East Timor, Founding of

The Fretilin Heritage

The timing of independence and the rhetoric and symbolism of the independence ceremony were evocative of the role of the Frente Revolucionária do Timor-Leste Independente (Fretilin) party and its precursor party, Associação Social Democratica Timorense (ASDT), founded in 1974. As inscribed in the East Timor constitution, the day of Fretilin's unilateral declaration of independence, 28 November 1975, just ahead of an Indonesian invasion, is honored as the new nation's independence day. For Fretilin, the long and costly struggle was vindicated.

In fact, during the years after the Indonesian invasion, key Fretilin members were captured or killed, including Commandante Nicolau Lobato, leaving but one surviving central committee member to assume the leadership of Falintil, which was the armed resistance. That member was future East Timor President José Xanana Gusmão, who in March 1981 founded the umbrella National Council of Maubere Resistance (CNRM) above party affiliation.

However, where military struggle had its limits against an adversary who virtually sealed off the island to outside contacts, José Ramos-Horta (Fretilin external affairs spokesperson and future East Timor foreign minister) became a spokesperson for East Timor independence, making his youthful debut at the U.N. Security Council in 1976. Other central committee members then outside the country gained the support of Portugal's former African colonies of Mozambique and Angola. The future prime minister of East Timor, Mari Alkatiri, a scion of East Timor's small Arab community, long traveled with a Mozambique diplomatic passport.

However, just as the armed struggle by a ragged resistance became almost mythical in the minds of Timorese at home as well as abroad, communications between the external and internal wings of the [Page 374]resistance ruptured. Relations among leaders in the diaspora, especially Portugal, Australia, and Mozambique also frayed over tactics and personalities. This fraying became apparent in a clash in Maputo (Mozambique) in 1978–1979 between leftwing exile Abilio Araujo and fellow exile Rogerio Lobato against the Social Democratic wing of the party as represented by Ramos-Horta. In October 1989, Ramos-Horta resigned from Fretilin; Abilio Araujo, accused of corruption, was expelled in 1993.

Cnrt and the Rise of the “Clandestine”

Attempts to coordinate the diplomatic struggle led to convergence of former adversaries of the short civil war of 1975: the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT) party under João Carrascalão and the Fretilin party. The decision to bury the hatchet led to the formation in April 1998 of the Timorese National Resistance Council (CNRT), an umbrella organization that also included the Church. Until it was dissolved at a congress in the capital city of Dili in August 2000, CNRT was the major interlocutor organization between the East Timorese and the U.N. As one among many voices in the CNRT, Fretilin would resurface as a force only in the run-up to East Timor's first free elections held under U.N. auspices in August 2001.

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