Power and principle in East Timor

Abstract

East Timor stands out as one of the international community's most tragic failures to protect a people's human right to self‐determination. Since Indonesia's December 7, 1975 invasion of the former Portuguese colony, well over 200,000 people, about one‐third of the pre‐invasion population, have lost their lives as a result of the war and Indonesia's ongoing occupation. From 1975 to 1982, the United Nations General Assembly passed eight resolutions and the U.N. Security Council passed two in response to the flagrant illegality of Indonesia's aggression. Taken together, the resolutions deplored Indonesia's invasion, and called upon Jakarta to withdraw its troops and upon the international community to respect East Timor's inalienable right to self‐determination. Nevertheless, more than two decades after its invasion, Indonesia, with the help of billions of U.S. dollars annually in Western economic and military aid, continues its brutal occupation of the Southeast Asian half‐island. Such a situation would seem to speak to the profound inadequacy of international legal structures and mechanisms, demonstrating that narrow political‐economic interests, not principle, reign supreme at the United Nations and in the national capitals that hold sway over the world body. While there is certainly much truth to this analysis, the very fact that East Timor is still high on the international agenda, and is increasingly a subject of intense debate in national governments and in various international bodies, suggests that principle can be a powerful force in its own right in shaping struggles for self‐determination.