By: Daniel Pascoe
It has been widely perceived in the West that the Catholic Church in East Timor officially opposed the Indonesian occupation. This perception has been enhanced by the efforts of the first two indigenous leaders of the Catholic Church in East Timor, Monsignor Martinho da Costa Lopes and Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo, who sought to internationally publicise the atrocities and suffering endured by the East Timorese over the course of Indonesian rule. This essay will describe how reality differs from this perception; the leadership of the Catholic Church has always sought to espouse an officially neutral view towards the Indonesian occupation, a position which only allowed for implicit support of the Timorese resistance movement.
During the Indonesian occupation, until East Timor was opened to visitors in 1989, the Catholic Church was the only societal institution in place to have contact with the outside world. It was no coincidence then that Church figures were in a position to play a key role in publicising the suffering of East Timor’s people under the yoke of Indonesian rule. However, not all of the Church shared the same view. Until the appointment of Martinho da Costa Lopes as the first indigenous leader of the Catholic Church in East Timor, the clergy maintained a position of official and unofficial neutrality. Later, transmigration and the importation of Indonesian priests also split the Church over this issue. Despite the increasing Indonesian influence within the Church since its occupation, the Church was able to show sympathy to the struggle against integration in both an explicit and implicit manner under Bishop Carlos Belo.
Defining ‘Opposition’ to the Indonesian Regime
As will be discussed in further detail, the official position of the Church in the relation to the Indonesian occupation was one of neutrality. However, an official stance of neutrality, along with the promotion of human rights within a Catholic pastoral setting (e.g. in offering refuge to the injured and persecuted), did not necessarily preclude a majority of the Church hierarchy supporting anti‐integration sentiments in East Timor. Perhaps the best way of looking at this issue is from the perspective of the Indonesian government or those East Timorese of pro‐integrationist sentiment. For instance, the detailed outlining of human rights abuses in diocesan publications or the delivery of Church services in Tetum rather than Bahasa Indonesia (since 1981) may not prima facie constitute a show of force to the Indonesian occupation. But the fact remains that such actions can be regarded as implicit forms of resistance. Integration supporters have reacted with the same measure of distaste against such Church‐sponsored initiatives as if those actions by parishioners constituted direct assistance to Fretilin guerrilla fighters.
This essay will not purport to claim that religion was the only reason for the rise in nationalistic fervour during the 1980s and 90s in East Timor; however, the contribution made by the Church in opposing integration with Indonesia is undeniable. In the words of Bishop Belo: Conscious or not, willingly or not, explicitly or implicitly, the Catholic Church is keeping alive the expectation that other ‘forms’ of government in Timor are possible.
As will be demonstrated below, this ‘spirituality of resistance’ took many forms under the guidance of different Church leaders during the Indonesian occupation.
Background to the Role of the Catholic Church in East Timor
It is by briefly comparing the role of the Church in the final stages of Portuguese colonial rule to that under the Indonesian occupation that we may see its changing function and increasingly progressive outlook. Prior to the Indonesian occupation, the Church operated under a power structure that divorced many East Timorese from organised religion. The Church occupied a key role in the Portuguese colonial social structure, and was the vanguard of the educated East Timorese elite. Additionally, the Church’s significant landholdings were the subject of criticism from nationalist groups espousing a co‐operative‐based land reform agenda, which originally included the Fretilin party. In response, the conservative pro‐Portugal clergy were mostly critical of Fretilin, whom they saw as promoting a Marxist‐nationalist based independence struggle.
It is against this background that it appears so incredulous that the Church would have played such a prominent role in supporting the resistance movement. However, within the hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church, Church leaders play a significant role in determining its political direction. The key tonic for the anti‐integration movement was the appointment of two indigenous East Timorese leaders at the head of the Church in 1977 and 1983: Monsignor Lopes and latterly Bishop Belo. The fact that the diocese of Dili at the time traversed East Timor in its entirety means that Church policy could be determined to a significant extent by these two men alone. Although, like any institution, the Catholic Church contains within it a variety of different political outlooks, it is this hierarchical structure that has resulted in the Church’s position being perceived as more or less uniform.
Post‐Integration: The Leadership of Bishop Ribeiro – 1975‐1977
In the aftermath of Operasi Komodo and the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975, the clergy adopted a key role, not so much in protesting against the invasion, but in trying to limit the damage and suffering caused to the East Timorese people. Churches, convents, and the houses of priests became havens from the fighting. In fact, in the early days, the Portuguese‐born head of the Church, Bishop Ribeiro, and his clergy were very cautious in making political pronouncements about the Indonesian invasion. In accordance with Vatican stipulations, the Church maintained an officially neutral position towards Indonesia.
However, from the point of view of the Indonesian military, even a neutral Church attempting to constitute a ‘buffer’ between the East Timorese people and ABRI was regarded as an obstacle. This is because Indonesian operations assumed that every person and institution in East Timor fitted into either the pro‐ or the anti‐integration ‘camps’. Further, any information that Church officials managed to smuggle out of East Timor to the West, such as estimates of the number of dead and injured civilians, served to damage Indonesian interests. Ironically, it was the Indonesian state’s own ideology, Pancasila (guaranteeing freedom of religion), which prevented the military from crushing the Church altogether.
The serious human rights violations perpetrated by the Indonesian military caused a split within the Catholic Church hierarchy. Some members of the clergy maintained their support for the Indonesian occupation despite the resultant death and destruction, and even held positions within the Indonesian‐installed interim government. A majority of the clergy, however, privately turned against the military forces for their serious human rights breaches, which did not even spare Church personnel and buildings. Even Bishop Ribeiro’s prior joy at the ousting of the perceived communist threat posed by Fretilin was quickly displaced. However, unlike what was to come under future Church administrations, most negative sentiment towards the Indonesian occupation was kept within the private sphere. Bishop Ribeiro retired in 1977 exhausted from war, paving the way for a more progressive successor.
The Leadership of Monsignor Lopes: 1977‐1983
From 1977, Monsignor Martinho da Costa Lopes was the first indigenous Timorese leader of the Catholic Church in East Timor. After inheriting the protective mantle of Bishop Ribeiro in relation to persecuted members of the local population, he also became the first Church leader to publicly advocate against the human rights abuses perpetrated by Indonesian troops, and to propose a plebiscite as an exercise of East Timorese self‐determination. His prior political background, as an East Timorese representative on the National Assembly in Lisbon, meant that unlike Bishop Ribeiro, he was reluctant to confine himself to purely religious issues, considering the suffering that his people were undergoing. However, until 1982, Lopes’ attempts to document and cease human rights abuses by the military consisted mainly of cautious attempts to conduct dialogue with Indonesian military commanders.
At a religious rally, held on 13 October 1982, Lopes first spoke out publicly against the practices of the Indonesian military, inviting worshippers to ‘take and drink the body and blood of Jesus Christ, horribly outraged by ungrateful men. Repair their crimes and consol your God’. He then set about publicising in detail a number of human rights abuses committed by the military in his speech. As Lopes later explained:
Each time I went to the commander and complained; for years I did this. Maybe it helped for a short while, but really nothing, the military treated us with contempt, so after five years I started to speak out.
After this speech by Lopes, it was first publicly perceived both in East Timor and in the West that the Church held a ‘position’ on the question of integration. Although the East Timorese clergy shared a common experience of war, famine and genocide with the Falintil fighters in the mountains, this was the first time that an ‘official’ stand had been taken.
Thereafter, separation between Church and State increased and Monsignor Lopes and his clergy felt more able to express the wishes of the Timorese people, who were flocking to the Church in great numbers in search of protection and hope. As the membership of the Church increased exponentially, the pronouncements of the clergy gained more authority. One such statement that reached the West and is still quoted today is Lopes’ estimation in 1983 that 200,000 people, or a third of the pre‐invasion population, had died since the Indonesian occupation.
In 1983, Lopes resigned from his position under Indonesian‐induced pressure from the Vatican. However, he continued to travel and speak in support of his people until his death in Portugal in 1991.
The Leadership of Bishop Belo: 1983‐1999
Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo, a previously unknown figure, was installed as Monsignor Lopes’ successor in 1983. The Indonesian establishment expected that he would be more sympathetic to their position, considering he had previously studied abroad for thirteen years and had not witnessed the worst atrocities committed during and after the Indonesian invasion. This proved a fallacy, and Bishop Belo went onto become the most important Church figure in bringing the East Timor issue to international attention, first through the international networks of the Catholic Church, and then in the broader political sphere.
Bishop Belo, like Monsignor Lopes before him, adopted a cautious approach towards the military in the initial months of his appointment. However, he heavily criticised the Indonesian military’s Operasi Persatuan during a homily delivered five months into his tenure, and following this, began to make important pronouncements against the Indonesian policy.
His most well‐known statements and actions called for an end to human‐rights abuses and the continuation of a meaningful dialogue between Indonesia and the East Timorese people. These statements and actions included his letter penned to the United Nations Secretary General in 1989 calling for an exercise of self -determination by the East Timorese, his mediating role in the Intra‐Timorese dialogue in June 1995, and his role in establishing the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in 1994 to publicise human rights abuses. Along with Jose Ramos Horta, Belo’s receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 was the single‐most important event drawing attention to the plight of the East Timorese.
As with his predecessor, much of Bishop Belo’s work could be regarded as an implicit form of resistance to the Indonesian occupation. During his leadership of the Church, Belo attempted to distance himself from partisan groups and discouraged the use of religious ceremonies and places of worship for the furtherance of political ends. He urged the youth of East Timor to abstain from violent protest against the Indonesian military, but was willing to grant refuge to the persecuted within his own home. As Belo saw the role of the Church during the occupation: If the faithful see the Church as too close to the government, they would dub it a ’Government Church‘. If the Church is too vocal in voicing people’s aspirations, the government would immediately accuse it of getting involved in practical politics… the Church is prompted to overcome the dilemma by declaring it takes the side of the people without opposing the government.
‘Taking the side of the people’ meant many different forms of support. With the backing of Pope John Paul II under Vatican II’s social justice agenda, Bishop Belo was able to advocate for the conservation of East Timorese cultural, religious, linguistic, and ethnic identity in the face of Indonesian homogenisation through transmigration programs and also family planning restrictions. Additionally, in making direct pronouncements on the issue of the Indonesian occupation, Belo was able to frame his statements in terms of the universal human right of self‐determination, rather than merely being anti‐integrationist. This more cautious approach employed by Belo enabled him to hold onto his position as the head of the Catholic Church for such a lengthy period. The agendas of the Belo‐led Church and the clandestine resistance movement significantly overlapped in terms of human rights, self‐determination and cultural preservation. However, Belo was careful to avoid advocacy of violent resistance, or engage in criticism of the Indonesian government that would place his position in jeopardy, and hence the Church’s implicit opposition to Indonesian policies.
Not all members of the clergy shared the same progressive and inspired view of Bishop Belo. With the Suharto government’s transmigration programs of the 1970s and 80s, a number of Indonesian priests also began arriving in East Timor. The Indonesian priests saw the relationship of Church and State quite differently from Bishop Belo’s East Timorese colleagues. Although as Catholic priests the Indonesian clergy must of course be concerned for the wellbeing of their congregations in the face of human rights violations, a more cautious stand as against the Indonesian government and military evinced their pro‐integration views. For example, a 1995 delegation from the Indonesian Bishops Conference, when discussing the East Timor issue with President Suharto, made reference to the ‘many deep wounds and traumatic experiences’ of the East Timorese people, and called for a greater focus to be given to socio‐cultural problems. This was obviously a more cautious stand than that latterly taken by Bishop Belo. However, the membership of the Church grew exponentially during the 1980s, and East Timorese from many different cultural, educational and socio‐ economic backgrounds came together under the banner of faith against the oppressive Indonesian rule. As a result, it would be accurate to say that the voices of the anti‐integrationist clergy, while mostly diplomatic in their criticism of the Indonesian military, represented the outlook of the majority of the population.
Finally, during the leadership of Bishop Belo, the 1980s saw the expansion in broader Church infrastructure to help challenge the government’s ‘Indonisation’ agenda since occupation. Parish networks, Church‐run schools, hospitals and polyclinics attracted East Timorese dissatisfied with government‐funded facilities. Moreover, the Church was able to profoundly influence public opinion through its dissemination of information within educational institutions and religious orders, and by way of pastoral letters and the diocesan newsletter SEARA, where government censorship had otherwise restricted the flow of information.
Conclusion
The Catholic Church was the only institution that was able to criticise Indonesian policies during the occupation of East Timor, as it was answerable only to the Vatican. Although some clergy members may have held personal opinions at odds with the resistance movement, the hierarchical structure of the Church under its two indigenous East Timorese leaders after 1977 meant that the Church came to be recognised as a body symbolising opposition to the occupation. The East Timorese Church’s stability, with only one change in leadership over a twenty‐year period (as against many changes in military leadership), has contributed significantly to this phenomenon. Monsignor Lopes and Bishop Belo were careful not to explicitly denounce integration. However, they helped shift the focus of international attention onto the human‐rights abuses perpetrated by the Indonesian military in East Timor, thereby implicitly giving voice to the resistance movement.
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