Anarchism in Timor-Leste
[4] On September 14, 1896, a group of anarchists were deported to Timor, many of them died from infections such as malaria and yellow fever, while those that survived had to endure dire living conditions.
[9][10]: 89 One of these deportees was Manuel Viegas Carrascalão, a journalist from São Brás de Alportel and the general secretary of the Syndicalist Youth Federation (FJS).
[19] The Timor Libertarian Alliance was eventually discovered and repressed by the government, which confiscated the group's materials and sent some of its activists to Atauro, where they were forced to work in a limestone mine.
[10]: 99 When the government granted amnesty to political deportees in the colonies, it explicitly excluded many anarchists and trade unionists, whom it considered to be terrorists.
[20] The Imperial Japanese Army carried out a campaign of state terrorism against the local population, causing many anarchists (including Carrascalão) to take up arms in an underground resistance movement against the occupation.
Many Timorese citizens and resistance fighters were confined in concentration camps by the occupation forces, while others managed to evacuate the island to Bobs Farm in New South Wales.
[10]: 101–102 [21] The living conditions in the Australian camp were severe, with serious cases of inequality between prisoners - who had been divided into Portuguese, clergy and native Timorese people.
[10]: 104–106 After the Carnation Revolution overthrew the Estado Novo regime and established the Third Portuguese Republic, the colonial authorities effectively abandoned East Timor, opening the door for the country's independence.
However, this independence was cut short by the invasion and occupation of East Timor by Suharto's New Order regime,[25] annexing the country into Indonesia.
While Manuel stayed in the country to resist the occupation, João fled to Australia to agitate for independence in exile, and Mário entered into a direct dialogue with the Indonesian occupiers, eventually becoming Governor of East Timor.
[28] Xanana Gusmão was subsequently elected as the new commander of the FALINTIL in 1981,[29] and he set about trying to unite the disparate resistance movements into a broad front against the occupation.
Nevertheless, in 1984, four senior FALINTIL officers led a failed coup against Gusmão,[30] leading to him leaving the FRETILIN and supporting various centrist coalitions.
In March 1986, the UDT and FRETILIN formed an anti-occupation coalition known as the National Council of Maubere Resistance (CNRM), led by Xanana Gusmão, Manuel Carrascalão and José Ramos-Horta.
On December 31, 1988, FALINTIL was declared to be the "non-partisan" armed resistance wing of the CNRM and continued to attack Indonesian occupation forces.
During the 2000s, unhoused people began to squat vacant buildings throughout the country, often these were barracks that had been abandoned by the Indonesian military after the de-occupation of East Timor.
