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Three years in FRETILIN territory

Interview with Father Leoneto

Father Leoneto do Rego, born on 8 October 1915, entered the Diocesan Seminary, Angra do Heroismo in October 1927. Based on an Ecclesiastic Order dated 23 June 1955, he was sent to the Diocese of Dili as a missionary and arrived in Timor on 29 May 1956. Father Leoneto do Rego worked as a priest in Timor for 23 years, including three years in an area liberated by FRETILIN.
Costa Alves and Moreira Reis from Funu magazine interviewed Father Leoneto in Lisbon, and published the interview in Magazine No. 1 Year I, July 1980. The interview, which ultimately did not follow the normal pattern of an interview, became more of a long description, almost a monologue, where facts, people, and views were revealed just the way they were.
All that is stated is an eye-witness account. He did not speak about what he felt, but about what he saw and heard. He systematically left out all thoughts that were not based on describing the situation, remembering the people he once lived with.
His eye-witness account is based upon a journey of about three years spent in Soibada, Lakluta, Barique and several months of more regular life in Dili. However, it represents much more in a political sense, because he analyses many thoughts and because it reveals the truth.

Father Leoneto (FL): I suffered a lot because I was ill with malaria, and in 1976, I said to Nicolau Lobato, "I am a Portuguese citizen; both to you as well as to the Indonesians, I am a foreigner. With my illness and age, I will not be able to do much. If it is not too much of an imposition I would like to be allowed to escape to Lisbon. Firstly, I went to Fatumaka [The name of a place several kilometers from Baucau where there is a Salesian mission. There is technical school there.] and with the assistance of the Salesians I reached Baucau."
Nicolau agreed and said that he would write to Vicente [Vicente Reis (Sahe), National Political Commissioner, a permanent member of the FRETILIN Committee.] first, who was the commander of the Baucau district, with the intention of finding someone who could accompany and protect me. But when I returned home I thought all night, that with this decision I would create problems, because I would actually have to surrender to Indonesia. I thought, it could very well be, that others would not agree and I could create problems among them. The next day, I returned to speak with Nicolau Lobato and called off my decision. He said it was not a problem at all and that it had no political influence whatsoever that would put them at a disadvantage, because it was my right to return to the place of my origin. But I held to my decision and permission to leave with the following words, "with the help of God I will stay here".

And so it happened. The head of Mission and Principle of the Soibada School stayed. He was a practical person, who loved working with metal from when he was a child, was intimately involved in his carrier as a priest, and was prepared to face anything, together with the people whom he had known for a long time, his "children" as he called the guerillas. He had know these 'children' since they were young, had taught them to read and educated them in his workshop.

FL: The first big incident for the Indonesian military was when they attacked Dili. This was a fatal mistake. To drop parachute-troops over a city, this would never happen in a war movie. FRETILIN hunted them down, like people hunt down birds. Indonesia even accused FRETILIN of not respecting the Geneva Conventions because of shooting them down in that way. But before that, they stated that their parachute-troops were the best in the world. Just in Dili itself, they already proved the opposite. As far as I know, in New Guinea a similar thing once happened, but it was more the opposite. There they dropped the parachute-troops far away from the cities, but the wild animals ate many of them.

The attack was massive, brutal and bloody. A letter [Dated in November 1977 and distributed in Portugal by Natália Granado Moreira and Maria Auxiliadora Fernandes, two Dominican church people, who once worked in East Timor in Resumus - Jornadas Internacionais por uma sociedade superando as dominações (no.11, September 78, Paris).] from a missionary who arrived shortly thereafter was very worrisome: "based in the harbor of Dili, are 23 war ships (...) which give off huge fires blasts to the mountain slopes behind Dili, for 24 hours without ceasing (...). The bombing from planes doesn't stop all day. Hundreds of people die every day; several neighborhoods (suco) are totally destroyed (...). The barbarism (understood in the Middle Ages and justified in the Stone Age), the cruelties, theft, looting and threats occurring in East Timor are indescribable, killings without reason, in short all forms of organized crime are taking place in Timor".
The people concentrated themselves inland. They reorganized their daily lives. Far off, Falintil formed a wide circle of protection. It was like a war fought across a great gap filled with civilians, with Indonesians controlled areas here and there. In one of these areas was Father Leoneto. Come let us follow him. And now without further interruptions...

FL: I stayed in Lacluta for a year and a half. During that period, this area was never attacked. It was as if there was no war. Only twice did an airplane attack this place. Once on the boarder of Lacluta and another time in Laclubar. The sound of shooting could be heard in the place where I was. The FRETILIN military dispersed and in an effort to survive, and the Indonesian military was only able to kill one woman who was harvesting corn in a field nearby.

Funu (F): But how did you eat?
FL: There was one FRETILIN organization that organized the farming. Each family had their own field in addition to a field owned by everyone (communally), of which the harvest was were partially stored and partially used to feed the armed forces.

F: Were people forced to work in the communal field?
FL: No. The people worked freely in the communal field. I never saw people who didn't wan to work. The FRETILIN committee held meetings to explain to the people, and then made a work schedule for people to work in the collective field. The people understood that there were people who were currently fighting and needed to be given food.

F: Was there enough food?
FL: Thankfully we never lacked food. At the times when we were stationed for a longer period, (as I said earlier that I stayed in Lacluta for one and half years), the people immediately prepared the land and planted maize, rice, sweet-potatoes, all the regular plants. There was no opportunity to plant new kinds of plants. Then, after mid 1978, we started to face difficulties, the encirclement by Indonesia immensely impacted upon the movements of the people, who then were hardly given a chance to remain in one place for very long.

F: How was it with the health organizations?
FL: They organized a network of small hospitals, usually one for each encampment; a nurse or health care worker led it. FRETILIN was very smart to encourage people who were skilled to assist other people. For example they mobilized the young people who had worked in the laboratory in Dili and established a manual laboratory. It is a pity that I don't have a pill here that they made. There were pills for diarrhea, others for malaria and for other kinds of fevers. They also had regular other pills from the pharmacy, such as aspirin, resochine, etc. But the pills they produced were good. I took many of the anti-malaria pills because I always suffered and then got well again. They made them from two kinds of trees, one is "quina" and the other "aihanec", which when you cook its bark tastes very good. There was also a kind of tree that at least lessened TB. This is the result of an ancient tradition about the knowledge of trees. There was a fanaticism that leaves and bark had to be taken from certain places and at certain times, etc. What is clear is that the trees have medicinal value. Actually there were cases known in the colonial era, where doctors paid quite of bit of money to understand these secrets, but they were unsuccessful.
[There is a story of a person (matan dook - a medicine man) who when he died, forgot to pass on his knowledge to his child. He was on his way to Matebian (place of the souls), he remembered and returned, meaning he came back to life. And after teaching his child he died again and went on his way to Matebian. Literally Matebian in the national Maubere (Tetun) language means "place of the dead". According to animistic beliefs, which are wide spread in East Timor, people that have died live in sacred spaces (lulik), which can not be entered by the living and from there they protect members of their family.]
The worst was when there were wounded in the war. There were no surgeons and nurses were overwhelmed with the numbers of cases. They were very close to the people, but there were many factors that limited their abilities. The Indonesian military often used bullets that entered the body and then exploded within, which caused serious injuries. I believe they called them "dum-dum".
To deal with infections they used alcohol, made from the sap of the sago palm tree.

F: In the area of industry, were there any initiatives in your area?
FL: FRETILIN managed to exploit the oil that already existed during the colonial era. In Pualaca there was an oil refinery, which despite being managed by taking turns was not destroyed.
In Soibada, I had begun to plant sugar cane. I had already bought a machine. After the war, FRETILIN took charge of the facility which I had prepared, but I don't know if they succeeded or not.
Hamis [Hamis Bassarewan, a member of the small Arab community in East Timor, and student of civil technology in Lisbon when he revolution happened on 25 April. He was a permanent member of the FRETILIN committee and Minister of Education and Culture of the RDTL.], during the time we were in that area, requested me to teach them how to make soap. I gave him a book and he tried. He was successful in producing one kind of soap but it was too soft to be able to be used, all it needed was to be up-graded through several further experiments.

F: Please talk about the development of the military situation.
FL: As I have mentioned earlier, for quite a long period of time one didn't feel that there was war. In the area where I was, everything was calm. However beginning in July 1978, the Indonesian military started to make advances. FRETILIN didn't have enough weapons and ammunition because they never received any from the outside, and therefore started to retreat. There was a big operation of encirclement, which targeted at my area using Indonesian soldiers who arrived on the southern coast, and there were suddenly a lot of movements of soldiers in the north and the east. The FRETILIN holdout began to weaken, and this is where the large exodus of the people happened who left their encampments, gardens and plants. The FRETILIN army split in order to fight the Indonesian soldiers and accompany the people to new areas of farmland.
My encampment, called Nacroma (brightness), did not escape this situation. I could sense the closeness of the direct fighting. However between July and September we still worked in the gardens. There was a moving incident. At one point we were able to get free from the encirclement and return to where we had planted earlier and we were still able to harvest. Two days later, a military plane arrived.
At that time I was already too weak. Non-stop attacks made people flee from that place and they passed me in groups because I was already too weak, but I was unable to follow them. Eventually I was alone. I arrived at a crossing in the road, where I no longer knew where I was. In the end I went down the wrong road. I kept on going until at a certain point in time I felt like I was unable to continue, and I sat down and rested for a short while before starting to walk again. At that time a couple arrived with a horse. It was only then that I felt I had chosen the right road; maybe they were on their way to a garden to get some food. I tried to follow them, but I was unable to keep up the pace.
The day was coming to an end, and the shooting remained close-by and I hadn't eaten anything. I found a water-buffalo carcass nearby. There still was a bit of dry skin full of ants. I decided to grill it. I collected a few bamboo sticks and made a fire. The smoke was thick. Just as the skin was cooked and started to smell good enough to satisfy my hunger, a person appeared in a very panicked state and asked what was I doing just there. He asked for me to immediately stop the fire because of the Indonesian military. Actually they were above the hills and were shooting and here I heard the sounds of the shots. We put out the fire and ran to his family. I was lucky, because only a moment thereafter two artillery mortars exploded where I had been roasting the buffalo.

IT BECAME HARDER AND HARDER FOR FRETILIN TO CONFRONT THE INDONESIAN MILITARY.

But I stayed with this family and we went to an area between Soibada and Barique. We set up our encampment, I had built my tent and this is where we stayed for about three months, from October until December 1978.
But I was very weak. It became harder and harder for FRETILIN to confront the Indonesian military. Our luck was that the military was so weak, to be clear, the Indonesian soldiers were weak. I never thought that such a thing could happen like that. They were very scared of FRETILIN so that it only took someone to scream "FRETILIN is coming" and they would run in different directions. What helped them was the war equipment that they owned. Riffles,...FNC, helicopters and warplanes.

An example. I believe it was still in 1976. The FRETILIN young people once went to Soibada even though it was already in the power of the Indonesians, and from there they brought things that were needed. The Indonesian military had occupied the mission building as their headquarters and FRETILIN had shot into that place from a distance of 100 meters. So, the Indonesian soldiers were so frightened that every time a helicopter wanted to land they shot wildly all around whether FRETILIN was there or not.

F: What about the FRETILIN military organization?
FL: I know very little. I only observed the young people that formed a group to protect and guard our encampment. They were only few of them, always on the move. They didn't work in the fields and they had very bad weapons. Usually, only spears but especially arrows. I know that they did patrols, but in a very limited radius.
On the other hand, I saw that there was only one guerilla army that confronted the Indonesian military. They were very far from the people's encampment and I didn't know anything about their organization. And I also never tried to find out because this was a secret that needed to be guarded very tightly.

F: Did you ever see an attack with napalm bombs?
FL: There was talk about napalm attacks but I did not know of any in my area. I only once saw an explosion of a bomb, the radius of explosion being 100 meters. What that was? I don't know.

F: We now reach December 1978, 3 years after the invasion. How did you manage to successfully get out?
FL: Like I have said earlier, in December I was very weak and sick, tired to walk from here to there. We were already in the phase where the FRETILIN youth told the people to surrender, even though their destiny was different: "We will continue to fight. Die, we might die, but with weapons in our hands".

"WE WILL CONTINUE TO FIGHT.
WE MIGHT DIE, BUT WITH WEAPONS IN OUR HANDS".

In the end I sent a message to Nicolau Lobato who was in the area around Fatu Berliu. I said to him that this time I couldn't stand it any longer, and that one day I would die in the forest, and because I held on to my nationality my surrender would mean challenging Timor's independence. Nicolau wasn't able to respond in written form and this is understandable as at that time written letters were being avoided. He (Nicolau) answered orally. A priest brought me the message. He said that it was my unconditional right to leave. He accepted it as a good action and wished me farewell.
This is what I did. Two guerillas accompanied me to a place three hours away from an Indonesian company. They left me close to a house, which was around there, they bid me farewell, saying that they would continue to fight and left.
I asked the owner of the house to tell the Indonesian company that I wanted to surrender, and the next day they came to pick me up. It was exactly on 31 December 1978.

F: The day President Nicolau Lobato died.
FL: Yes. At that time everyone came to the headquarters to say that Nicolau had been killed.

F: What was their reaction like?
FL: Everyone looked sad. It was natural. Not only because it was an educated man, who represented what they represented. But also because of his open-mindedness (he was very accessible) and very wise.
We had been close friends. We were still able to take pictures together many times, but these were taken by António Lobato, his younger brother, and because he has already died the photos are surely lost.

F: Were you able to speak with him about his family, who had all disappeared?
FL: I was not able to. I know that he married again. This time it was a girl from Same. A priest friend of mine attended the wedding ceremony. At that time, Indonesia had already cut the connection between Barique and Fatu Berliu.

F: Let us return to the Indonesian company.
FL: The situation was very sad. It was evident that the Indonesian soldiers did not enjoy what they were doing there. Even worse was the food. They gave one can of cooked maize for one day. First of all I asked a woman who was stomping the maize to clean it, because it was full of stones and other dirt. She did this, but then I realized that everything would be thrown out and I said to her: "Enough woman, if not there will be nothing left for me to eat".

F: From there you went to Dili?
FL: No. On a certain day, they placed me in a helicopter and sent me to a prison in Baucau. They put me in a cell, 2m by 3m. For 17 days I was interrogated twice a day. It was so boring. They said they had information that I had been armed with a pistol. I said, this wasn't true; that I never even had a rifle in my entire life. They wanted to get information from me about FRETILIN's organization, how many companies there were, etc. I convinced them that I really did not know anything. That I was a Portuguese citizen and I was only fulfilling my duties as a religious man. But the entire time, the conversation remained the same. They were angry but they didn't hit me. However, I often heard screams of people whom I know were being tortured at the time.

FOR EACH ARMED TIMORESE, THREE INDONESIAN SOLDIERS DIED.

F: How was the food in that prison?
FL: I was only given rice. Here there was plenty of food, but it was dirty and very bad. Once I saw them wash the rice-pot in the wastewater ditch. You can imagine what that would have felt like. Gratefully I was able to assist Father João de Deus who had been placed in Baucau, and in the end received food from him.

F: And then you went to Dili?
FL: After I was processed including having my picture taken and all, I was sent there (Dili).

F: And what was life like there?
FL: In general, normal. Indonesian currency was being used and there were many vendors. The Chinese were selling their goods, in order to leave. They (the Chinese) paid millions of rupiahs and were successful in getting out. [The Chinese community, which was quite large (around 40 thousand). They had total control over the economy, started from shops in the sub districts to larger stores in Dili. They controlled the import-and-export markets. Many Chinese living in Dili participated in the struggle against Indonesia.]
In the offices everyone used translators and in schools only Indonesian was taught, which nobody understood. (Indonesian national) scouts activities were imposed on the children; someone named it the Military Police of Indonesia.

F: Did the people you spoke with in Dili criticize FRETILIN? Did they accuse FRETILIN for everything that had happened?
FL: No. They did not criticize and had no reason to accuse. The situation had been created by UDT and Indonesia. FRETILIN only had minimal responsibility for all of this. You see, the parties, (I am not speaking about Apodeti), defended independence and the people liked this idea. Then UDT was responsible for a coup d'etat in Dili and when they felt they were loosing, their leaders united with Indonesia. It began at that point, that people who had been sympathetic to UDT joined FRETILIN. An example, in the area of Soibada the people followed UDT before the coup; thereafter everyone participated in the struggle against Indonesia.
In general the people hated Indonesia. And besides, they (Indonesia) didn't show even a little sympathy in order for their rule to be tolerated.
Before Easter 79, I went to Soibada to assist the religious community on my own behalf. There are many villages (suco) around Soibada. Manlala, Leo Hat, Daulorok, Malus Hun etc. The Indonesian military had already forced the entire population to leave their place of origin and to concentrate in Soibada. They wanted to farm or garden but there was no space and they had no seeds. And the seeds that were sent by Indonesia were rotten and the maize didn't grow well. They people revolted.
Logistical support was undertaken by helicopter because the roads were all broken. But the distribution was very limited. One day, Indonesian soldiers stole the two chickens the people had given to me. They got involved in very little matters such as this.
On the other hand, Indonesia was restoring the organization of the liurai [They own the largest pieces of land (liu=excess, rai=land). They were a royal class intimately connected to colonial exploitation, after the defeat in 1912, of the revolt undertaken by Dom Boaventura from Manufahi.], which had already ceased to be in that area. FRETILIN did not like it, there were many old liurai in its organization, but they didn't function as normal.

F: It is said that many Indonesian soldiers died in combat?
FL: I think that, in comparison, two or three armed Indonesians died per (one) Timorese. From the Santa Cruz cemetery to the Balide convent there were Indonesian graves.

F: While you were in Dili, Father Leoneto, did you ever see demonstration (expression) of the people's hatred towards Indonesia?
FL: There are various facts. While I was there, the International Red Cross opened registration for all those who wanted to leave Timor. In a few days, over 5 thousand people had gone to register and they immediately closed that registration.
While I was in Dili, there was from time-to-time a revolt against Indonesia. At one point, they brought in one thousand workers to build a hotel. Clearly this was strongly criticized. People said that there was no need of bringing in new people from outside to work. Actually the situation was not conducive. One day in May or June 79, the school children had chased two of the Indonesians workers by throwing stones from far away to the Sporting building. At the same time, a fight happened in the cinema between Timorese and Indonesian citizens.
I heard that there were also rape cases of young girls. Of one of these events I have concrete proof. It happened in Baucau. A member of the Indonesian military befriended a young girl who happened to be a Christian. She refused him, but her mother advised her to offer herself to him. She was scared. But that girl kept on refusing him and the soldier finally killed her.
There are many examples.
When there was combat fighting, the news spread in Dili from mouth to mouth. I remember that in June 79 there was talk about resistance in Lospalos and Maubara. It is clear that they spoke secretly but sympathetically. If they didn't they would be put in Sang Tai Hoo.

F: The store of Lai Sei Ing? [Lai Seng Ing was the most prominent Chinese tradesman in East Timor, with trading relationships all the way to Thailand, Formosa (Taiwan) and Singapore.]
FL: Yes. After he left, it was made the headquarters of the Indonesian intelligence. The people joked about all of this: "don't tell me you want to go to Sang Tai Hoo". In the midst of great disaster, they were still able to make fun. For example regarding "a friend's car". At first I didn't understand "watch out, a friend's car is coming to pick you up". Until one day I was approached directly by them. People who were in the street at Jap Kong Su were alarmed and thought the moment had come for me to be picked up. But no. They only wanted to take care of the problem of my departure to Portugal. However, "a friend's car" was a sinister institution that often in the late hours of the night would stop at people's houses to pick them up.

F: And Portuguese citizens that were still there?
FL: There were not many. But they were still forced to sign a document to accept the sovereignty of Indonesia. If not they would loose their work.
Indonesia had already created a terrible situation. No one was in the least enthusiastic, and the active members of UDT and Apodeti itself felt fooled. Indonesians wanted to make money, using Timor. They established an export-import body, which controlled all coffee products from Timor. [In 1972, 5.908 tons of coffee were exported, which equals 92% of the total value of export, which amounted to 117.242 contos (Portuguese currency).] They forced the farmers to hand over all the coffee at prices they determined themselves. The viciousness of the profit of the Indonesian side was so large, that if there was someone from Maubara who wanted to give a bag of coffee to their family in Dili, this too was prohibited. They had military controls in the streets and checked the people who would pass by.

INDONESIAN SOLDIERS FORCED FARMERS TO HAND OVER COFFEE AT PRICES THEY DETERMINED.

F: What was done towards the former leaders?
FL: Mário Carrascalão was working in Jakarta as an agronomist. Xavier do Amaral was in Dili, in the house of the Indonesian military commander. They were afraid the people might do something against him. Francisco Lopes da Cruz was Vice Governor and one could see that there was something about him that was not right; he looked disappointed. The governor was the former liurai of Atsabe, Guilherme Gonçalves. He was appointed while I was in Dili, in May or June 79. With him something happened that made us laugh. A while before that he had become a widower, and then wanted to marry again. He wanted to marry a young Muslim nurse. He went to Jakarta and met with the Cardinal to hurry up the wedding process. It is said that he pretended that he had become impotent. But the process took a long time after all because there were regulations for marriages between different religions. So, because he didn't want to wait any longer, he married according to Islamic ritual. For this he had to take an Islamic name. Abdulá or something. It is clear that this was not well received in Dili, and people started making fun of Abdulá who was actually their governor.

F: Reports are coming in about ambushes in many areas in East Timor, but especially of very different ways of resisting, from a classic guerilla struggle. Father, what can you say about this?
FL: This is not hard for me to believe. I would like to say that in May and June of last year, we already knew of such combat. Actually, being dispersed into small groups gives them an opportunity to disturb the Indonesians. It is easier for them to find food, they don't need to spend too much energy to try to protect such a large area like before. In a system of war, actually a force as large as Indonesia's should defeat them easily.

F: Finally, one question we would like not to leave out: did FRETILIN ever limit you in your duties as a priest?
FL: From all that I have already said, you can see for yourself - no, not at all. We were six priests in the area under FRETILIN rule, amongst us two Timorese priests. And we all had good relationships with FRETILIN, we were always free to follow our duties as a priest.
In relation to this point, I would like to tell about a case that is interesting. At a certain point in time, we started to lack wine; two young members of FRETILIN went in a clandestine way to the Diocese of Dili taking a note from one of the priests... [For specific reasons we cannot publish his name.] as a letter of proof. And when they had returned they brought everything we needed. Clearly in small amounts but I received my parcel in my tent because I was a priest ... and divided it all among the six of us.

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