Siprianu

Dom Siprianu (* before 1912; † 1943 in Atsabe , Portuguese Timor ) was Liurai (in the local language Kemak : Koronel messenger ) from Atsabe from 1912 until his death in 1943. He belonged tothe Kemak ethnic group and was the son of Liurai Nai Resi .

Liurai Nai Resi had fought a struggle for independence against the Portuguese colonial rulers , but was captured and executed in Hatulia . Siprianu remained loyal to the Portuguese .

In 1942 the Japanese occupied the neutral colony of Portuguese Timor. Atsabe's Kemaks put up passive resistance by refusing to do forced labor or deliver food to the Japanese. The occupiers therefore imprisoned Dom Siprianu and six of his relatives, who were inherited from him. If the occupiers were dissatisfied with the behavior of the population, the hostages were tied to a tree in the village and one was executed. All seven hostages were killed in this way. Nevertheless, the residents of Atsabe continued to resist and, for example, also hid Australian soldiers who were waging a guerrilla war here.

Dom Siprianu was buried as Liurai and direct descendant of the founding fathers of the Kemak with great effort. The grave was across from his family home. The important traditional second burial , in which the bones of death are dug up again, cleaned and reburied, was delayed for a long time because it required an even higher economic effort, not only from the family and the village, but also from those in contact Atsabe standing communities and families. After the Second World War , hardship reigned in the country and when a certain level of prosperity was reached again in 1970, civil war broke out in 1974 and Indonesia invaded in 1975 .

The second burial could not be carried out until 2000 after a generous donation from Portugal. Since then, Dom Siprianu's remains have rested in a striking tomb next to Atsabe's administration building. The tomb reads in Portuguese Morto por Portugal (“Died for Portugal”). The contradiction between the feudal system and traditional religion of Timor on the one hand and the parliamentary-democratic system of the independent East Timor and the Catholic Church on the other hand led to heated discussions about this tomb. The fact that the inscription is in Portuguese, which hardly any Kemak speaks, caused differences of opinion, especially since the surviving sons of Siprianus had a vehemently anti-Portuguese attitude, although they too had served as colonial administrators.

A son of Dom Siprianu and the last Liurai of Atsabe, Dom Guilherme Maria Gonçalves , co-founded the pro-Indonesian party APODETI in 1974 . Between 1978 and 1982 he was governor of Indonesia's occupied East Timor .

See also

• Battle for Timor

supporting documents

• Andrea K. Molnar: Died in the service of Portugal : Legitimacy of authority and dynamics of group identity among the Atsabe Kemak in East Timor, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore. 2005.