The famine of the late 1970s in Timor-

Leste and its impact a historians

view
Clinton Fernandes1

In the second half of the 1970s there were two major cases of mass atrocities in
Southeast Asia. One was the reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, which lasted
from 1975 to 1979. During those years between 10 per cent and 22 per cent of the
population are believed to have died as a result of starvation, forced labour and
execution. The other was Indonesias invasion and occupation of East Timor, whose
most deadly phase occurred from 1975 to 1979. During those years about 31 per cent
of East Timors population died due to famine, execution and forced labour. The most
detailed study of the famine has been conducted by East Timors Truth Commission2.

There has been a lot of research into the Khmer Rouge period in Cambodia. Major
universities around the world have devoted considerable time and energy to it.
Various museums have memorialised it. Major motion picture films and
documentaries have been made about it. Novels, memoirs and histories are still being
written internationally about it. There have also been studies of the long-term impact
of the genocide on Cambodia today. For example, Damien de Walque has shown how
the population structure of Cambodia today has been heavily influenced by the
disproportionate deaths of adult men, individuals with an urban or educated
background, and infants during the Khmer Rouge period.3 By contrast, there has been
relatively little research into the famine in East Timor. Major universities around the
world have not devoted considerable time and energy to it. Museums in various parts
of the world have not memorialised it. Major motion picture films and documentaries
have not been made about it. Novels and memoirs are not written internationally
about it.

This intellectual and cultural neglect occurs despite the fact that contemporary East
Timors politics, age composition, education, religion, agriculture, irrigation and food

1
International and Political Studies program, UNSW Canberra. I dedicate this paper to the late Dr.
Andrew McNaughtan. I wish to acknowledge and pay tribute to the path-breaking early scholarship of
Helen Hill, Carmel Budiardjo, Liem Soei Liong, John Taylor, Arnold Kohen and James Dunn.
2
The Commissions senior adviser, Pat Walsh, wrote that Cormac Grda, an Irish expert on famine,
made no mention of East Timor in his 2009 study Famine, A Short History, and that Australian author
Tom Kenneally's book Three Famines: Starvation and Politics did not include the famine in East Timor
although it occurred on Australia's doorstep and with military and diplomatic assistance from the
Australian government.
3
Damien de Walque, The Long-Term Legacy of the Khmer Rouge Period in Cambodia. World Bank
Policy Research Working Paper 3446, November 2004. He also demonstrates that Cambodians
especially males who were of school age during the Khmer Rouge period have a lower educational
attainment than other groups today.
supplies are heavily influenced by the events of the late 1970s. A sound
understanding of the events of the late 1970s is absolutely essential if we are to make
sense of East Timor today and tomorrow. This paper examines the famine and
discusses the administrative and logistical reorganization of East Timor as a result of
the war.

Military operations

Indonesias war aims were to defeat FRETILIN in battle, eliminate its leaders,
suppress political organizations associated with it, and extinguish political activity at
the village level. Indonesias military commanders launched a combined air and sea
assault against Dili on 7 December. Within two months, all major population centres
were in Indonesian hands.

Indonesian forces implemented a strategy of consolidation and stabilization in the

areas they controlled. By June 1976, there were approximately 32,000 combat troops
in 28 battalions, supported by some 3,000 Timorese partisans and civil defence
personnel. Indonesia established an administrative structure and integrated East Timor
as its 27th province on 17 July 1976.

FRETILINs leaders decided to reorganize the partys national civilian and military
structures in order to undertake a protracted guerrilla war. At a conference in Soibada
from 15 May to 2 June 1976, they divided the areas outside direct Indonesian military
control, known as liberated zones, into six sectors, and placed each one under military
and political command. The reorganisation paid dividends as many local villagers
joined the armed resistance, which took advantage of Indonesian security lapses to
harass outposts and ambush supply convoys. The heavy rains that characterize the
second half of the northwest monsoon season helped FRETILINs fightback. As these
rains settled in, heavy landslides forced the closure of East Timors arterial roads,
which had already been degraded by the heavy Indonesian military traffic.
Indonesias military logisticians were unable to cope. Combat units were unable to
receive timely resupplies, and Indonesias 15 infantry and marine battalions could do
little more than conduct small-scale local patrols.

By December 1976, FRETILIN had managed to hold the Indonesian forces to a

military stalemate. It was able to organize a functioning society in the mountains. It
could provide enough food crops and basic health care to the many tens of thousands
of civilians who had accompanied them there. According to Major-General Julius
Henuhili, a West Timorese who was Commandant of Indonesias Armed Forces Staff
College, the Timorese will fight to the death if they have enough food and pride. The
Dutch formerly recruited Timorese, Manadonese and Ambonese on this principle.
FRETILIN has enough pride, and while they still control the countryside they will
have enough to eat.4

The general elections in May 1977 also prevented Indonesias military commanders
from re-gaining the initiative. They had to redeploy 14,000 combat troops from East

4
For more on this topic, see C. Fernandes, The Independence of East Timor. (Eastbourne: Sussex
Academic Press, 2011).
Timor to provide pre-election security in other parts of Indonesia. FRETILIN thus had
the opportunity to recruit, retrain and reorganize. The centerpiece of FRETILINs
resistance activities at this time was Operation Fazenda, which demonstrated that it
had been able to develop a network of agents and informants to provide detailed
information on Indonesian movements. FALINTIL forces assisted by locally trained
villagers harassed Indonesian positions and intensified anti-Indonesian propaganda.
FRETILIN resistance at this time was most effective in the area southeast of Liquica
and west of Ermera.

Airpower after the May 1977 general election

Indonesia resumed military operations after the May 1977 elections. Its strategy was
based on the assessment that it had to eliminate FRETILIN by the end of January
1978 because heavy rains would force operations to cease then just as they had at
the end of January 1977. It wanted to deny FRETILIN another opportunity to regroup,
recruit and retrain.

Starting in August 1977, it deployed OV-10F Bronco aircraft that it had acquired
from the USA.5 The significance of the Bronco was that it could be operated from the
most rudimentary airfields, and its slow flying speed meant that it could identify and
attack villages more effectively. It had been designed specifically for such operations.
Simultaneously6, President Suharto announced a general amnesty for any FRETILIN
members who voluntarily surrendered to the Indonesian Armed Forces by 31
December 1977 at the latest. The offer also applied to FRETILIN elements under
detention and to those who had fled to other countries.

The air power offensives targeted agricultural areas and other food sources such as
livestock in the liberated zones, where the population lived alongside FRETILIN, and
the support bases, which surrounded the liberated zones. The Indonesian Air Force
used napalm in flagrant disregard of the laws of war. According to survivors who
testified before East Timors Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation
(CAVR):

The army burned the tall grass. The fire would spread quickly, and the whole
area would be ablaze as if it had been doused in gasoline. Those of us who
were surrounded didnt have time to escape because the flames were so big.
Their strategy trapped many people After we got out, I could still see the
old people who had been left behind by their families. They were in a sitting
position. The men put on new clothes, hung belak [crescent-shaped metal
chest-ornament worn around the neck] on their necks and wore caibauk
[crescent-shape crown]. The women had put on gold earrings and gold
necklaces, prepared their konde [traditional way of styling hair] and wore

5
NAA 13685: 20/75.
6 He made the announcement on 16 August 1977.
 black veils as if they were going to mass. We just looked at them but couldnt
do anything. The enemy was still after us.7

A military induced famine

Illness and food shortages forced civilians to leave the hills and make their way to
Indonesian forces in order to surrender. The surrendering population was first
detained in transit camps and later dispatched to resettlement camps. Transit camps
were located in close proximity to the local military bases. Since the militarys first
priority was to destroy the resistance, not to care for the population, the camps were
poorly equipped. Often they were little more than huts made from palm thatch with no
toilets. In many cases, the only shelter in the camps was under trees. No medical care
was available. Since the detainees food sources had been destroyed and they had
walked for days in order to surrender, they were already in a weakened state when
they arrived at the transit camps. Diseases such as cholera, diarrhoea and tuberculosis
ensured that most people who were sick died. Detainees were forbidden to grow or
search for food themselves but were given a small amount of food on arrival. This
food was often distributed after extorting family heirlooms, jewelry, traditional beads
or sexual favours. In some cases, the detainees went into protein shock after eating the
food, resulting in chills, fever, bronchial spasms, acute emphysema, vomiting and
diarrhoea.

East Timorese collaborators from APODETI helped the Indonesian military to

identify members of the resistance in the transit camps. Sometimes these collaborators
identified people who were not connected to the resistance but against whom they had
held grudges prior to the invasion. Torture and rape were common during the
interrogation process. People identified as members of the resistance were either
executed immediately or interrogated at greater length and then executed. Female
relatives of resistance leaders were often made the sexual slaves of Indonesian
military officers.

After a period of three months (the exact duration in each camp depended on the
prevailing policy there), the detainees were dispatched to resettlement camps.
Sometimes they were not sent anywhere; the same transit camps were re-designated
as resettlement camps. By late 1979, there would be approximately 300,000 to
370,000 people in the camps. About 200,000 East Timorese died during this period.

Early warning of the famine

Australian officials were given timely and accurate advice about the catastrophic
famine from highly credible sources. For example, on 24th May 1978, Australian
Ambassador Tom Critchley and First Secretary David Irvine called on Indonesian
Brigadier-General Adenan, Director-General for Foreign Relations and Security in
Indonesias Department of Foreign Affairs. Adenan advised them that supporters of
FRETILIN were suffering lack of both ammunition and food. Those who had

7
Maria da Costa, Testimony to CAVR National Public Hearing on Forced Displacement and Famine
Dili, 28-29 July 2003.
surrendered recently were in poor physical condition and some could not even
stand.8

A month later (30th June 1978), Ambassador Critchley and Acting Defence Attach
Captain R.J. Whitten called on General Mohammad Yusuf, Minister for Defence and
Commander of the Indonesian Armed Forces. General Yusuf said that he had just
returned from East Timor and that one of the biggest problems was the 270,000
women and children to care for. The Embassy went on to note that apparently the
majority are women and children who have become separated from their menfolk.
The Embassy commented that the figure

seems unduly high to us considering that the total population of the province is
somewhere between 500,000 and 600,000. But it was repeated. General
Yusuf has a reputation as a dull and taciturn officer but on this occasion he
was very forthcoming and gave the impression that he was well briefed and in
command of his subject East Timor. Although other unimportant subjects
were mentioned he returned to the East Timor problem.9

In other words, General Yusuf was saying clearly to Australian Embassy officials that
a major humanitarian catastrophe was occurring in East Timor. General Yusuf said
that the assistance of international voluntary agencies including the International Red
Cross would be very welcome. Here was an opportunity to offer humanitarian aid
directly to the Indonesian government or to pressure it internationally to allow
humanitarian aid in. But it was not until 16 months later that such aid would be
allowed to enter.

Mr. D. Campbell and Mr. P. Alexander of the Australian Embassy visited West Timor
from 10-14 August 1978 in the context of an Indonesian aid proposal. The trip
involved not only visiting Kupang but traveling to Atambua not far from the East
Timorese border. They reported that the situation in East Timor was

far more severe [Censored]10 showed us some very recent photographs

[Censored] of the condition of the refugees in Bobonaro. The photographs
depicted many sick, starving and malnourished women and children, typical of
famine scenes throughout the world. [Censored] said the condition of the
refugees, many of whom had in any case arrived in a desperate condition, was
extremely poor. The Indonesian authorities were doing almost nothing to
alleviate the situation. He estimated that at least 1.5% of the refugees were
dying monthly and that in some groups the death rate was around 8% per
month. Asked why the Indonesian authorities were not reacting to the gravity
of the situation, [Censored] said it was largely because of the sensitivity of the
local military commanders to publicity about the critical situation in many
parts of East Timor. He did not believe authorities in Dili were informing the
central Government about the gravity of the problem which had emerged

8 NAA: A1838 3006-4-3 Part 24.

9 NAA: A1838 3006-4-3 Part 24.
10 Some material remains unreleased by the National Archives of Australia.
 partially as a result of the Amnesty. For this reason he had written recently to
General Benny Murdani in Jakarta, informing him of the need for urgent
Government assistance. However, all he had received for his trouble was a rap
over the knuckles from Dili military authorities who had flown to Atambua by
helicopter to deliver the reprimand.11

The Australian ambassador visited East Timor along with ten other foreign
ambassadors from 6 to 8 September 1978. The ambassadors were briefed that
approximately 125,000 people had come down from the mountains, and that as many
as a quarter of them were suffering from cholera, malaria, tuberculosis and advanced
malnutrition. The Ambassador reported in confidence that the visit had been carefully
controlled by the Indonesian authorities, who were clearly anxious that the tragic
plight of many of the refugees seen should not be blamed on their administration.
Many ambassadors came away shocked by the condition of the refugees. One visitor
wrote an eyewitness account. The following is an excerpt:

Every week, scores of starving people, dressed in rags that cover only some
parts of their bony bodies, drag children with sunken eyes, bloated stomachs
and ugly leg sores down the tortuous mountain paths to make their way to
Indonesian rehabilitation centres. Indonesians were handing out new clothes to
replace their rags. Formed into two rows of welcoming humanity they waved
red-and-white Indonesian flags and shouted Selamat Datang to ambassadors
visiting them. I could clearly distinguished the newer arrivals from the older
inhabitants, by their bony legs covered in sores. Malnutrition differed only in
degree. The women swayed weakly, their hands gasping the flags moving
slightly as they mumbled their messages of welcome. At a Red Cross station a
Timorese woman slept on a stretcher on the floor dressed in rags with a piece
of white cloth protecting her face from scores of flies attacking it. A medical
aide from Jakarta would occasionally go into the room to fan away files from
her eyes. The heat was unbearable. She had just come down from the hills
two days earlier, and was suffering from cholera, he told me.

The head of the district told journalists that 56 refugees had died on the march
from the hills because of illness and malnutrition (no one used the word
starvation). The visiting ambassadors were conspicuously moved by the
sight. A few shook their heads in disbelief. The ambassador of Papua New
Guinea, Dominic Diya told me: We are a poor country but I have not seen
anything like this. I am shocked to see the conditions of the refugees.12

By October 1979 when the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and
Catholic Relief Services began delivering aid there were approximately 300,000 to
370,000 people in the camps. About 200,000 East Timorese died in the famine.

11 NAA: A1838 3006-4-3 Part 24.

12
A1838 3038-7-11 Part 18. Straits Times, Land of suffering, hunger and disease, 11 September 1978.
The restructuring of East Timor

President Suharto paid a two-day visit to East Timor in July 1978. He was
accompanied by his wife, eight cabinet ministers, officials, 30 Indonesian newsmen
and 16 foreign journalists.13 Suharto approved an immediate start to the construction
of an irrigation system in Bobonaro. The area around Bobonaro had been known to
produce rice, peanuts, green beans, mung beans, kidney beans, soya beans, cassava,
corn, pulses, tuber, coffee trees, coconut trees and other crops. was to be turned into a
rice-producing area through the construction of an irrigation system. However, the
new plan was to develop an irrigation system that would create self-sufficiency by
increasing rice production. Indonesias Department of Public Works issued a
blueprint which projected an irrigated area of 2,000 hectares by 1982 and a total
irrigated area of 17,000 hectares by 1985. The irrigation scheme would involve the
building of four dams: the Balubo, Malibaha, Nomura I and Nomura II.

An Indonesian officer, Colonel Damanik of the Security Division, DEPLU, would

express his view some years later that it was a mistake by Indonesia ever to have
introduced rice as a staple food there. However, he conceded, once this had been
done people developed a taste for it and it had to be provided on a stable, continuing
basis. He also expressed the view that Indonesia should recognize animism as a form
of religion and let the East Timorese people remain animists if they wanted to do so.
Thus, we see Colonel Damanik supporting both East Timorese animist beliefs and
East Timors food sovereignty.14

More research is necessary in light of these events, particularly when claims are made
about the antiquity and persistence of a hungry season in East Timor. While there is
certainly a hungry season in East Timor nowadays, is it really true that the Timorese
people didnt know how to manage their own food supplies although they have been
inhabiting the island for more than 30,000 years? From a brief study of Portuguese
colonial records, its worth considering that there was no shortage of food in colonial
Timor in a general sense. Food shortages did occur on specific occasions arising from
armed conflicts, and these shortages were localized to the specific areas in which the
conflicts occurred. Apart from those times and places, the villages and markets had
plenty of vegetables and fruits, and people were reasonably well fed. Raphael das
Doress Diccionario Chorographico de Timor, a survey of the cultures of East
Timorese kingdoms published in Lisbon in 1903 by the National Press, is well worth
reading. Contemporary scholars such as Nuno Oliveira, Ego Lemos, Dulce Soares and
others have interesting, valuable things to say, and more research in this area is highly
recommended.

The Indonesian authorities also made dramatic changes to the East Timorese
settlement pattern their manner of living. They imposed a settlement pattern
designed to monitor the population more easily. This obviously affected the pattern of
food cultivation and food consumption. They forcibly closed down smaller villages
that had been dispersed throughout the countryside and in the mountains. Road-

13
A1838 3006-4-3 Part 24.
14
A1838 3038-10-112 Part 8.
building in the name of development became a priority for the occupation
forces. The population was compelled to move closer to major roads, and into towns
with a higher population density than their earlier villages. For example15, in the
Laclo sub-district of Manatuto district, the people were taken to Metinaro in 1978,
where about 40,000 people were being detained. They were not allowed to move back
home for more than a year. They were eventually allowed back to Laclo but not to
their villages. Instead, they had to build living accommodation that resembled military
barracks accommodation. That's where they stayed. Although the ground was hard,
and they couldn't grow crops there, they were prevented from going back to their old
vegetable gardens in their villages. Much later, they were allowed to go out to make
their own vegetable gardens.

Similarly, in the Vemasse subdistrict of Baucau district, there was no road

connecting Caicua and other aldeias in the hills behind Vemasse town to Vemasse. In
around 1979, the people of Caicua and the other aldeias were forced to move to Natar
Ulun, three kilometres outside Vemasse so that Indonesian patrols would be able to
see them easily when they patrolled the area. These people had to pull their houses
down and pack their possessions. Indonesian troops destroyed their agricultural plots
to ensure that Falintil forces could not take their crops. They had to carry their
possessions on their backs and walk for three days to Natar Ulun.

The Indonesian authorities decided to replace the town of Ermera as the capital of
Ermera district. They created the new town of Gleno by forcing people who had
surrendered in Fatubesi in February 1979 to clear the uninhabited area that later
became Gleno Town. In 1981, in the Fatuberliu sub-district of Manufahi district, the
villages of Fahinehan, Bubususu and Caicasa were shut down. The inhabitants were
forced to move to Weberek, in Alas, to stop them from providing food and support to
Falintil. Their agricultural plots were burnt so that Falintil would not be able to get
food from them. Once the ICRC was allowed back into East Timor, they were
allowed to go back to their original villages in 1982. But after the cease-fire ended in
1983 they were moved back and their agricultural plots were destroyed once again. In
1982, in the Lacluta sub-district of Viqueque district, the village of Uma Tolu was
shut down and its inhabitants were forced to move to Uma Lor in the village of Luca
in order to allow Indonesian troops to control them better.

East Timors highly unusual population structure today is also a direct result of the
death toll in the famine. Today about 85% of the population is under 45 years of age.
Approximately four out of every five East Timorese was born on or after 1968.
Currently, 64% are under the age of 25. Approximately three out of every five East
Timorese were not even teenagers when Indonesian forces departed. The challenges
associated with having a very young population will be exacerbated by 2020, when
the total population of East Timor is projected to be around 1.61 million. Predictions
indicate that East Timor will continue to have a very young population structure:
about 45% of the population will still be aged between 0 and 14 years, and the median
age is projected to be only 17.78 years by 2020.16

15Volume 7.3, Chega! Final Report of the Commission for Reception, Truth and
Reconciliation, Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation. Dili, 2005.
16
Saikia, U & M. Hosgelen, 2010. Timor-Lestes demographic destiny and its implications for the
health sector by 2020. Journal of Population Research 27: 133146.
There are major implications for East Timorese national identity and social resilience.
Consider the inter-generational experiences of what it means to be East Timorese
today. Those who were born in the 1940s and early 1950s regarded Portuguese as the
administrative language and the Lusophone world as a vital part of the international
arena. By contrast, Bahasa Indonesia was the administrative language of the
generation that grew up under the Indonesian occupation. They used Portuguese in
their formal correspondence with resistance leaders but Tetum and Indonesian in their
daily lives. If a nation is a political community of people who understand themselves
to have common interests and worldviews and who usually share a common language,
then the different generations have substantially different conceptions of national
identity and what it means to be East Timorese.
The link between national identity and social resilience became apparent in the crisis
of 2006, when the East Timorese state came close to collapse under the weight of
internal divisions, the most important of which were linguistic and geographic. The
impact of the 2006 crisis became evident in a survey of East Timorese tertiary student
attitudes to national identity measured in 2002 and 2007: there were noticeable
declines in these students pride in East Timorese history (81% in 2002 but only 76%
in 2007) and democracy (51% in 2002 but only 36% in 2007).17 The building of a
common national identity will be absolutely vital if East Timor is to become resilient
enough to withstand the vast challenges it faces.

Conclusion

The famine was the single most decisive event in 20th century East Timor. Many
aspects of life in contemporary East Timor its politics, age composition, education,
religion, agriculture, irrigation and food supplies are heavily influenced by the
events of the late 1970s. The importance of the famine is in marked contrast to its
general neglect in academic circles.

17Leach, M. 2008. Surveying East Timorese tertiary student attitudes to national

identity: 2002-2007. South East Asia Research 16(3): 405-431.