A fledgling country rising from the ashes of a chequered history
View(s):The early migrants of Timor-Leste had links to Sri Lankans, says Kumudini Hettiarachchi as she discovers the many facets of a land that faces many challenges too.
The sea with its turquoise waters shimmering in the sunlight is never far away in Dili, the capital of Timor-Leste, as in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
It is across these very seas, most probably in storm-tossed tiny craft, braving harsh winds and monstrous waves that the early settlers of this half-island of Timor-Leste arrived aeons ago, between 40,000 and 20,000 BC. Folklore and legend coming down from the dim mists of time point to the first band of migrants being Vedo-Australoid, related to Sri Lankans.
Mountainous Dili: In the shape of a crocodile. Pix by Nivell Rayda
It is challenging to “place” the Timorese people – there is a lovely mix of Asian and African and even a few golden-haired children, most probably a genetic stamp from the more recent Portuguese influence.
From Abrao, a teacher-turned-guide, we get a peep into the hazy past — with the descendants of the initial three waves of migrants still believed to be around.
The second wave who decided to make East Timor – as Timor-Leste was known earlier — their new home are said to be Melanesian people in around 3,000 BC who drove the first group known as Atoni into the interior. The final wave comprised Malay and Hakka people from southern China.
The afternoon I arrive in Dili, the plane lands at an airport somewhat like the Ratmalana airport long years ago. The heat of the day is giving way to a lethargic evening and Dili is winding down. For a moment it seems as if I am in rural Sri Lanka.
A couple of children pull a hand-cart full of dried banana leaf, which a toddler throws out at a rubbish heap while being ‘taken for an exciting ride’ close to their tenement home, making play out of work.
Like in any youthful society, a motorcycle with three, rider and two on the pillion sans helmets, flies past and pingo-carriers sell a wide variety of wares from oranges and banana to rata-cadju (pea-nuts), fish and live-chickens. On a street-corner stands a young man with two identical lovable puppies, most probably for sale.
It is a fledgling country, the first new nation of this century, attempting to rise above a bloody and chequered history, like the phoenix rising from the ashes.
In an early developmental stage, this nation with a population recorded to be just over a million, is struggling against numerous odds such as poverty, unemployment, a weak health system, high use of tobacco and teenage pregnancies.
Even on working days, able-bodied men are seen lounging around in the area bordering the beautiful seascape fronting the grand Palácio do Governo (Government Palace which houses the Parliament), while groups of waifs stroll along the white sands, sometimes getting into the water amidst seaweed and at others gamboling on the beach, while big and small boats dock in the harbour.
A magnificent mall with branded items and plush embassies are cropping up in Dili along with non-governmental organizations moving around in sleek vehicles, in the wake of which have mushroomed fish and chicken stalls along the waterfront and also diverse restaurants, one even run by a Turkish teenager where a group of journalists including myself tucked into some of the best kebabs we have eaten in our lives.
Like Sri Lanka, Timor is strategically located — the largest and easternmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands, northwest of Australia — with ‘timur’ indicating “east” in Indonesian and Malay.
Having turned into Timor in Portuguese, Timor-Leste has come about from the Portuguese word for “east”. So in fact, Timor-Leste means East-East, says Abrao who loves all that is Bollywood.
While the western half of Timor is part of Indonesia, mountainous Timor-Leste covering nearly 15,000 km2 is the eastern half, the Oecussi (Ambeno) region on the northwest portion of the island and the islands of Pulau Atauro and Pulau Jaco. The country’s border with Indonesia runs 253 km.
Information gathered with difficulty but without verification points to Timor being part of the trading routes of the Chinese and Indians, offering aromatics, sandalwood, honey, wax and slaves.
The Portuguese, who came east later in the 16th century in search of spices and ivory, firstly set up a trading post in Timor, with the lure being sandalwood and then also coffee, but oblivious that Timor-Leste is blessed with gold, petroleum, natural gas, manganese and marble. The island is believed to have had small chiefdoms or princedoms before the Portuguese who held on to this colony for 450 years.
The 20th century saw a change in the dynamics of the colonizer and colonized in East Timor as home troubles for Portugal led to harsher exploitation, causing resistance by the east Timorese.
With the eruption of World War II, Japan too came into the arena, occupying Dili, with the East Timorese taking to the mountains in a futile attempt to launch guerrilla attacks with the support of the Allies. But with the defeat of Japan at the end of the war, Portugal regained control of East Timor.
When in 1974 Portugal had its own troubles and discarded its colony, there still was no respite for Timor-Leste. In the wake of civil unrest in 1975, came an invasion and annexation by Indonesia, its ‘big neighbour’. Timor-Leste became Indonesia’s 27th province although the United Nations Security Council opposed it.
Finally, a vibrant resistance, even in the face of ruthless brutality on the part of Indonesia, was able to shake-off the neighbour’s stranglehold in 2002 with the intervention of a UN Peacekeeping Force which included Sri Lankans. Military infighting in 2008 then led to Dili literally being razed to the ground.
Now that this island-nation’s slithery path into an abyss of death and destruction has been stymied, as a parliamentary democracy, stability is slowly but surely taking hold of exotic coral-ringed Timor-Leste. Tourism is picking up and the currency in circulation is the American dollar.
Ironically, though the sea is all-around, the people engage more in farming and less in fishing, with indiscriminate slash-and-burn cultivations leaving ugly, red scars in the landscape. Coffee, rice, corn, cassava, sweet potatoes, soybeans, cabbage, mangoes, bananas and vanilla, they cultivate, also engaging in the industries of printing, soap manufacture, handicrafts and cloth-weaving.
The languages spoken widely are Portuguese and Tetun and the locals assure it is easy to master the latter as it has no singular or plural, no tenses and no masculine or feminine.
The Portuguese legacy is evident with an overwhelming (96.9%) population of Roman Catholics, with Protestants forming 2.2%, Muslims 0.3% and others 0.6%, according to records.
While it is one of the two predominantly Christian countries in Southeast Asia, with the Philippines being the other, and churches are found around every corner, one also hears the call of the muezzin, summoning the Muslims to prayer.
Animism is very much a part of life of the Timorese while a high-level health meeting in early September is inaugurated at the Dili Conventions Centre only after a troupe of dancers has sought the blessings of ancestors.
A market with lots of timber work now transformed into the conventions centre, meanwhile, has a distinct façade of Portuguese architecture, while the music and dance items at the grand banquet is reminiscent of the lively baila in Sri Lanka.
All this and more forge a clear picture of how close Sri Lanka and Timor Leste seem to be, the image made sharper when one imagines ancient Sri Lankans setting foot over there and leaving their footprints in earlier unchartered territory.