Timorese tribulations
TEOTONIO R DE SOUZA
Self-determination or manipulation by international interests? What happened to nearly 22 per cent of the Timorese who did not want Independence but autonomy within Indonesia? Was it an insignificant minority to be ignored without an alternative and subject to the dictatorship of the majority? The “independence” of Timor may be guaranteed by international interests until such time as it suits them, but is it guaranteed by internal consensus that matters most for people´s development? Apparently not, because the Truth and Reconciliation process did not produce any satisfactory results.
Armando Osório de Castro who served as judge in Timor in the opening decade of the 20th century, refers to an account titled ‘Gentio do Timor’ by a Portuguese captain Armando Pinto Correia, describing the violent rebellions of the Timorese put down by the governor Celestino da Camara with exceptional determination, without which Timor may have ceased to be Portuguese.
Armando Osório de Castro left behind his memoirs, published by the AgenciaGeral das Colónias in Lisbon in 1943. Its most recent edition of 1996 retains the original title ‘A Ilha Verde e Vermelha de Timor’. The green and red colours of the cover reflected the flora and soil of Timor, replicating the author’s impressions of Goa where he had served earlier. It provides innumerous botanical parallels between Goa and Timor, including the omnipresence of ganerem , besides jackfruit, coconut and arecanut trees, and even the pleasant smelling parijat or rat-ki-rani. It suggests that the breadfruit tree (artocarpusincisa) was probably taken by the Dominicans from Timor to Goa.
Judge Castro has comments about colonial populations that may be considered typical of the western anthropologists of those times. He refers patronizingly to the Oan Timor (sons of Timor) and their racial proximity to the fairer Dayaks of Indonesian Borneo, rather than Malayan or Papuan negroids. The author lauds the beauty of the mix-breeds that resulted from the Asian races and western colonialists, including the Portuguese, particularly in India before the suppression of the white militia in Goa in 1870, causing the extinction of what he describes as “the delicate hot-house crossbreeding by white lineages arriving from metropolitan Portugal.”
We were pleased for an encounter this week with Peter M. Buckley, an Australian geoscientist presently living in Goa. He has begun sharing his observations about Goa, Timor and Macau on the Goa Research Net, a Facebook forum seeking to compare the post-colonial responses of their native populations to supra-regional political pressures. His specialization seems to have attracted his attention to the external interests in Goa’s mineral wealth, just like the oil interests in Timor.
It would be too simplistic to reduce varying forms of decolonization merely to interests in natural resources, leaving out military strategic reasons (that had brought the Portuguese to Goa) and, above all, the cultural networks that promote those interests on behalf of the ruling elites at the local, regional and supra-regional levels. Unlike Timor Lorosae, Goa and Goans were vitally dependent upon neighbouring India for their sustenance during the long colonial period and it continues to be so in post-colonial times. This dependence was reflected in the extensive network of cultural links that played a major role during Goa’s freedom struggle.
Incidentally, some Goans who do not hide their annoyance about Goa’s liberation and integration into India could well fit into the model of the 22 per cent of Timorese who voted in the 1999 referendum to stay within Indonesia, but were left high and dry with no such alternative. These Goans reflected on their old hopes after a recent IFFI award for a Timorese film, which failed to tell the full story without tracing all the features of its flawed independence and democracy led by a former guerilla elite at the service of foreign economic interests. No satisfactory internal consensus is within sight after an inconclusive end of the much touted UN sponsored Truth and Reconciliation process. To cap the new democratic model, one of the official languages is Portuguese that helped the former guerillas to coordinate their freedom struggle against Indonesia, even though it is spoken by no more than 3 per cent of the population. Goans should be proud of their model of democracy, despite much of the promises made in vain.
For those who may be interested in exploring closer links between Goa and Timor, I would suggest that they trace the descendants of the nearly 100 families of Ranes and Sawant Desais who had rebelled against the Portuguese in Satari, coinciding with the rebellions in the British Indian territories of Kolhapur and Sawantwadi on the eve of the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. They were deported to Timor in early February 1959 under British pressure. Among them were entire families with women and children of ages varying between 2 and 10. The descendents of these Goans may have contributed to many rebellions that marked the history of Timor under the Portuguese till its latest successful rebellion against Indonesia. Unfortunately, they did no figure in ‘Beatriz’s War’ that won an IFFI award in Goa.
One final curiosity to reflect on. The Timorese native concept of reconciliation that served as the basis for the Truth and Reconciliation process was defined in Tétum as ‘nahebiti’, translated in official documents as “stretching the mat” (rivals sitting together for dialogue), but which the Marathi speaking ex-Goan Ranes and Dessais from Timor would understand as “no fear”.
