Portuguese Colonial State Incarceration: the Life and Times of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Deportados on Timor
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GEOFFREY GUNN PORTUGUESE COLONIAL STATE INCARCERATION: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE ANARCHO-SYNDICALIST DEPORTADOS ON TIMOR HISTORIOGRAFIA HISTORIOGRAPHY Portuguese Colonial State Incarceration: The Life and Times of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Deportados on Timor Geoffrey C. Gunn* RESUMO: Seeking to offer new interpretations on the life and times of Portuguese political deportees, this article focuses upon the remote Southeast Asian half-island colony of Timor as part of a far-flung network of prisons carried through under the authoritarian regime of António de Oliveira Salazar. First, it looks back at the political and economic instability in Portugal following the military coup of May 1926 ending the First Republic. Drawing upon newly available documentation, the article examines two waves of deportees from Portugal arriving in Timor, youthful activists involved in anarcho-syn- dicalist activities in the 1912–1927 period, and a more senior leadership group involved in a failed military coup of August 1931. It then tracks the reactions of the deportados to Japan's wartime inva- Morning reading at the residence and headquarters of the Aliança Libertária in Dili (Timor); “Deported anarchists in Dili (Timor) exhibit titles of Spanish newspapers sion and occupation of Timor including exile in Australia. By highlighting the role of anarchist revo- (Solidaridad Obrera and others), with a Timorese girl in the center.” 1932. in Revista Blanca. Projecto MOSCA AHS3912MS2998-B865. lutionaries in Portugal from the 1920s and their subsequent incarceration in Timor, the article also draws attention to the dynamic linking metropolitan centers with their far-flung colonial peripheries at large. In the case of the Portuguese empire, as argued, the burgeoning anti-colonial movement of the 1960s would also intersect with the pro-democracy movement at home. Inside Timor, moreover, in 1927. By contrast, this article seeks to connect 1910 revolution against the monarchy. Especially, new deportado families emerged as part of the pro-independence movement indelibly imprinting politics Portugal with colonial Timor through an examination counter-narratives on the events of 1926–33 along in the post-colonial era. of two groups of deportados dispatched to the half- with new documentation have brought to the fore a island colony, the so-called “deportados sociais” (socials) range of revisionist writings on the Portuguese colonial PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Portugal; Dictatorship; Timor; Anarcho-syndicalism; Deportados incarceration of 1927, versus the “deportados políticos” (politicals) of incarceration system at large (Barros 2009), although 1931, as well as exposing their crimes and punishments the role of Timor within the system is less well studied. set against the metropolitan context. Still, I would argue, without some conception of Central to this analysis is an understanding of state and class in Portugal, the political instability that the May 28, 1926 military coup that put an end to characterized the Ditadura period does not make sense. The presence of political exiles and other deported Until today, little has appeared in Anglophone writing the unstable Portuguese First Republic initiating the Neither can we ignore the economic marginalization people (deportados) in Portugal’s remote Southeast Asian on Timor as a place of exile or banishment for political self-named proto-fascist Ditadura Nacional (National of Portugal particularly through the years of economic colony of Timor – present day Timor-Leste – first came prisoners. As mentioned below, Macau was not outside Dictatorship), later refashioned into its successor, the depression. To a large degree such has been achieved to Australian attention during the Pacific War, as a of the colonial carcereal system and with Timor also Estado Novo (New State) or Second Republic, the by Chilcote (2010: 4–5) in his study of Portuguese number of fighters among the 400-odd metropolitan serving as a dumping ground for condenado or convicts authoritarian regime established by António de Oliveira republicanism including the role of the military with community rallied to the anti-Japanese resistance and political exiles through unto the late 1960s. More Salazar in 1933 enduring until ended by the “Carnation respect to different epochs, as with elected parliaments lending tactical support to even larger numbers of recently, Madalena Barreto (2014; 2015) has entered Revolution” or military coup of April 25, 1974. In up until 1926 and, with the end of authoritarianism in 1 Australian commandos alongside Timorese allies. this field offering valuable new interpretations especially Anglophone writing, Douglas Wheeler (1978) has 1974, parliamentary again. In fact, for this writer, “How on social interactions between the deportados and the contributed greatly to an understanding of these the dominant class relates to the theory of the capitalist Timorese as viewed through Portuguese literature, events, although ignoring the reviralhismo or movement state” becomes a central concern in understanding the 2 *Professor Emeritus, Nagasaki University/Adjunct Professor, Centre for Macau Studies, alongside oral and archival research. In a similar associated with the multiple conspiracies and actions authoritarian Portuguese order As such, the events of University of Macau. He has published books on Indochina (Laos, Cambodia and vein, Ana Cristina Pereira (2013) has profiled the life Vietnam) as well as Timor and Macao. against the dictatorship. In Portuguese writing, the 1974–75 in Portugal bringing an end to Salazar’s New of one deportado, Simões de Miranda, first coming to study on Portuguese anarchism and socialism by State (and the colonial empire), have to be seen in “some Professor Emérito da Universidade de Nagasaki / Professor Adjunto do Centro de Estudos de police attention in 1923 for launching a baker’s strike Macau, Universidade de Macau. Tem livros publicados sobre a Indochina (Laos, Camboja António Ventura (2000) should be heeded, especially sort of class context.” Space precludes a comprehensive e Vietname) Timor e Macau. in Lisbon, joining a group of deportados sent to Timor with its background focus upon events leading to the political economy approach, but I take the deportation/ 84 Revista de Cultura • 57 • 2018 2018 • 57 • Review of Culture 85 GEOFFREY GUNN PORTUGUESE COLONIAL STATE INCARCERATION: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE ANARCHO-SYNDICALIST DEPORTADOS ON TIMOR HISTORIOGRAFIA HISTORIOGRAPHY incarceration system as it applied in Timor as an index event of August 26, 1931 and political instability of slightest possibility of political action (even if this tenet Wheeler’s narrative of events ends in 1926 of the structure and character of the late colonial state the period. Fifth, and with attention focused upon was challenged by extraordinary events). Nevertheless, but, as demonstrated below, the event fractured the in Portugal with its profoundly authoritarian center the colonial periphery, it turns to an account of the during the 1930s, it was the two island colonies of Cape political elite and plunged Portugal into further and control apparatus. short-lived anarchist-linked Aliança Libertária in Verde, with 334 deportee-prisoners, and Timor with rounds of repression and reaction. Although Portugal As well documented, European anarchist ideas Dili, especially around the key personalities involved. 500, that stood out.4 was spared major civil war such as massively sundered and organization touched parts of Asia profoundly Sixth, the article profiles a select group of longtime and Obviously Portugal was not unique as a European Spain, it also experienced the terror of bomb outrages, decades prior to the events unfolding on Timor. surviving deportados adding rare documention on their colonial power in seeking distant exile for political police repression, and the destruction wrought by From Dirlik (1991) and others we learn that Chinese alleged crimes. Seventh, the article discusses the role opponents. Great Britain did likewise, with Tasmania rebellious military factions. Even when Spain enjoyed a communism also had anarchist forebears, especially of the deportados alongside the “Red Brigade” in the as one early dumping place for convicts; Spain with parliamentary interlude prior to the rise of fascism in the around Paris-educated student returnees and with antifascist struggle against Japan (as they conceived it), Fernando Poo for Afro-Cubans and Filipinos, and mid-1930s, the founding elements of an authoritarian Tokyo emerging as a separate pole. Southeast Asia was carried on in exile in Australia where they chafed under France with Devil’s Island in Guinea, Pulo Condore order were set down some ten years prior in Portugal, also touched, at least in the immigrant milieu.3 wartime controls. Finally, the article explains postwar (Con Son) for Vietnamese nationalists, as well as the and with Spain, Brazil, and France becoming places of More recently Benedict Anderson’s (2005) repatriation of the deportados, drawing attention as well island colonies of New Caledonia, and Réunion. These exile for the dictatorship’s opponents. minor classic, Under Three Flags: Anarchism and the to those who stayed on in Timor building careers and examples could be multiplied. What stands out in the In the early interwar period, the cost of living Anti-Colonial Imagination, has brought to the fore the families, and with their heirs joining political parties case of Portugal is the longevity of the deportation in Portugal was barely sustainable.