Fretilin proclaims East Timor's independence, 28 November 1975

On the afternoon of Friday 28 November 1975, about 2,000 people gathered in front of the Portuguese government building in Dili. Falintil troops, the armed wing of the Fretilin party, paraded in camouflage with bandanas in the colours of their units. Francisco Xavier do Amaral, Fretilin's president, arrived in a black Mercedes-Benz that had been the Portuguese governor's official car.1 source1 source

At 5.55pm the Portuguese flag came down. In its place went a new one, red, black and yellow with a white star. The crowd kept a minute's silence for those who had died in the previous months and in Timor's anti-colonial wars, and a cannon fired 20 times. Then Amaral read a short text that had been written that same afternoon. The flag had been sewn that afternoon too.1 source1 source

Those present sang “Pátria! Pátria!” and declared it the national anthem, and the news went out to the world from the Marconi communications centre. Several Fretilin leaders were missing. José Ramos-Horta and the party's secretary general, Alarico Fernandes, were in Australia looking for support, and two other leaders, Juvenal Inácio and Vicente Reis, were fighting Indonesian troops on the border.1 source1 source

The Portuguese governor was missing too. Mário Lemos Pires and what remained of his administration had been on the small island of Ataúro, across the water from Dili, for three months. Nine days after the ceremony, Indonesian warships appeared off the city.2 sources2 sources

Timor lies at the eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago, north of Australia. Portuguese traders came for sandalwood in the 1500s, and an arbitration in The Hague fixed the border with Dutch Timor in 1913: Portugal kept the eastern half of the island and the enclave of Oecusse, while the west is now part of Indonesia. Under the Estado Novo, the dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar, Timor was the most remote of the Portuguese colonies, and it was largely neglected.1 source1 source

The numbers show how little had been built. In 1964 only ten East Timorese held university degrees. The 1970 census found literacy of about 10%, and by 1975 only 17 or 18 doctors worked in the Dili hospital and the regional clinics. During the Second World War, Allied landings and the Japanese occupation had cost between 40,000 and 60,000 Timorese lives.1 source1 source

The Carnation Revolution of 25 April 1974, the army coup that ended the dictatorship in Lisbon, opened the way to decolonisation. On 27 July 1974 the new government accepted independence as a possible outcome in the colonies, and the five African colonies became independent in 1974 and 1975. Timor came last in Lisbon's thoughts. The governor, Alves Aldeia, who had attacked the radicalism of the officers behind the coup two days before it happened, kept his post for three more months.1 source1 source

Within weeks of the revolution, East Timorese formed political associations that were parties in all but name. The first was the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT), on 11 May 1974, led by Francisco Lopes da Cruz and conservative figures with ties to the colonial administration, among them the Carrascalão brothers. Nine days later younger intellectuals founded the Timorese Social Democratic Association (ASDT), with the older Xavier do Amaral as president and Nicolau Lobato, Mari Alkatiri and José Ramos-Horta among its leaders.1 source1 source

On 27 May came Apodeti, which wanted integration with Indonesia. Its founders had planned to call it the Association for the Integration of Timor into Indonesia, but thought the name too transparent. Indonesia's consul in Dili passed it advice and money. On 11 September 1974 ASDT renamed itself the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor, Fretilin, and took a more radical line.1 source1 source

Lisbon appointed Mário Lemos Pires governor on 18 November 1974. With his encouragement UDT and Fretilin formed a coalition on 21 January 1975, committed to independence and opposed to integration with Indonesia. It lasted four months. UDT walked out on 27 May, alarmed by Fretilin's mass following and by what it saw as radical influence in the party, a fear that Indonesian broadcasts from Kupang worked to feed.2 sources2 sources

Portugal then called talks in Macau from 26 to 28 June 1975. Fretilin boycotted them because Apodeti and Indonesian observers were there. The result, Law 7/75 of 17 July 1975, set out a transitional government, elections in 1976 and the end of Portuguese sovereignty in 1978. Apodeti, meanwhile, had looked to Indonesia for arms: one of its leaders went to Indonesian West Timor for military training as early as August 1974.1 source1 source

At about 1am on 11 August 1975, UDT's João Carrascalão told the governor that his party meant to remove communist elements from the colonial government and from Fretilin. UDT seized the police headquarters, the port, the airport and the radio, and detained hundreds of Fretilin supporters. Lemos Pires decided not to use force: he was unsure whether his East Timorese soldiers would obey him, and Portuguese troop numbers had been run down.1 source1 source

Fretilin withdrew to the hills at Aileu and won over most East Timorese soldiers in the colonial army. At 1am on 20 August it took the army headquarters in Dili. The fighting spread across the territory, often settling clan feuds and private grudges as much as political scores. Both sides killed prisoners. The truth commission estimates that 1,500 to 3,000 people died, most at the hands of Fretilin, though UDT also carried out massacres.1 source1 source

By 18 August the remaining Portuguese officials had gathered in Farol, a Dili neighbourhood declared a neutral zone and guarded by Portuguese paratroops. Fretilin rejected a ceasefire. On the night of 26 August, the administration boarded ship for Ataúro and never returned to Dili. Lusa and Radio Australia date the departure to 27 August.3 sources3 sources

By early September UDT and its allies had been driven to the border. Indonesian officials said 40,000 to 50,000 people crossed into West Timor; East Timorese who made the journey put it at 10,000 to 30,000. As the price of safe passage, their leaders signed petitions asking for integration with Indonesia, among them one at Batugade on 7 September.1 source1 source

Fretilin now ran the territory, and for weeks it behaved as if Portugal might come back. It kept the Portuguese flag flying in front of the governor's office, left the office empty, posted guards at the Portuguese-owned bank and called repeatedly for Lisbon to resume decolonisation. Portugal would not accept Fretilin as the sole representative of the Timorese, and Fretilin's last invitation, on 25 October, went unanswered.2 sources2 sources

Indonesia did not wait for the civil war to end. On 31 August it handed its operations from the intelligence agency to a military task force, and in September special forces teams with East Timorese auxiliaries began crossing the border. Jakarta denied its troops were there, describing the fighting as East Timorese “partisans” beating back Fretilin.1 source1 source

Early on 16 October 1975 a covert Indonesian force, some 700 men by one participant's estimate, attacked the border town of Balibo, after a bombardment from the coast and from Maliana. Five newsmen working for Australian television had been there since 13 October: the Australians Greg Shackleton and Tony Stewart, the New Zealander Gary Cunningham and the Britons Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie. They had painted an Australian flag and the word “Australia” on the wall of the house they slept in, believing journalists would not be targets.2 sources2 sources

All five were killed that day. Their bodies were burnt, and what were said to be their remains were buried in a single coffin in Jakarta in December 1975. Timor-Leste's truth commission, which heard East Timorese witnesses to the attack, concluded that the five were not killed in crossfire. No one has been charged.3 sources3 sources

In 2007 a New South Wales coroner, Dorelle Pinch, found that they were shot or stabbed deliberately, “not in the heat of battle”, by Indonesian special forces on the orders of Captain Yunus Yosfiah, to stop them revealing Indonesia's part in the attack. Indonesia called the case closed and maintained that they died in crossfire. The Australian Federal Police opened a war crimes inquiry in 2009 and dropped it in 2014 for lack of evidence.3 sources3 sources

Balibo and Maliana fell, and the front moved to Atabae, near the coast. On 1 and 2 November the Portuguese and Indonesian foreign ministers met in Rome and spoke of orderly decolonisation, without mentioning the Indonesian troops inside the territory. For some in Fretilin, the Rome talks were the final blow. A delegation sent to Africa came back in the third week of November saying 25 countries had promised recognition.1 source1 source

Fretilin's Central Committee chose 1 December for the declaration, the day Portugal celebrates the restoration of its independence from Spain in 1640. Then Atabae fell to Indonesian forces, after two weeks of bombardment from sea and air. The truth commission's report gives the date as 26 November in one passage and 27 November in another.1 source1 source

Mari Alkatiri later recalled the words of Nicolau Lobato, Fretilin's vice-president, to the committee: “If we wait until 1 December we might not have time to declare independence in Dili. So we'd better proclaim independence today.” Some members opposed the move, but the ceremony went ahead that afternoon.1 source1 source

On 29 November the Central Committee appointed Amaral president, and Rogério Lobato read out a 55-article constitution. On 1 December a council of ministers was sworn in at the governor's residence in Lahane, with Nicolau Lobato as prime minister. Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe, all former Portuguese colonies themselves, recognised the new state. So did China, the only permanent member of the Security Council to do so.2 sources2 sources

Indonesia answered at once. On 29 November, UDT, Apodeti, KOTA and Trabalhista issued a “Proclamation of Integration” with Indonesia. The text ended “Done at Balibo”, but signatories told the truth commission it was drafted in Jakarta and signed in a hotel in Bali under the eye of Indonesian intelligence, after hours of argument. Indonesia's foreign minister, Adam Malik, accepted it on 1 December. In the commission's rendering he said: “Diplomacy is over. Now Timor-Leste issues shall be resolved on the battlefield.”1 source1 source

Portugal rejected both declarations. On 29 November its National Board for Decolonisation said Portugal still considered itself the “administering power” and condemned military intervention in the territory, though without naming Indonesia. Australia called Fretilin's move “provocative and irresponsible”, and the United States stayed out.2 sources2 sources

On 6 December the American president, Gerald Ford, and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, were in Jakarta. President Suharto asked for understanding if he took “rapid or drastic action”. The US record of the meeting, released in full in 2001, shows the answer he got.2 sources2 sources

At 2am on 7 December, Indonesian warships arrived off Dili, a town of about 28,000 people. Fretilin cut the power. The navy shelled the town. At about 4.30am some 400 marines landed with light amphibious tanks at Kampung Alor on the western edge of the city, and from about 5.45am paratroopers dropped into the centre. Fretilin's leaders and large numbers of civilians fled to the hills towards Aileu. No war was declared.2 sources2 sources

The killing of civilians began the same day. Groups of civilians, members of Dili's Chinese community among them, were killed in the downtown district of Colmera, and on 8 December there were group executions at the harbour. Among the dead were Isabel Lobato, the prime minister's wife, the Fretilin activist Rosa Muki Bonaparte and Roger East, an Australian and the last foreign journalist in the territory. The truth commission's report dates East's death to 7 December in one passage and 8 December in another.2 sources2 sources

Portugal cut diplomatic relations with Indonesia and took the matter to the United Nations. The General Assembly deplored the invasion on 12 December in resolution 3485. On 22 December the Security Council unanimously passed resolution 384, calling on Indonesia to withdraw and affirming the East Timorese right to self-determination. A UN envoy reached the territory in January 1976, but was kept from meeting Fretilin's leaders.2 sources2 sources

Fretilin, retreating into the hills, took its UDT and Apodeti prisoners with it. As Indonesian troops closed on Aileu, members of the party massacred many of them there, and more were killed at Maubisse and Same in late December 1975 and January 1976.1 source1 source

On 17 July 1976 Suharto signed the law making East Timor Indonesia's 27th province. Portugal and the UN never recognised it, and on 1 December 1976 the General Assembly rejected the annexation. In the mountains the resistance split over whether civilians should surrender. In 1977 Fretilin arrested its own president, Xavier do Amaral, as a traitor; he escaped in 1978 and was captured by the Indonesian army. Nicolau Lobato, his successor, was killed in combat on 31 December 1978.2 sources2 sources

The worst years were the first five. From 1977 Indonesian campaigns destroyed crops and food stores in the interior to cut the guerrillas off from the civilians sheltering with them, and many thousands died of starvation and disease. The truth commission's minimum estimate for the whole period from 1974 to 1999 is 102,800 conflict-related deaths, most of them from hunger and illness. It said hunger and illness deaths alone could have reached 183,000, and totals of 200,000 or more are often quoted.4 sources4 sources

The UN kept the question open. From 1982 the Secretary-General held talks with Portugal and Indonesia, which made little progress for years. The Santa Cruz massacre in Dili on 12 November 1991, filmed by the cameraman Max Stahl, brought the occupation back to world attention.2 sources2 sources

On 5 May 1999 Portugal and Indonesia signed agreements in New York for a UN-run vote. On 30 August 1999, 78.5% of voters rejected autonomy within Indonesia. Pro-Indonesian militias, at times backed by elements of the Indonesian security forces, answered with killings, looting and arson until an Australian-led multinational force arrived. Timor-Leste's independence was recognised internationally on 20 May 2002.2 sources2 sources

Timor-Leste's constitution keeps both dates. Its preamble says the independence “proclaimed on the 28th of November 1975” by Fretilin was “recognised internationally on the 20th of May 2002”, and dates the resistance from the invasion of 7 December. Its first section makes 28 November the Day of Proclamation of Independence. The flag the constitution describes is the red, black and yellow flag with a white star raised in Dili that evening.2 sources2 sources

For the 39th anniversary, on 28 November 2014, the government announced ceremonies in all 13 districts, with Mari Alkatiri, one of Fretilin's founders, reading the proclamation text at the flag-raising in Aileu. When Xavier do Amaral died on 6 March 2012, the government called him the “Proclamador” and declared three days of national mourning.2 sources2 sources

For Portugal, the withdrawal to Ataúro is still argued over. Some point to a Lisbon absorbed in its own revolution and sending no clear orders; others say leaving Dili shaped what came after. The truth commission found that Portugal mismanaged decolonisation in 1974 and 1975, and Lemos Pires told it that not asking the United Nations to be present had been “a mistake”. His son, Nuno Lemos Pires, now a senior Portuguese defence official, said in 2023 that his father did everything humanly possible.2 sources2 sources

What Portugal did afterwards is clearer. Its 1976 constitution, in an article on the independence of Timor, said that Portugal “continua vinculado” (remains bound) by its responsibilities under international law “to promote and guarantee the right to independence of Timor Leste” (translated from Portuguese). In UN eyes Portugal stayed the administering power, and it was Portugal that signed the 1999 agreements. Portuguese is one of Timor-Leste's two official languages, with Tetum.4 sources4 sources