Abstract

FERNANDES, Moisés Silva. The failed attempt to recover the Portuguese Timor by the Indonesian Catholic Party in 1962. Relações Internacionais [online]. 2016, n.49, pp.95-110. ISSN 1645-9199.

The leader of the Catholic Party of Indonesia, Franciscus Xaverius Seda, proposed in 1962 to President Ahmed Sukarno a plan aimed at the peaceful integration of Portuguese Timor in “greater Indonesia” without great violence. Thus, there was an Indonesian Bishops' Conference where the matter was discussed and decided to instruct the archbishop of Ende, on Flores, D. Gabriel Johanes Wilhemus Manek, and the Bishop of Atambua, West Timor, D. Theodorus van den Tillaart, to make use of the bishop of Dili, D. Jaime Garcia Goulart, to bring about all the necessary negotiations. However, both Indonesian bishops said that they could not agree to that, since it was a strictly political and not spiritual matter. Nonetheless, the fact that the religious level has raised this issue, contributed to Franciscus Xaverius Seda remained for nine-and-a-half years on the Indonesia's Cabinet to remain between the administrations of Ahmed Sukarno and Hadji Mohamed Suharto, although it killed half-million when there was a military coup, and though it represented only 2% of the Indonesian population.

Keywords : decolonization; animists; minority party; opposite regimes.

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