East Timor Conflict
The island of Timor was first colonized by the Portugese in 1520. The Portugese had come to Timor to trade sandalwood and eventually established settlements and ports. At this time the Dutch were in control of several of the surrounding islands. By 1613 the Dutch had taken control of the western portion of Timor. The Dutch and Portugese fought for control over the island until 1860. At this time a treaty was made dividing Timor into eastern and western portions.
The treaty gave the western portion to the Netherlands and the eastern portion to Portugal. Eventually the Netherlands gave up its colonies in the Dutch West Indies including West Timor, giving birth to Indonesia. The Dutch recognized the western part of Timor as Indonesia in 1949.
The Portugese remained in control of East Timor for 455 years, until 1975. A military coup in Portugal in 1974 increased political activity both in Portugal and Portugese Timor. In 1975 Portugal pulled out of East Timor, leaving it vulnerable to invasion or conquest. The Timorese Democratic Union demanded independence.
July 16, 1976, nine days after East Timor was declared an independent nation, it was invaded and annexed by Indonesia. However only Australia officially recognized the annexation. In July of 1976 East Timor was declared the 27th province of Indonesia. Indonesia occupied East Timor for the next twenty four years. More than 200,000 Timorese reportedly died from famine, disease, and fighting since the country’s annexation.
In February of 1983, the United Nations commission on Human Rights adopted a resolution affirming East Timor’s right to independence and self determination. However the following year, 1984, conditions worsened. There were reports of widespread hunger, disease, and repression amongst civilians. There were also increased reports of battles between rebels and Indonesian troops.
On November 12, 1991, over 270 East Timorese were massacred at the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili, East Timor, by Indonesian troops. The civilians were participating in a memorial precession honoring the death of Sebastio Gomez, a young man slain by the Indonesian military.
Sebastio Gomez was one of a number of young men who sought sanctuary in the church during the massacre that occured after the UN announced a delegation was to arrive in East Timor. At this point in the history of East Timor the Catholic Church was the only Timorese institution. There were no Timorese unions or press, political parties, peasant leagues, or student groups. All of the leaders of these groups had been executed. The Timorese people were put in jail for reading international newspapers or listening to international news on the radio. Public speech and right to assemble were also banned under the Indonesian army. Sebastio Gomez took refuge in the only institution left in East Timor and was seized and executed at point-blank range with a lethal pistol shot to his stomach. Upset by the attack on their church, over 1000 Timorese attended the funeral.
At the funeral procession many Timorese held signs and banners supporting the church and Timorese independence. As the procession made its way though the streets of Dili more Timorese joined. When the precession finally reached the cemetery there were about 3000-5000 protestors.
The procession was seen as a pro-independence demonstration protesting the atrocities committed by the Indonesian military. When the Indonesian soldiers got word of the procession they marched into the cemetery and opened fire into the crowd. After the massacre the Indonesian army sealed off the area. Religious people and aid workers were not allowed in. The wounded Timorese were left to bleed to death on the roads and in the cemetery.
The Indonesian troops participating in the massacre were backed by US support. The M-16 rifles used at Santa Cruz were provided by the US and the Indonesian military who led the attack were trained by the US. However, when the United States and the rest of the international community received news of the massacre at Santa Cruz the US and its allies doubled their military aid to Indonesia.
The massacre at Santa Cruz in 1991 sparked grassroots activists in the US to begin pushing Congress to cut off military training and support for Indonesia. Eventually the US Congress suspended defense training and military aid to Indonesia, however, many more Timorese were killed before this occured.
In September of 1995 East Timorese activists forced their way into foreign embassies in Jakarta, Indonesia appealing for political asylum. The East Timorese were granted asylum by the Portugese who were still recognized by the United Nations as an administrative power in East Timor. The Indonesian government, who actually controlled East Timor, permitted the asylum seekers to leave East Timor, but denied to the international community that where was any persecution going on in East Timor. In the same month rioting occurred in protest against Indonesian Muslim Immigrants. Over 250 alleged rioters were arrested.
In 1996 Indonesia was angered by the outcome of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize winners. Bishop Carlos Belo and Jose Ramos-Horta shared the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize “for their work toward a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor.”
In November of 1997 the Australian-East Timor Association released reports cataloguing human rights abuses perpetrated by members of the Indonesian armed forces against Timorese women. There were accounts of enforced prostitution, rape, and compulsory serialisation programmes.
The Asian economic crisis of 1997 hit Indonesia and East Timor hard. This fed instability throughout Indonesia that was transferred onto East Timor. This instability lead to Indonesian President, Suharto’s, resignation in 1998 after a thirty two year rule. After Suharto’s resignation, B. J. Habibie took office and agreed to hold a referendum on East Timorese independence.
The 1999 referendum vote for political autonomy or independence allowed all East Timorese to participate. However following the announcement of the referendum violence broke out in East Timor. Anti-independence militia groups based in East Timor began violence and intimidation campaigns. Summary killings, kidnapping, and harassment occurred. The Indonesian military forced young East Timorese to join the militia and then trained and organized them. A few months before the referendum vote, anti-independence militia killed 57 civilians in a churchyard.
After 25 years of Indonesian rule 78.5% of the East Timorese population voted to secede from Indonesia. The pro-Jakarta militias and Indonesian soldiers in turn, killed hundreds of civilians. According to the United Nations the militias forced 500,000 East Timorese to flee their homes. Due to international pressures, Indonesia allowed United Nation forces to enter into East Timor on September 12, 1999. By the end of October the last of the Indonesian soldiers had left East Timor. For the next three years East Timor was governed by the United Nations Transitional Authority in East Timor.
East Timor declared itself a nation on May 20, 2002. Mari Alkatiri, a former guerrilla leader was elected Prime Minister and former rebel leader, José Alezandre Gusmão, was elected president.
Human Rights Organizations claim that 200,000 of the 650,000 Timorese people were killed during the annexation by the Indonesian forces. The Indonesian occupation and invasion of East Timor is one of the worst atrocities of the twenty first century.
