1 - While the Winds of Change Gently Blow: Timor-Leste before the Onset of the Portuguese Decolonisation, 1945–1974

Summary

Abstract

The end of WWII inaugurated a major decolonisation wave. Contrary to what happened in East and Southeast Asia after the demise of Japanese colonial rule, the half-island of Timor returned to the realm of the Portuguese empire. Despite the claim that the Portuguese were returning as “wealthy friends” intent on providing an impetus for development, the colony was effectively kept back by “authoritarian developmentalism.” This chapter surveys the life of the colony over thirty years that separate its re-incorporation in the empire and the onset of the decolonising process.

Keywords: Portuguese empire, decolonisation, development, colonial contestation, nationalism

Winds of Change and a Stubborn Status Quo

In August 1945, as the Japanese surrender brought to an end the Pacific War and the rest of the world enjoyed the first months of peace after the great conflict, slowly engaging in building new multilateral institutions and reshaping international relations, a powerful wind of change started blowing across many of the territories that hitherto were European colonies in Asia and Africa. When the United Nations was established, more than 750 million people – a third of the world's population then – lived in non-self-governing territories, dependent on colonial powers mostly located in Western Europe (UN 2022). The right to self-determination of non-autonomous territories gradually established itself in a world that was moving “from the age of empires to the age of super-powers” (Hilton and Mitter 2013). It was consecrated in the UN Charter (1945) which refers to the need to “develop friendly relations among nations based on the principle of equal rights and the self-determination of peoples” (Article 1.2). This process would last three long decades, extending till the late 1970s, having received a significant boost in 1960 when the UN General Assembly approved the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (UNGA Resolution 1514 (XV) of December 14, 1960), spelling out that political independence was a fundamental right embodying the right to selfdetermination. At present, there are seventeen non-autonomous territories with a combined population under two million (UN 2022). Commenting on this “revolt against the West,” Geoffrey Barraclough noted that “[n]ever before in the whole of human history had such a revolutionary reversal occurred with such rapidity” (Barraclough 1967: 153–154).