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July 2015
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
having tacitly given their assent. (Indeed, the Americans
urged the Indonesians to conduct a swift campaign so that
the world wouldn’t see them using weapons provided by the
)
also sided with
, leaving the Ti-
morese to face
alone.
By 1976 there were 35,000 Indonesian troops in East
Timor. Falintil, the military wing of Fretilin, fought a guerril-
la war with marked success in the first few years, but weak-
ened considerably thereafter. The cost of the brutal takeover
to the East Timorese was huge; it’s estimated that at least
100, 000 died in the hostilities, and ensuing disease and fam-
ine”
(Lonely Planet, 2015).
“Most of the country’s infrastructure, including homes,
irrigation systems, water supply systems, and schools, and
nearly 100% of the country’s electrical grid were destroyed
(including geodetic and cadastral records – Ed).
On 20 Sep-
tember 1999, Australian-led peacekeeping troops deployed to
the country and brought the violence to an end. On 20 May
2002, Timor-Leste was internationally recognized as an inde-
pendent state. In late 2012, the UN Security Council voted
to end its peacekeeping mission in Timor-Leste and departed
the country by the end of the year”
(World Factbook, 2015)
.
Bordered by Indonesia (253 km) (
PE&RS
, October 2009),
the lowest point is the Timor Sea, Savu Sea and Banda Sea
(0 m); the highest point is Foho Tatamailau (2,963 m). The
capital city is Dili.
“The Geographic Mission of Timor (MGT) was established
in 1937 but had to stop their activities in 1941 because of the
Japanese occupation during World War II. All the work done
was lost except some pillar foundations at the most inaccessible
points. MGT was reactivated in 1954 with the aim of providing
a geodetic network to the territory with the accuracy required to
create maps at the scale 1:50,000. For the implementation of the
network, the International ellipsoid was adopted as reference.
(Note: a = 6,378,388 m,
1
/
f
= 297 – Ed.)
Given the presumed
existence of significant deviations of the vertical, it was consid-
ered that it would be unwise to tie to a single point. Thus, the
coordinates of the vertices of the network were calculated using
the astronomical values at three stations: Lequi Levato (Φ
o
=
08° 30′ 50′′ S, Λ
o
= 126° 21′ 36′′ E, α
o
= 09° 08′ 24.73′′), Burnuli
(Φ
o
= 08° 53′ 37′′ S, Λ
o
= 126° 20′ 15′′ E, α
o
= 175° 08′ 38.42′′),
and Caitaba (Φ
o
= 09° 08′ 19′′ S, Λ
o
= 125° 45′ 15′′ E, α
o
=
130° 52′ 26.52′′), in
Relatórios da Missão Geográfica de Timor,
IICT
. The datum was defined so the latitudes, longitudes and
geodetic azimuths had minimum deviations from their corre-
sponding astronomicals at these three points”
(Paula Santos,
Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical (IICT), personal
communication 2015)
.
“The leveling network and GPS points network had been
established by BAKOSURTANAL during the Indonesian pe-
riod. The concrete monuments of benchmarks and GPS points
still exist in East Timor. However, documentary descriptions
of benchmarks and GPS points, coordinates lists
etc
., were
lost during the violence following the independence vote in
September 1999. The Indonesian Government’s documents
(statistic data, land registration data, resident registration
data
etc
.,) were also lost during the violence following the
independence vote in September 1999. Since land use data
were destroyed during the violence after September 1999,
many disputes have arisen in connection with land owner-
ship within Dili City. In order to settle these disputes, there
is an urgent need to develop large scale topographic maps, to
conduct a land-use survey and to build a database system en-
suring that the results of the land use survey are properly ar-
ranged on the newly developed large scale topographic maps”
(Study on Urgent Establishment of Topographic Mapping in
East Timor – Creation of Topographic Information for Estab-
lishment of Cadastre in East Timor, Toru Watanabe, Japan
International Cooperation Agency, 2000)
.
Because of the urgent need for a reliable First-Order Geo-
detic network to support topographic mapping and cadas-
tral mapping, the Portuguese government established a new
independent system of control with new monuments in 8
locations throughout East Timor. Collocation was not per-
formed as the old classical coordinate records had been lost
during the 1999 insurrection mentioned above. The eight
new stations
(estações)
representing the new
Rede Geodési-
ca Fundamental Timor-Leste (RGFTL)
are: ABAC (
Ba-
cau Airport
)
j
= 08° 29′ 01.824′′ S,
l
= 126° 23′ 46.465′′ E, h
= 577.373 m; CBBR (
Campo Barro
)
j
= 08° 44′ 57.012′′ S,
l
= 125° 58′ 16.818′′ E, h = 1,173.132 m; CLMR (
Colméra Park
)
j
= 08° 33′ 22.356′′ S,
l
= 125° 34′ 10.106′′ E, h = 53.664 m;
MOLN (
Moleana
)
j
= 08° 55′ 37.308′′ S,
l
= 125° 11′ 02.319′′
E, h = 183.054 m; OCSS (
Oecusse Airport
)
j
= 09° 11′ 54.456′′
S,
l
= 124° 21′ 08.758′′ E, h = 47.459 m; RACA (
Town of Raca
)
j
= 08° 26′ 33.360′′ S,
l
= 126° 59′ 18.328′′ E, h = 457.366
m; SAME (
Town of Same Heliport
)
j
= 09° 00′ 06.984′′ S,
l
= 125° 39′ 12.509′′ E, h = 605.573 m; SUAI (
Fort Suai Loro
)
j
= 09° 21′ 09.324′′ S,
l
= 125° 16′ 33.707′′ E, h = 46.803 m”
(Relatório – Cálculo das Coordenadas, Rui Fernandes, 31
Dezembro 2005).
The new RGFTL is referenced to the Inter-
national Terrestrial Reference Frame of 2000 (ITRF2000),
epoch of 23 May 2003.
Thanks to Dr. Rui Fernandes for his help with getting me in
touch with Ms. Santos of the IICT and also for his invaluable
on-site
assistance at our LSU Center for GeoInformatics for
his expertise with JPL’s GIPSY software.
The contents of this column reflect the views of the author, who is
responsible for the facts and accuracy of the data presented herein.
The contents do not necessarily reflect the official views or policies of
the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing and/
or the Louisiana State University Center for GeoInformatics (C
4
G).
