PEMUDA

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Dr. Clinton Fernandes

By Dr. CLINTON FERNANDES

The Pemuda were a new generation of East Timorese who had come to the forefront of the resistance in the 1990s. ‘Pemuda,’ which is how they referred to themselves, is an Indonesian word for youth. (Today, they also use phrases such as New Generation). The Pemuda actually comprise individuals born in the 1960s and 1970s.

In some cases, the Pemuda also includes people born in the late 1950s. E.g. Joao Freitas da Camara and others. Despite an age difference of up to 20 years between the oldest and youngest Pemuda, both groups grew up under the Indonesian occupation. They spoke Indonesian, were educated in the Indonesian school system, learnt the history of Indonesia (that is to say, the New Order’s version of it) and played a vital yet often unacknowledged role in their country’s independence struggle. Historians have usually focused on the role of Falintil and on the Fretilin and UDT leaders who were born in the 1940s. Yet these Pemuda, who were more likely to join the urban resistance or become members of Renetil, also made enormous contributions and sacrifices. They bore the brunt of the Santa Cruz massacre and were captured, interrogated, tortured, imprisoned or killed for their convictions.

Like members of other generations in East Timor, they have their own experiences and shared understandings of what it means to be East Timorese. For example, people born in the 1940s and early 1950s regarded Portuguese as the administrative language and the Lusophone world as a vital part of the international arena. Children born in the late 1990s and after independence have an altogether different perspective. East Timorese born or raised in the diaspora during the occupation also have a different perspective. For the Pemuda, the administrative language was Indonesian. Their understanding of the international arena has been shaped by the occupation, by their time in Indonesia, their knowledge of Southeast Asia, and the conduct of the Western governments and Western solidarity activists during their independence struggle.

The older Pemuda spent part of their formative years under Portuguese rule. They were in their early twenties when Indonesia invaded. They took up arms and protected and guided thousands of families in the mountains during the Indonesian military’s offensives. Almost all of those who survived the annihilation campaign were captured by the Indonesian military or had surrendered by the end of 1978. The Pemuda came into their own in the second half of the 1980s when they were sent to Jakarta to study on scholarships provided by Indonesia’s Directorate General of Higher Education (Direktorat Jenderal Pendidikan Tinggi – DIKTI). Many were based in Institutions of Higher Learning in East Java such as Malang, Yogyakarta, Semarang, Bali, Surabaya, Kediri, as well as in Jakarta and on the island of Sumatra. The first batch of students, who received scholarships as a result of Mario Carrascalao’s lobbying, studied Law or Engineering. For the most part, East Timorese students in Indonesia were enrolled in courses in Business and Technical Studies.

Pemuda is a key expression for that generation, filled with specific unspoken meaning, encompassing resistance and daring, struggle, secrecy, and opposition, suffering, adventure, danger, persecution and disappearance. Most of the Pemuda were intensely focused on national liberation. They engaged in lengthy, well-informed discussions and debates about the fate of East Timor, how to get the international community to support them, how to build lines of communication and logistics between East Timor and the outside world, how to shape media coverage, how to maximise the international impact of resistance activities in East Timor and Indonesia, how to build links with the anti-dictatorship movement in Indonesia, and much more. Their political thinking was mature and sophisticated.

Many of them are in the UK, Australia, Indonesia, East Timor, Portugal or Cuba, where they are gaining practical professional experience. The Pemuda will soon play an important role in the leadership of East Timor.

Full:http://www.amazon.com/Independence-East-Timor-Multi-dimensional-International/dp/1845194284/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1290604527&sr=1-5
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