Conflicts about borders and territory

Video about East Timor.


History of the conflict
On December the 7th 1975 Indonesian military invaded East Timor. The conflict started as an indonesian initiative to control the whole island of Timor and in order to weaken colonialism. It’s important to emphasize that the island of Timor had been divided for many years; West Timor (now part of Indonesia) was a Dutch colony while the Eastern part of the island was controlled by the Portugueses. The first invasion in 1975 led to a twenty-five-year conflict in which between approximately 100,000–180,000 soldiers and civilians were killed.
In 1974 all Portuguese colonies started processes of independence. During few months, East Timor was under political chaos and mainly influenced by the UDT (Timonesse Democratic Union) which was originally composed of senior administrative leaders and plantation owners, as well as native tribal leaders. Then, Indonesia saw an opportunity for East Timor annexation to its country. According to the indonesians, the invasion was justified by the fact that the government was going to be taken by Fretilin, a left-wing political group, an was going to become a communist country.
During the first months of the occupation, the Indonesian military fought against a numerous group of rebels. However in 1977, the military received new advanced weaponry military support from the United States and  Israel among other countries (Taylor, 1999).
After some years of war and attempts of insurrection movements, Indonesia took control of almost the whole country. In the 1980’s, a clandestine movement led by Fretilin survivors emerged. A decade later, lots of protests in favor of independence took place and the separatist ideology was spreaded all over the island. The clandestine movement was largely paralysed by continuous arrests and infiltration by Indonesian agents. Finally, in 1999 a referendum was held. The population had the option to choose between being an autonomy in Indonesia or being an independent state. The second option clearly had more supporters. After three years of transition and through different UN missions, East Timor achieved independence on 10 May 2002.
Regional and Global Implications of the Conflict
The Indonesian invasion of East Timor had significant and profound consequences domestically and internationally, however it was the people of East Timor who inevitably suffered the most.
Over the course of the 1975-1999 occupation, at least 102,000 people were killed as a direct consequence of conflict, with Indonesian forces and their auxiliary forces responsible for over 70% of the deaths. Of these deaths it is reported that 18,000 were a result of violent killings, with a further 84,000 being the result of malnutrition and starvation (CAVR Timor-Leste, 2008).  
When discussing the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1976, it is of paramount importance to discuss and analyse the implications on not just a local scale, but also a global scale.


While the United Nations officially opposed the actions of Indonesia within East Timor, many of its constituents were reluctant to sanction Indonesia or support the people of East Timor. This was almost entirely due to Cold War Politics, as the Indonesian Government was staunchly opposed to communism. With the growing threat of the Soviet Union spreading through China and Vietnam, democratic nations, such as the United States, the United Kingdom and more locally, Australia saw it as being invaluable to have a pro-capitalism political ally in an area that had previously been identified as extremely fragile and vulnerable to the compounding pressure of it's communist neighbours (Pushkina & Maier, 2012).


As well as this, Australia also had its own security interests tied in with Indonesia's invasion of East Timor. Being one of the few nations within the South Pacific Region that was not continuously subject to political and social instability (primarily due to its strong economy), the invasion of East Timor presented an opportunity for Australia to solidify and promote stability within the region. It has been argued that Australia has long seen the southwest Pacific as being a frontier zone and as such, Australia has a strong interest in maintaining and promoting stability. And in order to achieve this, Australia saw it as being within their own best interests to defer to Indonesia and as a result was reluctant to scrutinise the intervention (McDougall, 2007).


While the real time effects of the Indonesian occupation in East Timor were catastrophic, the aftermath has been considerably damaging as well. When Indonesia eventually removed all military and political forces from East Timor in 1999, they took with it years of unrivalled political experience, which had been used to govern the country for the duration of the invasion (Smith & Dee, 2003). This enormous gap in knowledge of governance had (and continues to have) extensive detrimental effects on the political, economic and military stability of East Timor. With pro-Indonesia militias still operating within East Timor after the withdrawal of Indonesian authorities, Australia saw it as the right time to offer a suggestion of self-determination for the people of East Timor (Chalk, 2001). The suggestion sparked a wave of violent clashes within East Timor. It was not until 1999 that a United Nations sanctioned and Australian led Peacekeeping Operation was established (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 2010). However, as previously stated the fall of the communist threat presented the opportunity for regional neighbours in Australia and the global community to finally act within East Timor, as the cloud of Cold War politics had finally lifted.
Position of international organizations
In analysing the Indonesian invasion of East Timor is important to acknowledge that by1975, when the invasion started, the Indonesian foreign policy was not one of expansion (it later was) and that the motivation for the invasion was based on concerns regarding the spread of communism, security concerns and the possibility of establishing East Timor independence from Portugal as a precedent for the independence of some relatively pro-independence regions in the country.
At first, the invasion was then seen as inconsistent with Indonesian statements which emphasised and declared its support to the self-determination of East Timor.
Because of the still premature state of the Pacific Islands Forums, created in 1971, and the inactive position of ASEAN due to Indonesia being one of the members (in fact, one of the founder members), it will be mainly described the role of the United Nations.
This invasion ironically happened closely before Indonesia’s permanent representative to the UN sent a letter to the organisation’s Secretary-General in which Indonesia reiterated its support for the decolonisation policy of the Portuguese government. But it also included an indication that Indonesia would not be prepared to sit back and, according to the among the Indonesian administration at that time, watch East Timor disintegrate.
The integration of East Timor by the Indonesian government was not recognised by the United Nations which considered Portugal to be the administering power. The first action taken by the United Nations was General Assembly resolution 3485 on 12 December 1975. This called for respect of the inalienable right of the people of Portuguese Timor to self-determination and independence, and for the Indonesian government to ‘... desist from further violation of the territorial integrity of Portuguese Timor and to withdraw without delay its armed forces from the territory ...’
The General Assembly resolution was followed ten days later by a Security Council resolution calling for Indonesia to ‘withdraw without delay all its forces from the territory’.
The General Assembly developed further seven resolutions on the East Timor issue in the period 1976-82. Despite a narrowing of the margin between those supporting and those opposing the resolution, Indonesia did not manage to remove the East Timor issue from the General Assembly’s agenda, nor change the UN’s standpoint and recognition of Portugal as the administering power.
Beginning in 1983 with the first formal talks, the Secretary-General presided over private negotiations between Portugal and Indonesia, known as the tripartite dialogue. While attention on the East Timor issue within the international community varied during the 1980s, Indonesia met opposition particularly from ex-Portuguese colonial territories as it attempted to gain leadership of the Non-aligned Movement (NAM). Nonetheless there was a growing feeling in Jakarta that the Indonesian government’s position on East Timor would eventually prevail.
The Dili massacre on 12 November 1991 changed this presumption. This reinforced and put attention on the cause of East Timorese resistance to Indonesian occupation. The more the UN and the world community understood what was happening in East Timor the Dili the more impetus was given to the armed and civil resistance.
President Habibie, who followed the hardliner military dictator Suharto, tried to give some concessions to the international community. The monetary crisis in South-east Asia was impacting heavily on Indonesia, and the autonomy concession was, in a sense, a trade-off for much needed IMF loans. Indonesia could no longer afford the irritation provoked by the East Timor issue, either domestically or externally.
Encouraged by the openness of the new administration, the United Nations even proposed to celebrate an independence referendum by its supervision, but Indonesia rejected it.
On 27 January 1999 the Indonesian government stunned the international community with a message delivered by the foreign minister. In it he stated the possibility of complete independence for East Timor if autonomy, which was the first approach of the Indonesian government to end with protests, proved unpopular and impractical.
Thus, in addition to the proposal of special status with wide-ranging autonomy, the details of which were at that time still being negotiated, Foreign Minister Alatas would meet with the Secretary-General of the UN on 7-8 February to outline the possibility of independence as an alternative solution.
Finally, East Timor gained independence in 2002. The United Nations has been decisive in that outcome, not only because it was the main channel by which other states, such as Portugal, raised its concerns about the issue and because it was actually the place of negotiations, but also because it undertook a clear policy on pressuring Indonesia and not forgetting the matter. Even when the Indonesian administration provided security and stability, and to some extent contributed to the general well being of the society in the Pacific Islands, the organization recognize East Timor right to self determination which was also recognized and claimed by Portugal’s decolonising policies.
About the topic...
We have chosen this conflict because its relevance in Oceania evendough east Timor is part of Asia. In the history of the pacific Islands Forum there hasn’t been any kind of territorial dispute which led to the action of the institution. Therefore, we think that the role that the UN and Australia have played in East Timor was far more interesting. It’s important to mention that Australia had been in maritime dispute with East-Timor since the country gained independence but in May these year both countries reach an agreement and signed an historic maritime border treaty.
References:


Australian Broadcasting Corporation. (2010). The Howard Years. Australian Broadcasting Commission.
Chalk, P. (2001). Australian Foreign and Defense Policy in the Wake of the 1999/2000 East Timor Intervention. National Security Research Division.
Chalk, P. and Rabasa, A. (2001). The East Timor Crisis and its Consequences. In:  Indonesia's Transformation and the Stability of Southeast Asia. RAND Corporation.
Central Intelligence Agency. The World Factbook. [online] Available at: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/tt.html
Davidson, H. (2018). Oil and gas had hidden role in Australia’s response to Indonesian invasion of Timor-Leste. The Guardian [online]. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/may/07/oil-and-gas-had-hidden-role-in-australias-response-to-indonesian-invasion-of-timor-leste
Encyclopaedia Britannica, (2018). East Timor. [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/place/East-Timor
Facts and Details. Indonesian Occupation of East Timor (1975 to 1999). [online] Available at: http://factsanddetails.com/southeast-asia/East_Timor/sub5_10e/entry-3583.html
Glassman, J. (2003). Structural Power, Agency and National Liberation: The Case of East Timor. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Vol. 28, pp. 264-280.
Global Issues: Social, Political, Economic and Environmental Issues that Affect Us All, (2001). Crisis in East Timor. [online] Available at: http://www.globalissues.org/article/92/crisis-in-east-timor
Henry, A. (2017). More evidence of British complicity in East Timor invasion emerges. Independent Australia [online]. Available at: https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/evidence-of-british-complicity-in-indonesian-invasion-of-east-timor-emerges,10601
Hopkins, A. (2000). Australia let Indonesia invade East Timor in 1975. The Guardian. [online]. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/sep/13/indonesia.easttimor
Job, P. (2018). How Australia Covered Up East Timor’s Suffering. The Diplomat [online]. Available at: https://thediplomat.com/2018/03/how-australia-ignored-east-timors-suffering/
Lloyd, G. (2003). The diplomacy in East Timor: Indonesia, the United Nations and the international community. In: J. Fox and D. Babo, Out of the Ashes: Destruction and Reconstruction of East Timor. ANU Press.
Pushkina, D. & Maier, P. (2012). United Nations Peacekeeping in Timor- Leste, Civil Wars, 14:3, pp. 324-343
Simons, Geoff (2000). Indonesia: The Long Oppression. St. Martin's Press.
Smith, A & Dee, M. (2003). Peacekeeping in East Timor: The Path to Independence. Contemporary Southeast Asia; Apr 2003; 25, 1; pp. 163
Taylor, John G. (1999). East Timor: The Price of Freedom. Zed Books.
The CAVR Report. (2007). Chega! The Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor.
Varagur, K. (2018). 20 Years on, Indonesia Considers Legacy of its ‘Reformation’. Voice of America [online]. Available at: https://www.voanews.com/a/years-on-indonesia-considers-legacy-of-its-reformation-/4406183.html

Yale University, Genocide Studies Program. East Timor. [online] Available at: https://gsp.yale.edu/case-studies/east-timor

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