Who is this Abilio Araujo?
Hugh Ekeberg
ABILIO ARAUJO: Personal Profile
(a portrait of a Marxist-Leninist, Stalinist, Maoist traitor)
Abilio Araujo is an East Timorese exile who bears one of the biggest
responsibilities for the tragedy that has befallen the people of East
Timor over the last 21 years. In his early days he attempted to
influence the people of this former Portuguese colony to follow the
path of Marxism-Leninism, which he strongly espoused in his youth.
This provoked the alarm of the right wing military Suharto regime of
Indonesia which invaded East Timor in 1975 and militarily occupies it
with barbarous violence to this day. Araujo now serves Indonesian
dictator Suharto as a trusted collaborator who promotes Indonesia's
interests by attempting to weaken the support for the East Timorese
Resistance in Portugal. For this he is handsomely paid by the corrupt
Indonesian regime.
Who is this Abilio Araujo?
Born in Aileu, East Timor in 1948 son of a cathequist father, he
studied for some time at a Catholic seminary, before shifting to the
Dili Liceum. He served in the Portuguese Colonial Army in East Timor,
before becoming a District Officer in the archaic Portuguese colonial
administration. His diligent service led him to be rewarded with a
scholarship to pursue university studies in economics in Portugal.
There he met a Portuguese woman, a fellow economics student,
Guilhermina, whom he later married.
During his student days under the fascist Zalazar dictatorship, Araujo
was never very active in the student underground movement seeking
democracy. Instead, following the influence of Guilhermina, he joined
the fringe extremist Maoist MRPP group.
Following the 'Carnation Revolution' which brought democracy to
Portugal, Abilio returned to East Timor with Guilhermina full of
revolutionary fervour. They joined the pro-independence party
Fretilin, at the time an essentially a Social and Christian
-Democrat-influenced grouping led by Francisco do Amaral, Nicolau
Lobato and Jose Ramos-Horta. The Araujos introduced the clenched fist
salutes and 'comrade' terminology they had acquired in Lisbon,
attempting to propel Fretilin to a more radical and at times extremist
public posture that earned it its 'communist' tag which proved so
alarming to the Suharto regime and its Cold-War backers, the United
States.
Back in Aileu, Araujo would order Fretilin followers to pull down
Portuguese flags and destroy Portuguese historical relics that had
been venerated by the people for generations. Meanwhile Guilhermina
Araujo actively attempted to 'teach' feminism (such as the rejection
to wear bras) to the illiterate women of the region.
It was primarily through the Araujos that Fretilin drifted into the
demagoguery and rhetoric of Marxism-Leninism. Moderates such as Jose
Ramos-Horta were scorned for being 'bourgeois'. If anyone is to be
blamed and held responsible for Fretilin's radical image, it is Abilio
Araujo and Abilio Araujo alone.
But Abilio Araujo did not wish to stay very long in East Timor. As he
has subsequently done so often in his life he jumped ship, returning
to Portugal.
In 1977 in exile after the Indonesian invasion, Araujo visited
Cambodia and arranged for three East Timorese to be trained by the
Khmer Rouge. Typical of his behaviour, he then abandoned the three in
Mozambique. In 1978 he and fellow exile Rogerio Lobato organised an
armed attack on their own fellow Fretilin exiles of the Social
Democrat wing in Maputo, where the organisation's headquarters were
located. East Timorese Leonel Andrade was physically attacked and
severely wounded with a machete by one of the Khmer Rouge-trained
Araujo minions. Jose Ramos Horta's seven months pregnant wife, Ana
Pessoa, then a final year law student, was detained, locked in a room
and only fed bread and water. Mari Alkatiri's wife, Marina, was also
arrested by the gang led by Abilio Araujo. The Mozambican authorities
were completely unaware of the grotesque and criminal events taking
place inside the Fretilin headquarters. Once alerted, they intervened.
Their intervention saved Fretilin from a mortal breakup.
Rogerio Lobato and Abilio Araujo also called José Ramos-Horta to
return to Maputo from New York, where he was representing Fretilin at
the UN. Upon arrival, Horta was accused of having proposed
negotiations with Indonesia and of having contacts with UDT exiles in
Australia. Araujo was the leader of the hardline faction in Fretilin
that opposed negotiations with Indonesia and any form of
reconciliation with UDT. Their slogan in vogue at the time was
"negotiations never".
José Ramos-Horta's absence from New York during the UN General
Assembly in 1978 caused a near defeat of a draft resolution.
Horta was detained in Maputo by Araujo from September 1978 to
February 1979. Rogerio Lobato eventually ended up in prison in
Angola for diamond smuggling, and was dumped by Araujo, who did
not visit him even once during the six years he served there. It was
Ramos-Horta who secured the pardon and release of Lobato after he had
served half of his sentence. Upon his return to Portugal, totally
destitute, Araujo ignored him.
Abilio Araujo's commitment to Marxism-Leninism was consistent and
unrepentant well into the 1980s, when he declared himself 'Secretary-
General to the "Marxist-Leninist Fretilin Party in 1983. José Ramos-
Horta was the only one of all the Fretilin leaders abroad who rejected
in writing the transformation of Fretilin from what was supposed to be
a broad popular front into a Marxist-Leninist party. Yet Horta
decided to remain with the movement until October 1989, when he
finally resigned altogether from Fretilin.
Abilio Araujo was a most arrogant authoritarian leader who, while
boasting Marxist Leninist rhetoric, had his two daughters attend one
of the most elitists schools in Lisbon. In one of the most offensive
corrupt cases, Araujo cheated his Fretilin colleagues and Japanese
friends in a Portuguese wine export venture to Japan. To help the
East Timorese Resistance, enterprising Japanese supporters had
proposed to Fretilin that it set up a private import/export business
supplying Portuguese wines to the Japanese market. The suggestion was
put in practice, and generated much profit. Araujo in the meantime
appropriated himself the business and Fretilin never saw any of the
money made.
In another case of audacious crookery, Araujo sold an apartment he
owned in Lisbon to Fretilin for an equivalent of US$ 30,000. He kept
the money, remained living in the apartment, and sold it again
privately three years later. In 1985 José Ramos-Horta was bequeathed
US$ 100,000 by the deceased father of a friend. This money was handed
over to Abilio Araujo to set up a small foundation, to provide
scholarships to East Timorese youths. The Borges da Costa Foundation
was set up, being turned into an Abilio Araujo fiefdom. It provides a
few scholarships to closest friends and staunch Fretilin supporters to
this day. There has never been any accountability to other founders of
the foundation.
Araujos response to the November 1991 Santa Cruz Massacre, which
created an international uproar against the Indonesian occupation of
East Timor, was to condemn not the perpetrators, but instead, to call
the victims "irresponsible". When venerated Resistance Leader
Commander Xanana Gusmao was arrested in 1992, Abilio Araujo joined the
Indonesian propaganda calling Xanana an "opportunist and traitor".
Abilio Araujo was expelled from Fretilin in 1993, by the leadership
inside East Timor under Commander Konis Santana, and by the Fretilin
Plenary held in Lisbon that year. He left a balance of authoritarian
dictatorial practices, of money embezzlement, of taking initiatives
without consultation or communication with colleagues in the
leadership. He always claimed that as Secretary-General of the
Marxist-Leninist Party he was accountable to no one but himself.
Nowadays Abilio Araujo has become pro-Indonesian. His lifestyle is
that of a wealthy businessman who delights with an opulent lifestyle,
lives in a large house and drives a Mercedes. After being identified
by Indonesian intelligence agent Petrus Suryiadi and a potential
collaborator, to lobby for Indonesia in Portugal, Abilio Araujo has
become close to the Suharto regime. He was instrumental in
implementing the now discredited Indonesian-sponsored 'Reconciliation
Talks' aimed at derailing the process of search for a solution to the
East Timor conflict through the Secretary -General of the United
Nations, in accordance with the General Assembly mandate of 1983. For
his efforts (albeit lacking any results) Abilio Araujo has been
rewarded with trips to Indonesia where he has met President Suharto
and his daughter Tutut, as well as offers of participation in
Indonesian industrial development projects claimed to be planned for
East Timor. While José Ramos-Horta calls for an arms embargo to
Indonesia in his public statements, Araujo praises the Indonesian
dictator, and supports arms sales to Indonesia, fully aware that such
arms are used mostly against the people of East Timor, and against the
Indonesian people itself, by the Indonesian military.
This is the profile of the man the Suharto dictatorship has chosen as
their key agent to combat the just struggle of the people of East
Timor for their survival and their right of self-determination.
Clearly, Araujos corrupt, opportunistic and treacherous nature fits in
well with the current leadership of Indonesia under the increasingly
discredited President Suharto.