Journal of Peace Research

http://jpr.sagepub.com Women, Violence and Nonviolent Resistance in East Timor

Christine Mason Journal of Peace Research 2005; 42; 737 DOI: 10.1177/0022343305057890 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jpr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/42/6/737

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 2005 Journal of Peace Research, vol. 42, no. 6, 2005, pp. 737749 Sage Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) http://jpr.sagepub.com DOI 10.1177/0022343305057890

Women, Violence and Nonviolent Resistance in East Timor*

CHRISTINE MASON
School of Political Science and International Studies, University of Queensland
A growing literature in peace and conict studies assesses the relationship between women and nonviolence. Numerous national liberation fronts and academic critiques assess how women participate in nonviolent resistance from Tibet and West Papua to Palestine and Eritrea. However, many liberation struggles that include female nonviolent resistance remain undocumented, and this article aims to delve into one case study in particular. The article examines the nonviolent roles adopted by women in the East Timorese liberation struggle, a national liberation movement in which the participation of female combatants was low but nonviolent participation by women in the resistance movement overall was high. However, the consequences for such women was, and remains, shaped by the overarching patriarchal structures of both the Indonesian occupiers and East Timorese society itself. Female nonviolent resistance was met with highly violent responses from Indonesian troops, especially in the form of rape and sexual exploitation. Yet, this study also found that women acting under religious auspices faced less violent responses overall. Interviews with East Timorese women are used to reveal some of the sexual dynamics of nonviolent action and reprisal. This material is placed in the context of theoretical work on gender, violence and nonviolence.

Introduction
This article examines the active and vital participation of women in the East Timorese liberation struggle for independence from Indonesia. To date, there is very little published about their involvement and

* I wish to extend my gratitude to the East Timorese women who generously provided testimonies for this research and to Ralph Summy, Alex Bellamy and Jennifer Laakso, who all contributed to earlier drafts of this article and research. I would also like to thank Nils Petter Gleditsch and Brian Martin for the time they dedicated to this article, as well as the anonymous referees who provided such valuable insights and suggestions. Jennifer Laakso and I jointly conducted the interviews with Nino, Sister Lourdes and the anonymous witness to the Ava Maria Church massacre; for her work, see Laakso (2003). Correspondence: c.mason@uq.edu.au.

experiences.1 There is no detailed study of the nonviolent resistance of many East Timorese women and the implications of this action. I will directly address that issue in the context of a large nonviolence literature that, to date, lacks detailed gender perspectives. I will not only examine the voices of East Timorese women but also create a larger space for key questions to emerge about the role of women in nonviolent
1

The womens NGO Fokupers (Forum for the Communication of East Timorese Women) published an Indonesian-language book of female testimonies entitled Menyilan Kemarau (Breaking the Drought). In English, comprehensive female narratives can be found in Winters (1999). Aside from these texts, there are short oral histories in several collected volumes and minor references to women in larger texts covering the liberation struggle. However, none of these works focuses on the nonviolent aspects of female East Timorese activists.

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resistance and the effect it has on their lives generally. The research reported here is based on extensive interviews of East Timorese women in 200203.2 I conducted three months of research in East Timor, followed by three weeks of research in East Timorese refugee camps in West Timor and two weeks among the East Timorese diaspora in Darwin, Australia. In total, 43 women provided oral life histories, including detailed discussion surrounding their nonviolent roles in the East Timorese national liberation movement against Indonesia. These oral life histories were subjective and representative of only the women available for interviews, as is the case with other research based on the same method (e.g. Scott, 1989; Kohn, 1997; Hammond & Druce, 1990; Geiger, 1997). I acknowledge that this study cannot possibly claim to reect a singular voice of East Timorese women, and, in effect, it does not attempt to. However, the interviews were invaluable and insightful, allowing pieces of the jigsaw to be placed together in order to glimpse the varied roles and experiences of a select group of nonviolent female East Timorese resisters. As Early (1993: 14) explains about her own collection of oral histories of Baladi Egyptian women, oral histories, like ethnographies, are no longer the story but rather a story. Multiple voices resound. This multiplicity was reected in the variety of livelihoods of the informants. Those who were interviewed include nurses, teachers, students, nuns and female caregivers. Informants were not easy to locate, since the subject of violence, nonviolence and gender was (understandably) considered sensitive in newly independent East Timor. Many interviews became exceedingly emotional, since there had been little time
2

for healing to begin on a substantial scale for most informants. However, as many of the women involved in this study noted, talking about what happened and being recognized as active participants was in itself part of the healing process (McKay, 2000). Most initial contacts with informants were organized by the major womens organizations and the Catholic church, since it would be almost impossible to locate nonviolent female activists from the position of a foreign researcher with no introduction or connection to the broader female arm of East Timorese civil society. These organizations tended to introduced me to women they thought were appropriate and interesting for my nonviolence research. For the majority of the time, this meant that a certain organization believed that an informant would be strong enough to talk freely about her experience. This was not the ideal situation, since my goals were not necessarily the same as the womens organizations that assisted me.3 However, with limited time and such a huge and multifarious female population, this was my only option. The off-shoot of this approach, however, was that, although an initial informant may have been found through a womens organization, this frequently led to other introductions and meetings with women who were not linked to specic organizations. In this way, greater variety and more multifarious opinions and experiences emerged. Interviewing them meant a great deal of travel and a large amount of soul-searching relating to the stories presented and how they could be accurately portrayed and integrated into academic work. I subsequently agreed with Geigers approach to her own work on women and Tanganyikan nationalism, that however problematic the issue of representation, the
3

Owing to the constraints of language and time, I could not access Indonesian sources, but I anticipate using such sources in a future study of this topic.

It is beyond the scope of this article to expand on this point, but naturally different womens organizations have different agendas and political afliations within East Timor.

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meaning of personal experience, and the constructed nature of the interview situation, I wanted the words spoken by . . . women activists . . . to push, pull and in a central way inform this study (Geiger, 1997: 1516). I hope that this research also meets this challenge. This article begins with an examination of women in the context of militarized violence. This explores the division between the home front and the battlefront and common assumptions about the inherently peaceful, and by assumption, therefore, passive, nature of women in conict situations. This is then tied to nonviolence theory and its leaning towards male constructions of violence and nonviolence. The East Timorese case study is brought into this narrative through the use of oral histories of women who nonviolently participated in the struggle against Indonesia from 1974 until 1999. Women in East Timor successfully participated in nonviolent resistance, but their active participation meant that many activists suffered gravely at the hands of their Indonesian oppressors. At the same time, women who worked primarily under the mantle of the Catholic church were less subject to sexual and physical abuse. Much of this dynamic is linked to patriarchal interpretations of what is perceived to be appropriate behaviour for women in a highly militarized environment.

Gender, Violence and Nonviolence Theory

Women have been linked to nonviolence and peace for a number of reasons. This article will examine three: (1) the separation of the home front from the battlefront; (2) the awed belief that women are inherently or naturally peaceful and passive; and (3) the male-oriented nature of existing nonviolence literature. The notion of womenandchildren in the

home front during conict remains a pervasive war symbol (Enloe, 1993: 166). A clear separation exists between the battlefront and the home front, facilitating the sexual division of labour (Yuval-Davis, 1985: 649676). Women and children have traditionally remained at home, where they are perceived as creatures that are fragile and need to be protected from mens wars. Men are assigned the role of protectors; women and children are protected. This inherently unequal dichotomy alienates women from the conditions of their own protection and frequently forces them into passive and weak positions; this, in turn, can undermine their claims to womens rights and depoliticize their actions (Pettman, 1996: 99100). However, in the East Timor case, the home front was the battlefront. There was only a limited front/rear division, and women were drawn more directly into conict (compare the Eritrean situation in Mason, 2002). Flowing from the previous division of front and rear, women are portrayed as naturally linked to peace and the home front, while men are tied to war and the war front (Herbert, 1994). Arguments concerning womens biology or social conditioning suggest that they are more inherently nurturing and caring than men (Hunter, 1991). Life giving precludes life taking from the female character, rendering women incapable of violence, owing to a biological predisposition toward creating new life and nurturing it (Ruddick, 1983). As Skjelsbk (2001: 62) argues, when femininity is conceptualized as inherently peaceful, it is the concept of motherhood which is emphasized and cited to legitimate the claim. Motherhood is essentialized and women are frequently classied as inherently more peaceful than men (Reardon, 1993). Roodkowsky (1981: 259), for example, maintains that the documentation of women in developing nations and histories of women in Western civilization demonstrate norms of cooperation,

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feminists have found it necessary to unbecome members of nonviolent groups, movements and/or communities . . . on the whole, nonviolent men have not been eager to study or accept feminist analysis nor to make the changes in their lives and work which a commitment to feminism would demand.

caring and nurture among women. Indeed, some feminists construe this to be a superior quality, reinforcing notions of female difference (Gilligan, 1982). Women are often perceived as Moral Mothers who are integrally connected to Mother Earth and oppose war and violence (Bromley, 1982). Friedan (1981) maintains that female militants would have more concern for life and a greater antipathy to violence in future wars, owing to their different nature, in contrast to their male counterparts. However, Elshtain (1987: 243) counters this stance by arguing that such sentimentalism strains credulity. Women soldiers do not speak that way. They are soldiers. Period. Studies of women in the military interrogate the notion of the Moral Mother and demonstrate that women do not feminize the institution (Di Leonardo, 1985; Elia, 1996). A female presence in the military industrial complex alone hardly overcomes the sexual division of labour (Chapkis, 1988). Finally, women frequently encourage their husbands and sons to participate in war: everywhere that men ght, mothers support them (Ruddick, 1989: 219). This debate is signicant to nonviolence since women who choose not to be violent in their response to aggression are often perceived as weak and passive. Nonviolent resistance is often viewed as passive rather than active resistance. Key nonviolence theorists have tended to be men (Holmes, 1990: 80). However, a small number of women authors, such as Boulding (1995), Deming (1982), Cook & Kirk (1984), the Feminism and Nonviolence Study Group (1983) and McAllister (1982), have added vital theoretical contributions to the nonviolence debate. They point out that women activists have frequently left the nonviolence movement, since it directly conicted with their own commitments to feminism. As Meyerding (1982: 67) explains,

Nonviolent activists have described how they were frequently relegated to traditionally perceived female tasks within nonviolent movements, such as typing, taking minutes, washing and cooking for the collective, and so forth (McAllister, 1982). Writers and activists in the tradition of feminist nonviolence have pointed out that most of the key male historical nonviolent theorists and activists, such as de la Botie, Thoreau and Tolstoy, excluded women not only from their theoretical writings but also from nonviolent protest outside the domestic sphere. The de la Botian tradition further strengthened a model of dissent based on the image of a male revolutionary riding towards freedom while ignoring and even entrenching the patriarchal social order that made this heroic ght possible (Bleiker, 2000: 147). Thoreau was bold enough to compare his hatred for the withering, frustrated state to a lone woman with her silver spoons (cited in Bleiker, 2000: 152). Tolstoy argued that womens rights were nonsense and that women were naturally inferior to men, serving only as necessary breeders for humanity (Bleiker, 2000: 152). To these ends, he treated his own wife, Soa, as a domestic slave, as documented in her diaries (Tolstaia, 1985). These male pioneers of nonviolence display clear misogyny. More complex are the cases of Gandhi and Sharp. Gandhi did a great deal to improve the rights of women in India and included them in his nonviolent resistance to British rule. Gandhis principles of satyagraha (adherence to truth) and ahimsa (nonviolence) were for all peoples, as were his calls for suffering and self-sacrice.

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He was clear in his directives: of all the evils of men . . . none is as degrading as the abuse of . . . the female sex (Gandhi as cited in Fisher, 1962: 246). However, his own personal life and many of his writings are plagued with inconsistencies towards women. For example, Gandhi supported the notion of suicide for women who had been sexually assaulted since, he argued, that if women nd their chastity is in danger of being violated, they must develop courage enough to die rather than yield to the brute in man (Harijan, 31 December 1938). He was opposed to birth control and regularly subjected his nonviolent protests to gender segregation and division, relegating women to more domestic activities (Shivers, 1982: 182194). Sharps work, while remaining instructive for nonviolent activists, is questionable from a nonviolent feminist perspective. Sharp (1973: 65) divides society into rulers and subjects, with power deriving purely from the consent of the subject. It therefore follows that withdrawal of consent is the central mechanism for addressing oppression in an active, nonviolent way. However, the social practices that facilitate male domination over women do not exist in terms of a ruler/subject dynamic. Thus, without any analysis of patriarchy as a structured set of social relations which can hardly be turned off by the simple withdrawal of consent, Sharp does not provide the basis for studying this power dynamic (Martin, 1989: 216). Generally absent in Sharps work is the complicated notion of consent (Pateman, 1980, 1988; McGuiness, 1993; Mason, 2001). Women are not fully constituted individuals in civil society, and, thus, they do not necessarily have consent at their dispensation (Pateman in McGuiness, 1993: 104). Of course, such deliberations on consent apply not only to gender issues. In the Montgomery bus boycott of 195556, Rosa Parks and her supporters protested against racial

discrimination deriving from a segregated society, akin to patriarchal structures. Racial segregation meant they were not fully constituted civic individuals, in Patemans terms. The black lobby led by Martin Luther King was able to withdraw its support (and therefore consent) for the Montgomery Bus Service and thereby actively engage in nonviolent action that achieved a change in segregation status (Miller, 1968). As this article will show, women facing sexual assault or misunderstood sterilization are not afforded such an opportunity.

Female Nonviolent Resistance in East Timor

East Timor, a Portuguese colony for 400 years, was occupied and annexed as an Indonesian province in 1975. With occupation came the imposition of Indonesian cultural dominance: Bahasa Indonesia became the ofcial language in the new province; the transmigrasi programme moved large Indonesian populations to populate East Timor; and all East Timorese were subject to Indonesian laws, economic and political policies and armed control. Subsequently, the culmination of these factors led some activists and academics to refer to the process as genocide (OReilly, 2001). Despite protest from the United Nations, along with East Timorese resistance, it took immense petitioning to the outside world to convince the foreign governments that supported Indonesias rule, such as Australia and the United States. In response to these abuses, key forces mobilized into resistance fronts with the Frente Revolucionaria de Timor Leste Independente (FRETILIN, Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor) emerging as the dominant liberation movement (Hill, 1978). Through FRETILIN, East Timor possessed an active military liberation front, the Foras Armadas de Libertao Nacional de Timor Leste (FALINTIL). Although

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FRETILIN and FALINTILs rank and le was largely male (Hill, 1978: 160), the front did establish the Organizao Popular de Mulher Timor (OPMT, The Popular Organization of Timorese Women). OPMT was active in the East Timorese liberation struggle, which was essential since the home front became the battlefront. Ordinary women joined as auxiliaries either in their home villages or by moving into the mountains to assist. The major contribution of OPMT was to assist the male resistance (Budiardjo & Liong, 1984). This was an extension of female domestic duties within the connes of traditional East Timorese society. Women continued to assist from the domestic sphere, which was under siege, as auxiliary contributors to the liberation struggle, cooking food for the guerillas and allowing them to rest overnight in secrecy, transmitting information by frequently taking messages from ghters and hiding them in trees or houses for other groups of ghters to pick up.4 Such actions were not per se nonviolent, since they assisted in securing violent ends. When asked about possible combat roles, informants for this research felt that they had other key duties to full, some of which were clearly nonviolent. Pintos memoirs (Pinto & Jardine, 1997: 47) recall OPMTs work on womens issues, in particular challenging traditional practices of polygamy and berlake (bride price). The FRETILIN programme, as outlined in its Manual Politico, also issued a blanket ban on such practices. Thus, the struggle was directed against internal oppression and external Indonesian oppression of all East Timorese (see Hill, 1978: 192). However, the tide slowly turned within the ranks of FRETILIN as it transformed itself into a popular nonviolent movement
4

Pinto & Jardine (1997: 47) point out that women from OPMT were also guerillas. While this may be the case, it was unusual, and only two women interviewed for this research had been active guerilla ghters.

(Fukuda, 2000: 17). This transformation took place mainly in the 1980s and involved both men and women. Protests and demonstrations in parts of East Timor eventually grew to large scale sit-ins and blockades (authors interviews, 2002). The protests increased, and, by the time of Pope John Paul IIs visit to Dili in October 1989, the scene was set for demonstrations to raise world attention to the Indonesian violations (Gomes, 1995: 107). A clandestine meeting of the executive committee of FRETILIN decided to call a truce during the papal visit. During this visit FRETILIN cells, composed predominantly of male and female students, chanted for independence following the cessation of the homily and the conclusion of communion, in order to convey their frustration. The Catholic Boy and Girl Scouts succeeded in sneaking banners into the crowd and past the Indonesian armed forces by hiding them under the girls clothing (Pinto, 2001: 40; authors interviews, 2002, Dili). Numerous arrests and violent repression of the peaceful protests followed. One informant, Jackie, was pulled aside and incarcerated for painting FRETILIN colours on her arms and holding a small map of East Timor. Many of her friends faced the same fate but disappeared after arrest (authors interview, 2002, Dili). By this time, East Timor was becoming a world issue (Fukuda, 2000: 23). Following the papal visit, there were widespread demonstrations in Dili during the visit of the US ambassador, John Monjo, in February 1990. This event was followed by the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Catholic diocese on 4 September, where student demonstrators mingled with the Timorese worshippers who chanted Timor Leste and waved FRETILIN ags. Women such as Milla described how she arrived in traditional dress to resist the notion of assimilation into the Indonesian nation (authors interview, Dili). Women chanted

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and sang, girls danced and we all felt as one people despite our differences. It was so exciting and it released all the tension of being occupied for so long (authors interview with Ella, Dili, 2002; see also Aarons & Domm, 1992: 51). The most famous East Timorese nonviolent resistance event occurred during what was supposed to be a day of mourning with a march via Santa Cruz Cemetery in Dili on 12 November 1991. Pinto (2001: 3435) describes the event as explicitly nonviolent. The peaceful march, with people singing and praying loudly through the streets, was red at by the Indonesian army, resulting in over 200 deaths. Gabriella remembers the sheer horror of being locked in that graveyard with bullets ying and huge walls preventing escape, lamenting that it was like a pre-made tomb (authors interview, Dili, 2003). Indonesia grossly underestimated the impact of the army assaults on unarmed demonstrators. The military initially stated that only 17 people died, later increasing this to 50; a subsequent independent assessment said that 271 died (Kohn, 1997: 175). After footage of the massacre was released and the media reports spread, however, few believed Indonesia could continue to condone such an event. President Suharto, recognizing the global condemnation that Indonesia faced, established a commission to investigate the incident (Greenlees & Garran, 2002: 23). The Dili massacre was followed by the arrest of FALINTIL leader, Gusmo, in November 1992, an event that led to worldwide protest from expatriate East Timorese and human rights activist groups. Although nonviolent forms of resistance were taking place, these examples of political jiu-jitsu were overshadowed by FRETILINs guerilla mode of attack (Martin, Varney & Vickers, 2001: 154). However, FALINTIL, under Gusmos direction, did reorient its strategy from 1981 to 1999 to accommodate defensive tactics rather than the initiation of

violence (Pinto, 2001: 36). The nonviolent overtones of this reorientation was reected in the underground movement, which became more visible but remained unarmed. After nearly 25 years of conict, the long resistance struggle was vindicated by the surprise Indonesian announcement of a referendum to allow East Timorese to vote for independence or autonomy, to be held on 30 August 1999. However, the Indonesians supported militia incursions that accompanied the referendum and wreaked terrible violence and destruction on the newly independent nation (Kingsbury, 2000; McDonald et al., 2002). The bloodshed and ruin of September 1999 continues to cause conict in East Timor with militia members continuing to hamper reconciliation programmes. The East Timorese struggle was not uniformly nonviolent, since it systematically assisted violent resistance to Indonesian oppression. But there were nonviolent components in terms of the struggle against Indonesia overall and also against gender inequalities in East Timorese society. Central to both levels of struggle was the nonviolent resistance of women who took to the streets, staged sit-ins and yelled, sang and danced for East Timorese freedom. Their contributions empowered them greatly and allowed them an acceptable space to resist Indonesian occupation. It allowed them to ght in that space where the battlefront became the home front and the personal was very political. Women are not simply passive victims of war. However, their struggle was not without terrible ramications.

Indonesian Repercussions Against Female Nonviolent Resisters

Women faced a different type of Indonesian aggression in East Timor than men (Franks, 1996). Rape was extensively used as a weapon of war, as part of the overall oppressive tactics

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employed by Indonesian soldiers and civilians (Turner, 1992: 146149). Although everyday civilians were also affected, rape was especially used to punish women who participated in nonviolent resistance. By assaulting these East Timorese women, Indonesian men assaulted the whole East Timorese national collective, especially the active resistance. As Brownmiller (1976: 31) argued,
The body of a raped woman becomes a ceremonial battleeld, a parade ground for the victors trooping of colours. The act that is played out upon her is a message passed between men vivid proof of victory for one and loss and defeat for the other.

Rape became formalized into the occupation strategy as a specic tool used by the Indonesian state to attack women, to weaken and destroy a whole community (Franks, 1996: 160). Sexual degradation also included sexual harassment, forced marriages and the recruitment of comfort women (Tanter, Selden & Shalom, 2001: 247; Aditjondro, 1997; Taylor, 1999: 81; Winters, 1999). However, although gender-specic crimes were committed against East Timorese regardless of afliation, nonviolent resisters were specically singled out. The informants selected for this study were specically nonviolent resisters, and sexual assault was an Indonesian attempt to control and punish such women. As Rita explained, the more I fought for East Timor by writing leaets about nonviolence the more I suffered at the hands of the Indonesian men (authors interview, Kupang, 2002). Similarly, Weni explained, yes I was raped and yes it was beyond my power to resist this domination but it didnt stop me from continuing my protests (authors interview, Aileu, 2002). Sexual assault was a method of interrogation in rape houses, and it was used to humiliate, abuse and impregnate women while rewarding the Indonesian armed forces. Josepha, 16 at the time she was taken to a rape house, recalled that the man who returned to me night after night said it was

to breed more Indonesians into East Timor (authors interview, Suai, 2002). This systematic use of sexual assault was coupled with birth control and the national family planning programme (Keluarga Berencana Nasional) to further limit the biological reproduction of the East Timorese through forced sterilization and forced contraception, through the mass administration of prophylactics such as Depo Provera injections and en masse dispersal of Microgynon tablets. Women were not made aware of what such drugs were intended to do and in many cases they were told they were to treat malaria, tuberculosis, increase vitamins and assist with conception. Infanticide also occurred in the Indonesia-controlled hospitals and clinics (Turner, 1992: 190; Taylor, 1999: 159160; Franks, 1996: 160). These activities are, arguably, an addition to the modes of cultural violence described by Galtung (1990: 291) (religion, ideology, language, etc.) and used by Indonesia to justify or legitimize direct use of structural violence. East Timorese women were presented as a biological threat to Indonesia that legitimated violent sexual and reproductive intervention. Female resistance members were particularly targeted. Janet was forcibly sterilized after she was captured leading a demonstration in Baucau:
I was quite prominent in organizing nonviolent protests around Baucau and eventually I was arrested and then sedated and taken to hospital. When I woke up something had happened to me. I asked a doctor and he smiled and he said women like you should not be allowed to have babies and I realized Id been sterilized. I met many other women who had experienced the same thing. (authors interview, Baucau, 2002)

In such instances, Sharps nonviolent resistance via the withdrawal of consent was extremely problematic. Women possessed only limited power to withdraw consent from sexual assault. As Cook & Kirk (1984: 68) point out, nonviolent confrontation assumes

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that nonviolence is at least accessible. The only avenue for nonviolent resistance in these circumstances lay in suicide or personal feelings of self-control retained by women despite being sexually assaulted. These feelings of self-control despite being subject to an atrocity resonate with the conclusion of Cook & Kirk (1984: 69) that for women, nonviolence, far from being weak, actually feels very strong to participate in, no matter how difcult it may be to achieve. However, is the suggestion of suicide, as an alternative advocated by Gandhi, really empowering for women who have been sexually abused? Extensive problems also existed vis--vis consent with regard to nonviolent resistance and the family planning programme. Women were told that an injection of Depo Provera was an inoculation for tuberculosis. Even more problematic were forced sterilizations. Women were unable to refuse or withdraw consent because of the secretive way in which the biological control was administered. By the time many realized or suspected, it was often too late. As Fernanda explained, I only heard rumours after I had visited the clinic and there was nothing that could be done for me then (authors interview, Tua Pukan Camp, Kupang, 2002). However, women were more able to withdrawn consent in other circumstances. This is apparent in interviews concerning nonviolence and Catholicism, where women were involved in principled nonviolence rather than pragmatic protest and auxiliary roles through OPMT.

most East Timorese became Catholic if they were not already. However, Catholic beliefs were frequently coupled with animist values. Both animism and the Catholic church were central to the East Timorese struggle. Catholicism, in particular, became central to identity; as Archer (1995: 120) points out, suffering, for the people of East Timor, is not distinct from their vision of God. It is, in fact, integral to their identity as Timorese. Despite the ideology of Pancasila, Catholicism was still punished under Indonesian rule. The dilemma stretched even further, with the church unsure if it should, or even could, encourage violence to any extent in order to liberate the East Timorese. The vast majority of church leaders preached and practised principled nonviolence. Unlike some of the womens organizations associated with the political parties, women in close contact with the church rarely supported violent resistance. This principled nonviolence derived from a Catholic ethos that eschewed, morally, the use of violence to solve conict. A strict adherence to principled nonviolence was imbued with a moral value that permitted spiritual liberation (Summy, 1997: 5). Those East Timorese who did not perceive nonviolence as intrinsically moral adopted pragmatic nonviolence, by contrast, for strategic rather than moral gains (Summy, 1997: 5). As one female witness to the Suai massacre at the Ava Maria Catholic Church explained,
Father Hilario had been shot in front of us and we knew no one would be spared. A man went over and placed his foot upon his chest and pressed down until blood came forth from Fathers mouth. I stood and watched in horror. Then a few of us, all Sisters, approached the men and told them to let the congregation go. They did not kill us and we stood rm as women of God. We could not, however, prevent the massacre of lay people inside the church. (authors interview, Suai, 2002)

Catholicism, Local Traditions and Gender in East Timor

The vast majority of East Timorese were or became Catholic under Indonesian occupation. This was in part due to the refuge the church provided, both physically and emotionally. Also, the Indonesian policy of Pancasila imposed monotheism upon all peoples living under Indonesian rule. Thus,

Several Sisters interviewed for this research reached the same conclusion: the

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reason why nuns and novices were rarely injured or killed to the same extent as other female nonviolence resisters was the position they held in the eyes of the Indonesian military. Their religiously inspired principled nonviolence was at times tentatively respected. As a result, they were in a stronger position to withdraw their consent from Indonesians in control and continue daily worship and support for independence by supporting church congregations. As Rosa explained,
The military had no reason to target us because we were only serving God and they therefore did not believe we were political or violent. So we could help members of our Church and work through God for a free East Timor. (authors interview, Maubisse, 2002)

An extremely prominent Catholic activist, Sister Lourdes, is another example of the interwoven roles of Catholicism and nonviolence:
When I came here [Dare] to build the seminary there was nothing. In these hills I took out the trees and leveled the ground by hand. I then chiseled at the rock face by hand to make foundations. There were Indonesian army men around the vicinity who knew what I was doing but they were not threatened by it as I was only acting in Gods service and was not threatening or harming them in any way. After many months, these same soldiers came and helped me with the building and even made all these chairs and tables for my students. (authors interview, Dare, 2002)

While the Catholic church supported its congregation and women were central to this task, it also indirectly disenfranchised women by supporting gender inequities. The animist elements that were woven into Catholic beliefs also had an impact on societal perceptions of women. Sexual relationships between male and female ghters or between male ghters and noncombatant women before marriage was discouraged. Entering into such relationships was said to directly infringe upon a ghters

protection from the Holy Spirit while in the mountains (authors interviews, Dili & Aileu, 2003). In an interview with several former male ghters, all agreed that to be with women was a hindrance to the power of the Holy Spirit. As Nino described, to remain chaste and devout was to make one bullet proof (authors interview, Aileu, 2002). The linking of women with military failure is signicant. It is indicative of many traditional views of women in East Timor, some of which clearly see women as a dangerous sexual force that must be avoided or controlled (Judicial System Monitoring Programme, 2002; De Mello, 2002). Another example of this positioning of women is the reluctance of rape victims to tell their family or husbands. One informant explained that the fact that she was raped was a matter between her and God and the man who committed the sin. She keeps it secret to protect her husband and herself, for fear he may leave her (authors interview, Dili, 2003). Similar sentiments were found in women who had conceived children as a result of sexual assault. There was a great deal of shame associated with the children and a desire for family to not necessarily know. One informant was raped and found herself pregnant while she was imprisoned on Atauro island. In the terrible conditions, her child died, and she did not tell her family for many years to spare them the shame and guilt. She believed people would think she was a prostitute or a woman who strayed too close to Indonesian men (authors interview, Kupang, 2003). Women adopted strategies to avoid the advances of Indonesian men. They would keep as dirty as they could and look as unavailable and uninviting as possible (Franks, 1996: 160). For some women who were raped, there was a perception that they were not trying to ward off unwanted

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advances. As one chiefe succo (village chief ) stated,

Not all women behaved honorably. Some thought there were advantages to being with an Indonesian man and they would not avoid them or at least do their best to be away from them. If these women had bad things happen to them it was not just the fault of the man, they were not doing their best to stay away. (authors interview, Baucau, 2002)

These accounts reveal a complex relationship between gender, religion and tradition in East Timor. Timorese womens experiences remains hidden beneath the general trauma and also behind the Timorese notion of shame (Franks, 1996: 160). Many explain sexual slavery, rapes and resulting pregnancies through the concept of isteri simpanan (kept wives), thereby sanitizing the brutality of their experience with a veil of false respectability (Powell, 2001: 4). Thus, women could be powerful and revered as women of God as nonviolent resisters to Indonesian occupation, or they could be a threat to the ghting power through the sexual pollution of male ghters.

varying from sexual assault to threats and harassment. At the same time, the section describing the role of religious women in particular demonstrates that some nonviolent women activists did not necessarily face the full force of Indonesian repression. Such women t into the overarching patriarchal mould of East Timorese society and are therefore more accepted today. East Timor remains a highly traditional and conservative society that has yet to fully accept women who were raped, children of rape and even some women who became involved in the resistance itself.

References
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Conclusion
Contrary to de la Botie, Thoreau and Tolstoy, women were not just Beautiful Souls but active nonviolent revolutionaries in East Timors struggle. This also challenges the gender divisions Gandhi established in his nonviolent resistance and questions the expediency, in some circumstances, of Sharps notion of nonviolent action as withdrawal of consent. Overall, it highlights the contributions of nonviolent female resisters in East Timor. In these terms, the use of nonviolence was undoubtedly a disarming tactic for East Timorese women in their struggle against Indonesian occupation. However, activists faced varied responses to their resistance. Many informants experienced violent responses from Indonesian occupiers,

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CHRISTINE MASON, b. 1974, PhD in Politics and International Relations (University of New South Wales, 2002); lecturer in Peace and Conict Studies, University of Queensland, Australia (2002 ). Published articles in Humanity & Society, Journal of Interdisciplinary Gender Studies and the Australian Journal of Political Science. Forthcoming book: Women and Peacebuilding in the Solomon Islands (Canberra: Pandanus).

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