Word: fretilin
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Five hours later, we reached Dili. Crowds of dark-skinned Timorese lined the dusty streets between Dili's pink-and-white stuccoed houses, some of which had been hastily painted over to erase Fretilin slogans. Gongs and cymbals clanged, and drums sounded amidst cries of "Merdekaf (Freedom) and " Viva Presidente Suhartor No Indonesian armed forces were in sight, only a handful of local militiamen in ragtag colonial uniforms and wide-brimmed hats, carrying a variety of antediluvian weapons. Finally, we reached a grubby, squat sports hall adorned with a sign saying "We wish you a happy conference...
...that began changing rapidly two years ago. The Portuguese, spurred by their anticolonial revolution at home, wanted out. Led at the time by Marxist Premier Vasco Gonçalves, they encouraged formation of a pro-Communist Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin), which finally seized control and began butchering members of opposing political factions. Suddenly, East Timor became a minor source of international tension. Indonesia, which holds adjoining West Timor, professed horror at the thought of a Communist toehold. In turn, that renewed neighboring Australia's suspicion of Indonesia's expansionist ambitions in the region...
...groups had been struggling for post-Independence power in East Timor for six months. In August the Timorese Democratic Union (U.D.T.), a right-wing group favoring Portuguese federation, fought its way to power in Dili, only to be driven out by the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin), a leftist group that advocated immediate and total independence. Amid what some Western witnesses described as "bloody carnage," which included children being bashed to death against the trunks of trees, Fretilin troops forced the Portuguese colonial governor and his aides to flee to an island 20 miles offshore...
Armed and trained by left-leaning sympathizers in the Portuguese army, Fretilin troops drove their rivals in the U.D.T. and other groups right up to the Indonesian border. Alarmed, the Jakarta regime offered sanctuary to some 40,000 Timorese fleeing the fighting. The Indonesians also began rearming the battered troops of the U.D.T. and its allies, including the pro-Indonesian Timorese Popular Democratic Association (APODETI), for a counteroffensive. Fretilin forces, described by an Australian reporter as "looking like a Dad's army of hippies," had set the stage for last week's showdown in November, when, already...