Introduction

The loss of thousands of Timorese to violence, disease and starvation during the Indonesian occupation and withdrawal (1975-1999), has left a legacy of pain, loss, and disequilibrium that continues to shape Timorese domestic, community, and political life decades later. Moreover, honouring those who fought and resisted the occupation, including those who perished and are now memorialised as martyrs, has also become central to the state-building project. Valorising the Resistance has enabled the bureaucratic extension of the state (through constructing pensions databases, for example), and is the domain in which the state asserts itself as the legitimate keeper and arbiter of these national histories and memories (Roll 2018a).

Less attention, however, has been paid to the political economies of loss. Yet this, too, merits attention: both veteran status and the recognition of martyrdom are tied to significant financial resources. Indeed, in 2006 the National Parliament recognised the ‘material dimension’ as one of the three core components of its public policies towards those who perished due to the occupation: ‘(1) the moral dimension of recognition and appreciation, (2) the material dimension of solidarity and retribution of social or socio-economic protection and (3) the dimension concerning the preservation of the memory, the conservation and dissemination of values and achievements of the resistance’ (Decree Law No. 5/2012).