Marisa Ramos Gonçalves (MRG): The new Mozambican state, which gained its independence in 1975 and was led by the Frelimo movement and President Samora Machel, lived by the principle of solidarity with all peoples oppressed by colonialism and economic imperialism. Demonstrative of this was the sentence proclaimed often by Machel: “While Timor-Leste is not an independent country, the independence of Mozambique will not be fulfilled.”

Besides being the base of Timor Leste's external resistance of Fretilin (Frente Revolucionária de Timor-Leste Independente) between 1975 and the mid-1980s, Mozambique was then a “safe haven” to exiled left-wing political activists from Chile and Brazil and members of several liberation movements, in particular in Southern Africa: the ANC from South Africa, ZANU from Zimbabwe, SWAPO from Namibia.

During its liberation struggle, Mozambique had also received support from Tanzania and other African nations, including the former colonies from Portugal, through CONCP (Conferência das Organizações Nacionalistas das Colónias Portuguesas). Timor-Leste was a territory in Asia; however, it had been connected for centuries to the African colonies through Portuguese imperial networks, and in the 1970s, these connections extended to the exchange of information on liberation from colonialism.

MRG: In my interviews, Mozambicans from several sectors of society shared memories of the solidarity with the independence cause in Timor-Leste. The support by the Mozambican government, led by the party Frelimo, extended also to civil society organizations and individuals (journalists, artists, academics), and is most manifest when seen through a web of personal relationships that was established then, in particular during the early period of Mozambican independence until the late 1980s. The Frelimo party provided support to the East Timorese Fretilin cadres who lived in Mozambique, particularly in university training, as well as in political and economic support. The Frelimo government encouraged all Mozambicans to donate a percentage of their salary, corresponding to one day of work, to the Solidarity Bank, to be given to independence movements and refugee groups, among them Fretilin. Also, there was significant coverage in the media. 

The focus of Frelimo's support for liberation movements was on training cadres for future independent countries, and this determination was shared with Fretilin’s leadership in the country. There was freedom for the students to choose their courses, and the government provided them with jobs in their areas of study. After obtaining their degrees, several East Timorese occupied positions in public institutions. The Mozambique government also provided land for the group to farm and raise cattle. This followed the socialist government principle of “fighting with our own means,” which aimed to instill the idea of self-sufficiency. 

Moreover, in the first decade of occupation, the support by the Portuguese-speaking African countries (PALOP) to the resolution voting initiatives at the UN assembly was crucial to keeping the Timor-Leste issue on the UN agenda. The PALOP brought the Timor-Leste occupation to debates at the Non-Aligned Movement, facing Indonesian and Indian opposition. They supported the East Timorese who lobbied in the UN, when Portuguese diplomats were attempting to drop the case, and the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, the European countries, the ASEAN bloc, and the Arab countries abstained from condemning the actions of Indonesia in the General Assembly yearly votes.

MRG: The decolonization processes occurred in different periods: Indonesia in 1945, Timor-Leste in 1975. Under the leadership of President Sukarno (1945–1967), Indonesia was one of the founding countries of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), whose first summit was held in Bandung in 1955, inspiring various liberation movements in Asia and Africa. However, General Suharto (1967–1998), who benefited from the support of Western powers, pursued a colonial project in East Timor (1975–1999) during the dictatorial New Order period, a situation that has been described as “third-world colonialism” or internal colonialism by some authors. The presence at the UN as well as the NAM summits were important fora where Mozambique, Angola, and the other Portuguese-speaking African nations exerted pressure on Indonesia. Their diplomatic action led to condemnatory resolutions against the Indonesian occupation of Timor-Leste. 

However, it should be noted that the East Timorese resistance movement was close to the Indonesian Pro-democracy movement, particularly the clandestine student movement that operated in the Indonesian cities. They organized demonstrations and foreign embassies occupations in the 1990s, which were instrumental in gaining international attention to human rights violations. The fall of the  Suharto regime in 1998 was decisive for the negotiations of an UN-sponsored referendum on the independence or autonomy within Indonesia.

MRG: East Timorese continue to receive scholarships to study in Mozambique. The bilateral relationship is not as intense as in the past, but it continues to be important. In my view, the lack of studies and knowledge in the literature about this chapter of East Timorese history highlights two sets of explanations.

One which is connected with competitive narratives about the recent history of the independence struggle and that are mobilized to gain political legitimacy, causing inter-party rivalries that gave rise to a serious political crisis in 2006. This is because a significant group of East Timorese who lived in Mozambique returned to the country when the country became independent and were part of the first government, run by Fretilin in the initial years. Since then, there has been competition between Fretilin and CNRT, major political parties affiliated with several sectors of the resistance movement, and also other parties.

The other set of reasons could be related to a broader structural feature of global modes of knowledge production: a hierarchy that places knowledge from the global south in the periphery, leading to the undervaluing of histories set in African countries, which are labeled as undeveloped, dictatorial, and Marxist. There is a dismissal of these movements as radical and communist. As historians Katherine McGregor and Vannessa Hearman put it, these histories are studied through the “lens of Cold War politics,” which defines “Afro-Asian solidarity as a contest between the Soviet Union and China for control of Asia and Africa.” However, this history shows that south-south solidarities, between Africa and Asia, were key to championing the defence of human rights and independence struggles.