Oecussi-Ambeno

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Oecussi-Ambeno
Oe-Kusi Ambenu
Statistics
Capital:	Pante Macassar
Area:	815 km² Ranked 8th
Inhabitants:	58,521 (2004) Ranked 6th
Pop. density:	71.8 inh./km² Ranked 4th
No. of households:	13,016 (2004) Ranked 7th
ISO 3166-2:	TL-OE
Subdistricts:	{{{subdistricts}}}
Map

Oecussi-Ambeno (Tetum:Oe-Kusi Ambenu, also variously Ocussi, Oekussi, Oekusi, Okusi, Oé-Cusse) is a district of East Timor. It is a coastal exclave in the western part of the island of Timor, separated from the rest of East Timor by West Timor, which is part of the province of Nusa Tenggara Timur, Indonesia, and which surrounds Oecussi-Ambeno in all directions except the north, where it borders the Savu Sea. The capital of the district is Pante Macassar, also called Ocussi Town, or formerly, in Portuguese Timor, as Vila Taveiro.

The district has an area of 815 square kilometers.

A ferry boat connects the territory to Dili, arriving twice a week on a journey which takes 12 hours.

In the 1970s and 1980s, New Zealander anarchist Bruce Grenville began a hoax, claiming to have founded the sultanate of Occussi-Ambeno. He invented a history for the state of tribes united against the Portuguese. He then printed stamps, letterheads, and so forth, which generated income by mail order. He even established diplomatic relations with a few small states, including Monaco, Liechtenstein, and the Republic of Minerva.[1]

1 History
2 Administrative Divisions
3 Demographics
- 3.1 Languages
- 3.2 Religion
4 External links

[edit] History

Statue on the foreshore of Pante Macassar looking towards the mountains.

Oecussi and Ambeno are the names of the two original kingdoms, which existed before the colonial period.

Oecussi-Ambeno was the first part of the island of Timor on which the Portuguese established themselves, and is thus usually considered the cradle of East Timor. In 1556, a group of Dominican brothers established the first village in Lifau, five km to the west of modern Pante Macassar. In 1702, Lifau became the capital of the colony when it received the first governor from Lisbon. The capital was transferred to Dili in 1767, because of the frequent attacks from Dutch forces, who were conquering what is today Indonesia.

It was only in 1859, with the Treaty of Lisbon, that Portugal and Holland divided the island between them. West Timor became Dutch, with its colonial seat at Kupang, and East Timor became Portuguese, with its seat in Dili. This left Oecussi-Ambeno as an enclave surrounded by Dutch territory. The definitive border was drawn by the Hague in 1916. Apart from Japanese occupation during World War II, the border remained the same until the end of the colonial period. The region was given the status of municipality, named Oecússi, by the Portuguese government in August 1973, the last Timorese area to receive it.

It was in Pante Macassar that an Indonesian fifth column raised the Indonesian flag and took control of the exclave on 29th November, 1975, a week before the Indonesian invasion of East Timor proper. However, even under Indonesian rule, Oecussi-Ambeno was administered as part of the province of East Timor, as it had been as part of Portuguese Timor. Like much of the country, it suffered violent attacks near the 1999 referendum for independence. Over 90 percent of the infrastructure was destroyed. It became part of the independent state of East Timor on 20 May 2002.

[edit] Administrative Divisions

The detailed map of Oecussi-Ambeno

Oecussi-Ambeno is divided into 4 subdistricts:

Nitibe
Oesilo
Pante Macassar (capital)
Passabe

The subdistricts are divided into 19 sucos (communities) in total.

[edit] Demographics

The district has a population of 58,521 people, divided into 13,016 households (Census 2004).

The Atoni, one of many indigenous ethnic groups, number about 20,000 in the district. A much larger number live in the surrounding part of West Timor.

[edit] Languages

In addition to the official languages of East Timor, Tetum and Portuguese, Indonesian is widely used as a lingua franca in the area.

The Atoni speak Baikeno, a Timor language. This language is surviving well, with many monolingual speakers. There are few loans from Portuguese and almost none from Tetum in the language.