konis Santana. Konis noted that the capture had caused “the total disorganisation of the clandestine resistance.”[38] In a letter to the prison, David Alex, the guerrilla commander in Ponta Leste, spoke out against Xanana’s capture, but saw a positive aspect in it: so he could continue to lead the struggle without fear of “assassin bullets (…) it is the Indonesian generals themselves who are giving him security.“[39]

In his trial Xanana, once again, affirmed the priority of the political war: “I have recognised our incapacity in military terms, the Government of Jakarta [must] recognise its incapacity on the terrain of the political war.”[40] Yet the two forms of resistance were complementary and necessary. Xanana wrote to the FALINTIL guerrillas: “I know that you are already few in numbers and, for that very reason, your survival becomes a permanent concern for me,” and reaffirmed at the same time the need to “consolidate the political conditions.“[41]

At this political level, young people took advantage of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting and the presence of US President Bill Clinton in Jakarta to seek political asylum in several embassies: 29 managed to get into the US embassy, 50 were arrested before they could do so. In 10 years more than 150 young East Timorese entered 14 different embassies.

The Portuguese State

In 1991 Portugal, member of the European Economic Community since 1986, blocked an EEC-ASEAN trade agreement. Ten years after resolution 37/30, Foeign Mniister João de Deus Pinheiro proposed that the Timorese be included in the UN talks, as planned. To pretend to include them, Indonesia organised “reconciliation meetings” among Timorese, sponsored by a daughter of Suharto. The invitations were made by Francisco Lopes da Cruz and Abílio Araújo: they would not be allowed to talk about the territory’s political status. Xanana and Belo criticised these meetings, which were held at the same time as the UN talks: “why should other people interfere in the middle of this process?” asked Belo. It is not a matter of reconciliation between the Timorese, it is Indonesia that invaded Timor, wrote Xanana.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who replaced Perez de Cuéllar as UN Secretary-General, sent an observer to the second “reconciliation meeting” and proposed that the UN should organise the next meetings and name them “Intra Timorese” gatherings. Indonesia maintained its previous condition: the participants would not be allowed to discuss the political status of Timor. Bishop Belo circumvented the prohibition, simply stating that “the Timorese want to be masters of their land” and the final statement welcomed the bishop’s proposals.

Four years after the Santa Cruz massacre, Portugal saw the European Union’s Foreign Ministers adopted a “Common Position” in which they supported “a solution that fully respects the interests and legitimate aspirations of the people of East Timor, in accordance with international law.”[42]

In 1996 Boutros Ghali participated in the Portugal-Indonesia talks. At the end of the year, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Belo and José Ramos-Horta, Xanana’s representative. The Nobel Committee brought together the political and armed resistance; Indonesia wanted to separate them: Belo was allowed to go to Oslo to receive the prize on the condition that he would dissociate himself from Ramos-Horta. In his speech, Belo said: “when people choose the non-violent way, it is frequent that nobody listens.”

Portuguese solidarity

The video of Santa Cruz seen on television made a strong impact. Numerous solidarity initiatives were born in schools, student associations, trade unions, town halls, religious movements and churches, party youths… The “Forum Estudante” (student forum) launched “Operation Peace in Timor” that took the boat “Lusitânia Expresso” to the waters of Timor with 120 young people from 23 countries to pay homage to the victims of Santa Cruz.

Dozens of young people who had requested political asylum in embassies in Jakarta arrived in Lisbon. CDPM and CIDAC created the Centre for Timorese Citizenship, supported by the Government, with the aim of supporting their reception, personal development and integration into Portuguese society.

On a CDPM initiative, the Portuguese radio Rádio Difusão Portuguesa Internacional (RDPI), which transmits in Timor, created a weekly shortwave programme in Portuguese and Tetum to broadcast international news on the issue as well as information from Timor that had difficulty circulating in the occupied territory. The radio was even used by Xanana to address the Timorese from prison: “joy for the possibility of speaking to you through RDPI.”[43]

1997-1999

The Asian financial crisis in 1997 brought about changes in Indonesia that favoured new demands over Timor. The Timorese were already preparing for independence and solidarity groups in Portugal were overtaken by a nationwide emotional wave.

The Asian financial crisis hit Indonesia. The new UN S-G, Kofi Annan, appointed a special representative for the Timor issue, Jamsheed Marker, who took part in the Portugal-Indonesia talks. Demilitarisation of the territory was added to the topics already discussed. The military staged a withdrawal of its troops through the port of Dili but re-entered through the port of Com, on the northeast coast, in a last-ditch effort to defeat FALINTIL.

President Suharto was forced to resign. He was succeeded by B.J. Habibie, a civilian who during his short presidency (May 1998 – October 1999), pressured by circumstances, gradually made decisions that made independence inevitable. In July, Habibie proposed a trade-off: East Timor’s autonomy in Indonesia in exchange for the release of Xanana Gusmão. PM António Guterres considered that Portugal should be prepared for autonomy as an interim solution, but the definitive solution could only result from an exercise in self-determination.

Jamsheed Marker promised that there would be no solution without listening to the voice of the people. Habibie accepted a popular consultation in which the Timorese would be able to say whether they accept or reject autonomy within Indonesia. Habibie admitted that if the Timorese refused autonomy, there would be the possibility of separation.

In 1998, Timorese from the diaspora held a National Convention in Portugal, which established unity between the various parties and factions within a single structure, the National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT), whose President was Xanana.

Despite the threats, 95% of registered voters cast their ballot in the 1999 referendum. 78.5% would vote against autonomy and for independence. On polling day, Xanana recalled that during the ceasefire in 1983, the demand was for a referendum “with UN supervision”: “what FALINTIL demanded in 1983 has finally been achieved! It took 16 years for the conditions to be created.”[44]

It was only the conjunction between the Timorese, the political forces and the solidarity abroad that made possible what seemed impossible and what no one could have achieved on their own. The Timorese won independence. The Indonesians freed themselves from a war. The UN gained credibility, Portuguese politicians won consideration, and Portugal a special moment of national unity sporadically remembered with pride and nostalgia.