Viana do Castelo, Portugal, April 13, 2025 (Lusa) - Former journalist Mário Robalo, who in 1991 managed to interview Xanana Gusmão while underground, believes that independence for Timor-Leste would currently be very difficult or even impossible.
"The liberation of Timor-Leste, with the international context and with the position that the UN no longer has today in the panorama of international politics, would be very difficult," said Mário Robalo in an interview with Lusa news agency.
In the summer of 1991, when Portugal's former colony was still occupied by Indonesia, the former reporter for the weekly Expresso, through the then ambassador Francisco Lopes da Cruz, an advisor to the dictator Suharto, obtained authorisation from Jakarta to visit the territory.
"Today, independence would not have been possible, with the panoramas we are unfortunately seeing," he said.
Mário Robalo, who lives in the Viana do Castelo area, recalled that the 1999 referendum, in which the population voted in favour of creating a sovereign state in the eastern part of the island of Timor, was held when Bill Clinton was the president of the United States, at a time when the issue of human rights was on the agenda of the United Nations (UN).
In Portugal, then, the prime minister was the socialist António Guterres, the current secretary-general of the United Nations, while Jaime Gama was the foreign minister.
On the Timorese side, the country's current President, José Ramos-Horta, had diplomatic responsibilities at a global level, representing FRETILIN and resistance leader Xanana Gusmão abroad, including at the UN.
"They could work with the Clinton administration, in the interests of democracy," emphasised Mário Robalo, referring to the Portuguese government and the National Council of East Timorese Resistance.
In the final years of the 20th century, there was "a new understanding of human rights" in the United Nations and in the world, and their constant violation in the former colony "bothered Democrat Bill Clinton a bit", he said.
"The Suharto regime survived with the support of American armaments. This had repercussions on the cross-relationship between the United States and Jakarta and between the United States and Lisbon," emphasised the former journalist, who was around 40 when he interviewed Xanana in 1991.
In constitutional terms, Portugal was bound by the duty to complete the decolonisation of the territory and continued to be recognised by the UN as its administering power.
Both the Timor-Leste resistance and the government of António Guterres knew very well how to handle this politically, said Mário Robalo, who in 1991 was arrested by the Indonesian military and interrogated for several days in Dili after his meeting with Xanana.
"Portugal was able to make the most of that Clinton phase, which was fundamental," he emphasised.
The setting up of INTERFET, "a UN force to intervene in Timor", in 1999, in the event of violence after the popular consultation, "was discussed, decided and voted on in one night", which "would be impossible today".
The former journalist acknowledged that in the early years of the military occupation by Indonesia, which began on 7 December 1975 and caused thousands of deaths, FRETILIN's presence in Portugal "was not well received" at institutional level.
For example, the exiles of the Revolutionary Front of Independent Timor-Leste, which had unilaterally declared independence on 28 November 1975, had a modest space provided by the Popular Democratic Union (UDP) at the party's national headquarters in Lisbon, where they carried out their activities.
"They had a lot of difficulty at first," he confirmed.
Mário Robalo spoke to Lusa about the text "Timor-Leste: an arduous struggle for freedom", which he wrote for the latest edition of the magazine "Ipsis Verbis", commemorating the 50th anniversary of 25 April, coordinated by Luís Filipe Torgal and Basílio Torres, launched by the Oliveira do Hospital School Group last week.
CSS/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
