East Timorese history after independence

History Workshop Journal

Volumn 61, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 222-237

  Leach, Michael ^a  

^a DEAKIN UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33749829061     PISSN: 13633554     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/hwj/dbi051     Document Type: Article

References (38)

1. Sara Lightner and Anna Naupa, Histri Blong Yumi Long Vanuatu: An Educational Resource, Port Vila. 2005, vols 1-3
2. Sara Lightner and Anna Naupa, 'Writing a national history curriculum for Vanuatu', Pacific History Association Conference, Noumea, 7 Dec. 2004.
3. Jose Ramos-Horta, Nobel Lecture, Stockholm, 1996, pp. 168-9.
4. See Geoffrey C. Gunn, Timor Loro Sae: 500 Years, Macau, 1999, p. 24 (and pp.17-28 for an excellent overview of Timorese historiographical issues).
5. Geoffrey C. Gunn, 'The Five-Hundred Year Timorese Funu', in Bitter Flowers, Sweet Flowers: East Timor, Indonesia and the World Community, ed. Richard Tanter, Mark Selden and Stephen R. Shalom, Sydney, 2001, p. 10.
6. Matsuno cited in Gunn, Timor Loro Sae, p. 290.
7. Gunn, Timor Loro Sae, p. 22.
8. Author's survey of East Timorese history teachers, 2005.
9. See for example Abilio de Araujo, Timor Leste: Os Loricos Voltaram a Cantar: Das Guerras Independentistas a Revoluciao do Povo Maubere, Lisbon, 1977.
10. Gunn notes that Araujo's periodization was one which refutes 'Portuguese (although not necessarily Indonesian) historiography', Timor Loro Sae, p. 11.
11. These Melanesian affinities were politically expressed through solidarity with West Papua and an oft-repeated desire to join South Pacific Forum rather than the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) upon independence. This position was in part attributable to the active support of Vanuatu's Prime Minister Walter Lini, the only member of the nonaligned group of nations to support East Timor's struggle for independence. Jose Ramos-Horta argued in 1999 that East Timor had 'more in common culturally and historically with the South Pacific than with Indonesia and the rest of South-East Asia' while geographically part of the latter region. See 'East Timor: Observer status to be sought at Forum', Pasifik Nius, 6 March 1999, http://www.etan.org/et99/march/1-7/ 01east.htm.
12. Cited in Simon Chesterman, 'East Timor in Transition: From Conflict Prevention to State-Building', International Peace Academy Reports, May 2001.
13. Gunn, Timor Loro Sae, p. 23. Funu, meaning warfare in Tetum, also refers to ritualized combat between tribal groups. Its meaning has subsequently been appropriated as a term to describe resistance to external occupation. For Gunn, it is important to distinguish between authentically proto-national rebellions, and the ritualized forms of funu, which took on anti-colonial, anti-tax dimensions: He argues (p. 281) that 'it is only through an understanding of the ritualized aspects of funu that the near half millennium of Timorese resistance makes sense'.
14. Interview, 13 Aug. 2002.
15. See Helen Hill, Stirrings of Nationalism in East Timor: FRETILIN 1974-1978, Otford, Australia, 2002, pp.70-92 for a full exploration of FRETILIN's nationalist themes in this period.
16. See Michael Leach, 'Valorising the Resistance: National Identity and Collective Memory in East Timor's Constitution', Social Alternatives 21: 3, 2002, pp. 43-7.
17. Michael Leach, 'Privileged Ties: Young People Debating Language, Heritage and National Identity in East Timor', Portuguese Studies Review 11: 1, 2003, pp. 137-50.
18. At the time of writing, a Primary Curriculum Implementation Plan (2004-9) had just been released, approving a curriculum outline for grades 1-6. There is currently no formal middle and upper secondary-school history curriculum (aside from a poorly-distributed 'emergency' curriculum outline for middle level), nor a dedicated East Timorese history course at the National University. The exception is Marist Brothers Teacher Training Institute in Baucau, which runs a dedicated unit on the History of Timor-Leste.
19. Key 'events' in the Timor component of the curriculum included the 'Balibo declaration' by six leaders of anti-FRETILIN political parties in November 1975; the subsequent call for integration by the Indonesian-installed 'East Timor People's Representative Council' in May 1976, and the formal act of integration signed by President Suharto on 17 July 1976.
20. Interview, 16 Nov. 2004.
21. See 'JKTP - Other side of RI's History', Indonesia News, 23 Aug. 2000. http://www.hamline.edu/apakabar/basisdata/2000/08/22/0027.html.
22. Interview with School Principal, Baucau, 23 Oct. 2004.
23. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London, 1983.
24. Leach, 'Valorising the Resistance', p. 43.
25. Jill Joliffe, East Timor: Nationalism and Colonialism. St Lucia, 1978, pp. 103-5. The political significance of the term was evident in the 1998 decision to rename the National Council for Maubere Resistance as the National Council for Timorese Resistance (CNRT) - a concession to the UDT which considered the term a leftist one connoting class struggle.
26. United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor, 2001, Independent Electoral Commission Statement of Reasons: Decision number 2001-8. 9 June.
27. Anderson, Imagined Communities.
28. Leach, 'Privileged Ties', p. 149.
29. See Leach, 'Privileged Ties', p.145. Despite the controversy over Portuguese language, other aspects of Portuguese cultural heritage are subject to a high degree of consensus. In particular, 'being Catholic' was rated as a 'very important' part of being 'truly' East Timorese by eighty-three percent of respondents.
30. Interview, 13 Aug. 2002.
31. Interview with 'Lian Maubere', 15 Aug. 2002.
32. Interview, 16 Nov. 2004. A related issue is the popular resentment occasionally expressed against some political leaders 'taking over' post- independence politics after having been in the diaspora during the Indonesian occupation.
33. Interview, 14 Aug. 2002.
34. Interview, 11 Aug. 2002.
35. See Rachel Hervey, 'E. Timor truth commission formed', BBC News, 1 Aug. 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4734133.stm.
36. John Aglionby, 'Row over East Timor report', Guardian Weekly 173: 24, 2-8 Dec. 2005, p. 4.
37. 'JKTP - Other side of RI's History'.
38. Elazar Barkan, 'Engaging History: Managing Conflict and Reconciliation', History Workshop Journal 59, 2005, pp. 229-36.