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at the community level. As Francisco Xavier do Amaral 29 described in his testimonyto the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in Timor-Leste,The ASDT [Fretilin] party had this method. We could see that the first party to formwas UDT, and I saw their tactics. UDT campaigned focussing on the Administrators,and went down to the Subdistrict Administrators and the traditional kings [liurai].They did not go directly to the people. So I thought, we need the people, I don't needthe liurai, they are with the Portuguese… So they would go from the top down, and Iwould start at the bottom… We would sometimes meet in the middle (CAVR, 2006a:24-25)While Fretilin and UDT both wanted the liurai's power to be reduced, gaining theirsupport was essential as many people did not understand these new politics, and manypeople said they joined their political party "because others in their family had doneso" (Nicol, 2002: 156). The hasty progression to decolonisation had left no time foreducation of the Timorese on what independence and self-government would mean,and what the new political parties stood for.By contrast, Apodeti established themselves as an alternative to independence anddemocratisation in Timor. As Dunn relates, "integration with Indonesia seemed tooffer the petty rulers the only hope of preventing the erosion of their traditionalpowers and privileges" (2003: 62). The support of the liurai for Apodeti's cause wasnot lost on the Indonesian intelligence agents and "by mid-1975 several of the keydissident liurais had been contacted by agents who sought to assure them that theirstatus and privileges would be secure in the '27 th Province'" (Dunn, 2003: 62).Indonesia actively nurtured these relationships as part of their overall strategy forannexing Portuguese Timor, named Operasi Komodo after the Komodo Dragon, giantlizards with immensely powerful jaws. Indonesia's behind-the-scenes subversioncampaign and disinformation tactics mounted through Operasi Komodo played on thepolitical inexperience of the emerging Timorese leaders, deepening the tensions thateventually led to civil war between Fretilin and UDT in 1975 (Dunn, 2003: 100).29 Leader of the ASDT party, that later changed its name to Fretilin.91
As the politics reached gradually boiling point, pushing the parties further and furtherapart, the violent rupture of civil war was prompted by a coup that was mounted byUDT, and opposed by Fretilin. Nicols (2002: 156-173) describes the differencebetween the parties at this stage as the "politics of hate", rather than any obviousdifference between their policy platforms. However, by the time civil war did breakout, the hate was very clear. As noted by CAVR, "the brutality of East Timoresepeople against each other in this brief conflict has left deep wounds in East Timoresesociety which continue to be felt to this day" (2006a: 43). Certainly in my fieldworkin Venilale, people still speak of the impact of the civil war as it turned familiesagainst each other. The atrocities committed during the civil war, and the effect ofIndonesian interference, are detailed in the CAVR report (2006a: 40-52).By the time the civil war broke out, the Portuguese administration could do very little.As the two forces converged on Dili "the tiny Portuguese force of fewer than 100combat troops was wedged between 1500 UDT soldiers and more than 2000 regulartroops under Fretilin command" (Dunn, 2003: 150). As Fretilin overcame UDT forcesand made a unilateral declaration of independence, there was widespread panic,fanned by Indonesian radio broadcasts from West Timor giving "exaggerated anddistorted descriptions of the fighting", peppered with "false accounts of atrocities andbrutalities, most of which were attributed to Fretilin" (Dunn, 2003: 153). Under thepretext of 'stabilising' their close neighbour, and ensuring the violence did not spillover into Indonesian territory, Indonesian troops invaded East Timorese territory on 7December 1975.It is clear that the possibility of a smooth transition to independence was underminedby a lack of time given for the transition and the political manoeuvring of Portugaland Indonesia. It was also undermined by the disenfranchisement of the emergingTimorese leadership as active participants in decolonisation; for example a conferenceconvened in Rome aimed at ending the civil conflict included the Portuguese andIndonesian Foreign Ministers, but excluded the East Timorese (Ramos-Horta, 1987:59). The end result was that the Timorese had a tragically short few months in whichto attempt to negotiate the multiple demands of decolonisation and independence,establish their political parties and policies, and balance multiple interests in eitherpreserving or changing the status quo, all in the context of the Portuguese desire to92
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Local Governance in Timor-Leste:The
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COPYRIGHT STATEMENT‘I hereby gran
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are some important points of tensio
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the Canossian sisters in Ainaro—M
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2.6 The Issues of Cross-Cultural Re
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LIST OF FIGURESFigure One: The Deve
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Tara banduUma kainUma lulikXefe Ald
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within, I had failed to recognise t
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anthropology of development (Shephe
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prefer the term 'local' to recognis
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evolve around ideas of traditional
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institution that is considered to b
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the case given the emphasis on cond
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Within these increasingly murky pol
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1.3 Case Study SitesVenilaleVenilal
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The reasons for choosing Venilale a
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and influences can have on the loca
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played out since decolonisation. Th
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geographically 'outwards' from uma
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CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWO
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2.1 FieldworkFieldwork was conducte
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marked differences in people's idea
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interactions between modern and tra
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then asking for advice on who else
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answer specific questions about how
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Every conversation and every experi
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Page 57 and 58: CHAPTER THREE: CONCEPTUALISING POST
Page 59 and 60: epresentation through democratisati
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Page 65 and 66: government, and Huntington noted th
Page 67 and 68: Westernise. Equally, the specificit
Page 69 and 70: which individuals both shape and ar
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Page 73 and 74: within a society. As Remmer puts it
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Page 79 and 80: provided by public policy" (Fukuyam
Page 81 and 82: Gramsci's account of hegemonic powe
Page 83 and 84: From this perspective, Gramsci's id
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Page 89 and 90: The centrality of these kin-based g
Page 91 and 92: 4.1 Formation of Political Hybridit
Page 93 and 94: While the rule of the liurai was in
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Page 101 and 102: governor, but slowly seats were inc
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Page 119 and 120: these other factors reveal a more c
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Page 131 and 132: The centrality of the liurai house
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Page 135 and 136: order to meet their communal requir
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Page 141 and 142: epresentative. These political mech
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Page 147 and 148: Party politics has been one such po
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Page 151 and 152: Within this hybrid political enviro
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authority figures in the aldeia, su
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As fieldwork progressed, it became
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kain), it is taken to the xefe and/
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process, they have the right to go
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(March, 2008). In the absence of le
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explains, he will not engage with a
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this distinction. When I asked abou
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insufficient attention being paid t
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of barlake that lay in the alliance
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functional, leaving them especially
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affiliation with political parties.
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xefe suku explained that the cost o
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that there is a combination of soci
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SECTION THREE: SHAPING LOCAL GOVERN
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automatically become part of the lo
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ecent Shadow Report to CEDAW, which
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Governance must be for something, a
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power within Timorese communities.
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Such structural constraints, howeve
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Across every suku in Venilale and A
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was built for their most remote ald
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While community members may attempt
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networks that use such animistic ri
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strongman, who operated in Venilale
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the community are captured or diver
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strongman specifically uses institu
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CHAPTER EIGHT: BRINGING IT BACK TO
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communities have created various fo
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However, while incoming resources c
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of fundamental importance in consid
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APPENDIX A: LIST OF INTERVIEWEESVEN
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APPENDIX B: MAP OF TIMOR-LESTESourc
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APPENDIX D: POLITICAL MAP OF SUBDIS
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BINNS, T. (2006) 'Doing Fieldwork i
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CHESTERMAN, S. (2002) 'East Timor i
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DEGNBOL-MARTINUSSEN, J. (2002) 'Dev
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Lincoln, Y. (Eds.) The Landscape of
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GRENFELL, L. (2006) 'Legal Pluralis
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HOWARTH, D. (2000) Discourse, Bucki
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LANDMAN, T. & HAUSERMANN, J. (2003)
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MERRY, S. E. (1988) 'Legal Pluralis
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OSPINA, S. & HOHE, T. (2001) Tradit
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RUDOLPH, L. I. (1965) 'The Modernit
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THAKUR, R. & VAN LANGENHOVE, L. (20
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WORK, R. (2002) 'Overview of Decent
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