Oecusse District - History

History

Oecusse and Ambeno are the names of the two original kingdoms, of which Ambeno existed before the colonial period.

Oecusse was the first part of the island of Timor on which the Portuguese established themselves, and is thus usually considered the cradle of East Timor. In 1556, a group of Dominican friars started missionary work on the north coast of Timor. In 1641 they arrived to the village of Lifau, five km to the west of modern Pante Macassar, where they baptized the royal family of the Ambeno kingdom. A permanent Portuguese settlement arose in the 1650s due to migration from Larantuka on Flores. The Eurasian population in Lifau became known as Topasses. After 1664 they were governed by officers belonging to the Hornay and Da Costa families, and were able dominate most of Timor. In 1702, Lifau became the authorized capital of the colony when it received the first governor from Lisbon. The following period saw frequent clashes between the governor and the independent-minded Topasses, who had their strongholds in Tulicão west of Lifau, and Animata in the inland. Under their leader Gaspar da Costa they attacked the Dutch colonial post at Kupang in 1749 but were smashingly defeated, and subsequently moved their residence to Pante Macassar (Oecusse) in 1759 due to Dutch military pressure. The capital of the governor was transferred from Lifau to Dili in 1769, because of the frequent attacks from the Topass leader Francisco Hornay III. Most of West Timor was left to Dutch forces, who were conquering what is today Indonesia. The Eurasian leadership of Oecusse by and by turned into a Timorese kingship, and members of the Hornay and Da Costa families reigned as Liurai (kings) until modern times. They regularly intermarried with the Ambeno royalty. In the 1780s a reconciliation took place between the governor in Dili and the Topasses, who henceforth usually supported the Portuguese government.

In 1859, with the Treaty of Lisbon, Portugal and the Netherlands divided the island between them. West Timor became Dutch, with its colonial seat at Kupang, and East Timor became Portuguese, with its seat in Dili. This left Oecusse as an enclave surrounded by Dutch territory. In 1912 the Liurai of Ambeno, João da Cruz, staged a revolt against the Portuguese. It was quickly put down, after which the Ambeno kingdom lapsed. The Liurai of Oecusse became dominant in the entire Oecusse exclave. The definitive border was drawn by the Hague in 1916. Apart from Japanese occupation during World War II, the border remained the same until the end of the colonial period. The region was given the status of municipality, named Oecússi, by the Portuguese government in August 1973, the last Timorese area to receive it.

It was in Pante Macassar that an Indonesian fifth column raised the Indonesian flag and took control of the exclave on 29 November 1975, a week before the Indonesian invasion of East Timor proper. However, even under Indonesian rule, Oecusse was administered as part of the province of East Timor, as it had been as part of Portuguese Timor. Like much of the country, it suffered violent attacks near the 1999 referendum for independence. Over 90 percent of the infrastructure was destroyed. It became part of the independent state of East Timor on 20 May 2002.

In the 1970s and 1980s, New Zealander anarchist Bruce Grenville began a hoax, claiming to have founded the sultanate of Occussi-Ambeno. He invented a history for the state of tribes united against the Portuguese.

On the 11th of November 1999, 600+ Australian troops from 3RAR (Third Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment) deployed from Maliana in East Timor proper to Oecusse to liberate the enclave. They stayed there until late February 2000, being replaced by Jordanian troops.