PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
July 2015
529
“L
ittle is known of Timor before AD 1500,
although Chinese and Javanese traders vis-
ited the island from at least the 13th centu-
ry, and possibly as early as the 7th century. These traders
searched the coastal settlements for aromatic sandalwood,
which was valued for its use in making furniture and in-
cense, and beeswax, used for making candles. Portuguese
traders arrived between 1509 and 1511, but it wasn’t until
1556 that a handful of Dominican friars established the first
Portuguese settlement at Lifau – in the present-day Oecussi
enclave – and set about converting the Timorese to Cathol-
icism.
In 1642, Francisco Fernandes led a Portuguese military ex-
pedition to weaken the power of the Timor kings. Comprised
primarily of Topasses, the ‘black Portuguese’ mestizos (people
of mixed parentage) from neighboring Flores, his small army
of musketeers settled in Timor, extending Portuguese influ-
ence into the interior. To counter the Portuguese, the Dutch
established a base at
in western Timor in 1653. The
Portuguese appointed an administrator to Lifau in 1656,
but the Topasses went on to become a law unto themselves,
driving out the Portuguese governor in 1705. By 1749 the To-
passes controlled central Timor and marched on
but
the Dutch won the ensuing battle, expanding their control of
western Timor in the process. On the Portuguese side, after
more attacks from the Topasses in Lifau, the colonial base was
moved east to
in 1769.
“The 1859 Treaty of
divided Timor, giving
the eastern half, together with the north coast pocket of Oecus-
si; this was formalised in 1904. Portuguese Timor was a sleepy
and neglected outpost ruled through a traditional system of
liurai (local chiefs). Control outside
was limited and it
wasn’t until the 20th century that the Portuguese intervened
in the interior.
“In 1941,
sent a small commando force into Portu-
guese Timor to counter the Japanese, deliberately breaching
the colony’s neutral status. Although the military initiative
angered neutral
and dragged Portuguese Timor into
the Pacific War, it slowed the Japanese expansion.
’s
success was largely due to the support it received from the
locals, for whom the cost was phenomenal. In 1942 the Por-
tuguese handed control to the Japanese whose soldiers razed
whole villages, seized food supplies and killed Timorese in ar-
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF
eas where the Australians were operating. By the end of the
war, between 40,000 and 60,000 Timorese had died.
“After WWII the colony reverted to Portuguese rule until,
following the coup in
on 25 April 1974,
set
about discarding its colonial empire. Within a few weeks polit-
ical parties had been formed in East Timor, and the Timorese
Democratic Union (UDT) attempted to seize power in August
1975. A brief civil war saw its rival Fretilin (previously known
as the Timorese Social Democrats) come out on top, declaring
the independent existence of the Democratic Republic of East
Timor on 28 November. But on 7 December the Indonesians
launched their attack on
.
opposed the formation of an independent East
Timor, and the leftist Fretilin raised the specter of Commu-
nism. The full-scale invasion of the former colony came one
day after Henry Kissinger and Gerald Ford departed
Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing
Vol. 81, No. 7, July 2015, pp. 529–530.
0099-1112/15/529–530
© 2015 American Society for Photogrammetry
and Remote Sensing
doi: 10.14358/PERS.81.7.529
