Dutch-East Timorese Relations

Dutch-East Timorese Relations

Netherlands	East Timor

East Timor and the Netherlands have easy relations .

history

The Dutch fort in Maubara (2010)

See also : History of East Timor

On June 4, 1613, Apollonius Schotte landed as the first Dutchman on Timor and initiated the duel between the Dutch East India Company and Portugal for control of the island. The first Dutch fortress on Timor was built in Kupang in 1640 and after the Battle of Penfui with the Treaty of Paravicini , the Dutch were finally able to secure dominance over most of the west of the island in 1756, while the Portuguese with Portuguese Timor mainly the east dominated. With the Treaty of Lisbon (1859) , official borders between the colonial powers were established for the first time. The Dutch exclave Maubara with the fort built in 1756 and the island of Atauro fell to Portugal. Calvinists did missionary work on Atauro , which is why an old-established Protestant minority lives here in the otherwise mainly Catholic East Timor. But it was not until 1916 that the final borders could be set, with Noimuti in the west going to the Netherlands and Maucatar in Cova Lima to Portugal. There panic broke out among the local population. Before being handed over to the Portuguese, they destroyed their fields and 5000 people moved to the Dutch part of Timor. The only Portuguese exclave in West Timor remained Oe-Cusse Ambeno , which now belongs to the state of East Timor. The borders drawn at that time are largely identical to the current national borders between the now Indonesian West Timor and the independent state of East Timor.

In the middle of the 18th century the Dutch planted the first coffee plantations in Maubara, but it was not until the 19th century that the Portuguese began to grow coffee in Timor and adopted the Dutch plantation system. Portugal's colony in the 19th century was increasingly dependent on its connections with the Dutch East Indies . A large part of the goods and people traffic ran through the Dutch colonial capital Batavia , Makassar and Kupang, for example in 1860 with a post ship of the Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij (KPM). The Dutch guilder (florin) was used as a parallel currency in Portuguese Timor well into the 20th century .

The fall of the monarchy in Portugal led to confusion among the Timorese in Portuguese Timor , who were alien to the concept of a republic. Sometimes there was a longing for the monarchy, which the Dutch tried to exploit with propaganda campaigns in the border area. They distributed pictures of their Queen Wilhelmina . In 1916 Portugal entered World War I on the side of the Entente . At that time it was feared that the Netherlands might join the war on the side of the Central Powers . When the relationship between the Netherlands and Great Britain sank to a low point, the Dutch gathered forces on the Timorese border in 1917. Ultimately, the Dutch did not enter the war.

Although Portugal was neutral, 400 Dutch and Australian soldiers occupied Portuguese Timor during World War II in 1941 to forestall a Japanese invasion. Timor was to serve as a buffer for Australia. Portugal protested against the occupation without success. On the night of February 19-20, 1942, the Japanese occupied the Portuguese colony, which became the scene of a guerrilla war between Australian commandos and Japanese occupation soldiers. After World War II, Portugal regained control of its colony, while Dutch Timor became part of independent Indonesia.

In 1974 Indonesia occupied East Timor, which was not recognized internationally or by the Netherlands. East Timor fought for independence for 24 years. On November 19, 1995, East Timorese activists peacefully occupied the Dutch embassy in Jakarta on the occasion of the APEC summit in Osaka and on December 7th again on the occasion of the anniversary of the Indonesian invasion of Dili . Various non-governmental organizations from the Netherlands campaigned for East Timor, such as the Stichting Vrij Oost Timor .

After the independence referendum in East Timor in 1999 , there was a final wave of violence . The Dutch reporter Sander Thoenes got into a roadblock in Dili by Indonesian soldiers and was shot by them. Until 2012, the Netherlands participated in the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT).

diplomacy

The Dutch Ambassador Rob Swartbol and East Timor’s President Francisco Guterres (2019)

The Netherlands and East Timor established diplomatic relations in 2003, one year after East Timor was granted independence. The Netherlands sent an election observer to the parliamentary elections in East Timor in 2012 as part of the European election observation mission.

East Timor does not have a diplomatic mission in the Netherlands. The East Timorese ambassador in London is responsible . The first ambassador, Joaquim da Fonseca , took office in 2014.

See also : List of East Timorese Ambassadors to the United Kingdom

The Netherlands does not have a diplomatic mission in East Timor. The embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, is responsible. In the Portuguese colonial times there was a Dutch consulate in Dili. When the Japanese occupied Timor in February 1942 , the consul Brauer was taken prisoner. He and his wife only managed to escape in May. They were brought from Beco to Darwin on July 8th on the Australian landing craft HMAS Kuru .

See also : List of Dutch ambassadors in East Timor

economy

The trade volume between the Netherlands and East Timor in 2013 was € 765,000. For 2018, the East Timor’s Statistical Office registered imports from the Netherlands to the value of 3,034,000 US dollars (2016: 1,376,000 US dollars), placing the Netherlands in 17th place (2016: 18th place) among East Timorese importers. Exports to the Netherlands were valued at US $ 87,900 (2016: US $ 665,000), placing the Netherlands in 18th place (2016: 7th) among recipients of East Timorese products. The export goods to the Netherlands consisted exclusively of 15,600 kg of coffee (2016: 356,200 kg).

Dutch companies are involved in the joint Australian-East Timorese production of oil and natural gas in the Timor Sea . In 2018, Heineken opened a brewery and bottling station for lemonades in Hera, East Timor .

Development Assistance

The Netherlands only takes part in development programs in East Timor within the framework of support from the European Union, the United Nations and the Red Cross .

Entry requirements

Citizens of East Timor are exempt from visa requirements for the European Union. Dutch people can also enter East Timor without a visa.

Web links

Commons : Dutch-East Timorese Relations  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Geoffrey C. Gunn: History of Timor. ( Memento of the original from March 24, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Technical University of Lisbon (PDF file; 805 kB) 
2. ↑ Monika Schlicher: Portugal in East Timor. A critical study of the Portuguese colonial history in East Timor from 1850 to 1912. Aberag, Hamburg 1996, ISBN 3-934376-08-8 .y
3. ↑ Australian Department of Defense, Patricia Dexter: Historical Analysis of Population Reactions to Stimuli - A case of East Timor ( Memento of the original of September 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.1 MB) 
4. ↑ Dr Clinton Fernandes: If My Aunty Had Balls, She'd Be My Uncle: Dubious Counter-Factuals in East Timorese History , UNSW Canberra , accessed July 13, 2012.
5. ↑ Dan Nicholson: The Lorikeet Warriors: East Timorese new generation nationalist resistance, 1989-99 , Department of History, Faculty of Arts, The University of Melbourne, October 2001, accessed March 19, 2015.
6. ^ ETAN: List of East Timor Support and Solidarity Groups Worldwide , accessed January 24, 2018.
7. ↑ BBC News: UK Journalist killed in East Timor , September 22, 1999 , accessed November 27, 2016.
8. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Government of the Netherlands: Relations between the Netherlands and Timor-Leste  ( page no longer available , search in web archives ), accessed on July 13, 2017.
9. ↑ Diplomat magazine: Timor-Leste, facing the great challenges , March 1, 2015 , accessed on July 12, 2016.
10. ^ Edward Wills: 75 YEARS ON - DAVID ROSS (1902-1984) - DIPLOMAT AND SPY , 2/2 Commando Association of Australia , accessed December 16, 2017.
11. ↑ Direcção-Geral de Estatística: External Trade Statistics Annual Reports 2016 ( Memento of the original from January 10, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed January 10, 2018. 
12. ↑ Diário de Notícias: Fábrica da Heineken em Timor-Leste inaugurada, investimento de 31 milhões de euros , January 22, 2018 , accessed on January 23, 2018.
13. ↑ Introduced with Regulation (EU) No. 509/2014 (PDF) of May 15, 2014, which came into force on June 9 , 2014.