Nino Konis Santana

Nino Konis Santana (12 January 1957 – 11 March 1998) was an East Timorese freedom fighter who led the Falintil guerrilla forces between April 1993 and his death in March 1998 during the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, succeeding after the latter's capture in 1993. Santana died in 1998 and was succeeded by Taur Matan Ruak.

Early life and education Nino Konis Santana was born on 12 January 1957 in Vero, suco Tutuala, on the eastern tip of Timor island in what was then the Lautém District of Portuguese Timor. His family were members of the Fataluku people. His father was Je Makaru, a farmer who died of heart disease in 1982, and his mother was Poko Tana. The oldest child in his family, he had a sister, Hermínia Santana, and a brother, Victor Vieira de Araújo. After completing his teacher training course in 1975, Santana returned to Tutuala and worked as a teacher.

Indonesian occupation and resistance activities

Activities in Lautém and Matebian Following the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975, Santana went to the mountains to join Fretilin's resistance activities. The shelter was accessible via a trapdoor in a back room of the house that served as the family's oratory. A Catholic priest, Domingos Maubere, was Santana's most reliable channel of information in and out of the country.

Santana was described as a principled yet pragmatic leader. Militarily, Santana made modest changes to the resistance structure, including reactivating units in the northern zone near Dili. She found the guerrilla leader in precarious health, suffering from malaria, untreated teeth infections, and wounds from unextracted bullets still lodged in his body. Contemporary accounts of his death contain contradictory details, though sources agree he died from untreated health problems. One source attributes his death to an unspecified illness, His death became publicly known on 30 March, when José Ramos-Horta released a statement in Lisbon announcing that Santana had died accidentally in Ainaro District.

Two days before his death, on 9 March 1988, Santana informed his secretary, José Agostinho Sequeira (nom de guerre Somotxo), who was working on report in a different shelter, that he would be turning off his satellite phone due to the upcoming arrival of a large number of visitors in Mertutu.

On 18 December 2012, Santana's remains were reinterred at the new Garden of the Heroes in Metinaro, east of the capital, Dili, in a ceremony attended by many Timorese government officials and members of Santana's family. The surprise announcement came at an event to mark the start of pension payments awarded by the state to members of the resistance against the Indonesian occupation and the families of martyrs who died in the struggle. A replica model of Santana's hidden shelter in Mertutu, along with the clothes and shoes he was originally buried in, are also on display at the museum.

In 2007, Timor-Leste's first national park, encompassing in Lautém Municipality, was named after Santana. Included within national park is Tutuala, Santana's birthplace. and Ensino Secundário Geral Nino Konis Santana in Lospalos, Lautém Municipality, which was renamed and inaugurated in 2004.