Timor's Independence Research Articles

PRAGMATIC FRIENDSHIP OF CHINA AND EAST TIMOR, ITS PREREQUISITES AND POSSIBLE PERSPECTIVES

This article is devoted to cooperation between the People's Republic of China and East Timor (Timor-Leste) as part of Chinese cultural and economic expansion to Southeast Asia. There're a number of reasons for this kind of support, including traditional backup for Timor's independence, China's desire to diversify its energy sources and gain new markets for Chinese goods; consolidate its status as an important partner of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries and to prevent the possible growing influence of Taiwan (the Republic of China). Economically, China for Timor-Leste means cheap imports and potential exports; while Timor remains the base for many projects of Chinese businessmen ever since its getting independence, despite the crisis of 2006. This cooperation leads to impact on other significant actors in the region, such as Indonesia and Australia, which also support Timor, as well as the United States; which oppose the expansion of Beijing's influence in this geostrategically important area. The example of Timor-Leste also illustrates the growing sophistication of Chinese diplomacy and its commitment to using soft power as a counter to the obsolete perception of China as a threat that prevailed earlier in Southeast Asia. In conclusion, if Timorese oil reserves run low, cooperation between two states can be slightly transformed from economic to military; however, the radical changes in Timor's foreign policy, which struggled for their independence for so long, are unlikely.

Contested Self-determination: Indonesia and East Timor's Battle over Borders, International Law and Ethnic Identity

ABSTRACTEast Timor's twin experiences of colonialism established its collective identity and internally recognised rights of self-determination. Political boundaries were created through negotiated treaties between Portugal and the Netherlands, and Portuguese colonialism provided East Timor with its status as a non-self-governing territory under international law in 1960. Indonesian colonialism resulted in a discursive battle over identity as both the Indonesian government and East Timor's independence movement employed ethnocultural narratives and myths to persuade the international community of the legitimacy of their respective political claims. During debates over East Timor's political status that occurred between 1975 and 1999, Indonesia emphasised the ethnic ‘kinship’ between Indonesians and East Timorese. In contrast, East Timor's representatives emphasised cultural links with Portugal and Melanesia to prove its distinctiveness from Indonesia.

Unintended consequences: an examination of Australia's ‘historic policy shift’ on East Timor

The Howard government's foreign policy objectives concerning East Timor remain the subject of intense historical debate. Given that some Indonesians harbour suspicions about Australia's role in East Timor's independence, it is important to reflect on Australia's diplomacy throughout this period. This article draws on 15 interviews with former politicians and officials—including Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer—to argue that in 1998, Australia's foreign policy was focused on supporting Indonesia's democratisation process and maintaining the bilateral relationship. It was only when Indonesia moved towards a ‘special status’ of autonomy for East Timor that Australia reconsidered its own position. Although rarely acknowledged, Australia's policy shift actually precipitated outcomes that it had sought to avoid. As such, Habibie's decision to allow self-determination in East Timor can only be viewed as an unintended consequence of Australian diplomacy—independence was never the objective of Australian foreign policy.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies and Human Rights in Canada's Foreign Policy

Canadians talk good game on international human rights, but vast gap too often exists between rhetoric and actions. Canadian policy towards Timor, which spent 24 years under brutal Indonesian muitary occupation before finaUy achieving its independence, is case in point. Canadian governments of both major parties faued during those years to live up to their high-minded words on human rights, choosing instead complicity with Indonesian policies.1A former Portuguese colony invaded by in 1975, Timor was little known internationally until the 1990s. Its emergence global issue was perhaps best symbolized by the award of the 1996 Nobel peace prize to Timorese activists Jose Ramos Horta and Bishop Carlos Belo. Yet the Nobel prize provided no to celebrate and no new hope, wrote Marcus Gee of the Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper. The winners by all accounts brave and honourable men. But they are linked to cause: the independence of He acknowledged that the Timorese had suffered injustice, that they had as much claim to independent nationhood many existing countries. But that did not negate his claim that independence was impossible for this small place in little-known part of the world, with no allies and an implacable opponent. In his view, the activists' was hopeless: neither their actions nor the award of Nobel prize could change that. Nor could the fall in 1998 of the Indonesian dictator Suharto. There were hopes (realized soon afterwards) that Suharto's successors might take less implacable line on Timor, [b]ut experts say the separatists are fooling themselves if they expect the new government in Jakarta to set the former Portuguese colony free in the near future, Gee wrote. He was similarly unmoved when Indonesia's new president conceded referendum on independence within the year. In the days leading up to the vote, Gee continued to preach the hopelessness of Timorese aspirations. Despite having been victims of quarter century of Indonesian military violence, he advised that they vote for union with Indonesia. Independence would be a leap in the dark. The independent nation of Timor would be flyspeck on the world map. Unable to stand on its own, East Timor would have to throw itself on the mercy of the international community.2 The Timorese voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence on 30 August 1999. They remain independent today.I do not mean to single out one columnist, and in any case others have analyzed media coverage of Timor's independence struggle.3 I have selected this example precisely because Gee is not one of the pro-business Indonesia lobby in the press. He often writes passionately about human rights outside Canada and he described the violence of 1999 deliberate campaign of brutality by the Indonesian army. Gee is simply among the more prolific commentators who assumed that Timor was cause.This lost cause rhetoric was more than just way of writing and talking about Timor. It was also an explanatory factor that affected policy. Indonesian rule over Timor was never inevitable. Knowing this is not matter of mere hindsight. Timorese independence from Portugal was not only plausible in 1975, but was in fact declared that year. Indonesian rule looked well entrenched afterwards, but only result of the active diplomatic, economic, and military support given the Suharto regime by its patrons in the west. Yet that was not how policymakers from Washington to Tokyo to Canberra portrayed it. To them, the of Timorese independence was hopeless and therefore it was foUy to support it. Yet if the was hopeless, it was largely because was so entrenched, thanks to overseas support for its government. The logic was circular, the prophecy self-fulfuling. Once policymakers and press pundits started to argue the lost-cause thesis, they shaped their actions accordingly. …

Status of Settlers Implanted by Illegal Regimes Under International Law

This article concerns settlers introduced into a territory under a territorial regime that is illegal under international law. Such regimes usually take one of two forms. One is of entities which effectively operate as States and claim statehood on the basis of acts unlawful under international law; the other is established States which act as sovereigns over areas outside their recognized national territories, in violation of international law. The article focuses on one specific phenomenon associated with illegal regimes, namely the introduction or implantation of large settler populations into the territory under dispute. Illegal regimes often transfer of their own populations or populations loyal to them into the territory, and subsequently grant these populations residence or nationality in the territory. This is done in order to change the demographic composition of the territory under dispute and thereby solidify the regime. The article examines this phenomenon at a specific moment, namely when the illegal regime is replaced by a lawful one. The legal power of the lawful, post-transition regime to reverse the acts of the illegal regime by removal of settlers may be limited in various ways. There may be an obligation to give effect to whatever status the illegal regime conferred upon the settlers, on the basis of the law of occupation or of the law of non-recognition. Expulsion may also be limited by the operation of human rights law and standards applicable to long-term residents, in regardless of the original impermissibility of their arrival in the territory. The article studies in depth six cases of transition from an illegal regime to a lawful one. In five of them the process of transition to a legal regime has been completed: the transition from Ian Smith's regime in Rhodesia to independent Zimbabwe (1980), Namibia's transition from South African administration to Independence (1990), the restoration of the independence of the Baltic States following the annexation by the Soviet Union (1991), South Africa's transition from apartheid to democracy and the elimination of the TBVC States (Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei) (1994), and East Timor's independence following Indonesian annexation (2002). The sixth case is the prospective reunification of the Republic of Cyprus with the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which has yet to take place but has been negotiated in detail. Part 2 sets out the historical and legal circumstances of each of the cases examined. Part 3 focuses on potential constraints on expulsion of settlers based on the status of the settlers. Part 4 focuses on constraints on expulsion of settlers arising from substantive human rights law. Part 5 concludes by comparing the practice in the various cases investigated by reference to the parameters established earlier.

Review: Anti-Americanisms in World Politics, Americanism

ANTI-AMERICANISMS IN WORLD POLITICS Peter J. Katzenstein and Robert O. Keohane, eds. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007. 351pp, US $24.95 paper (ISBN 978-0801473517)AMERICANISM The Fourth Great Western Religion David Gelernter New York: Doubleday, 2007. 230 pp, US $24.95 cloth (ISBN 978-0385513128)The current debate on anti-Americanism is defined-much more so than other scholarly disputes-by the immediate political context, and this discussion is about the foreign policy of the Bush administration and its reception around the world, especially in western Europe. Administration critics invoked European responses as corroborating evidence to support their own positions; administration defenders have tried to discount European reactions by invoking the putative cultural frame of anti-Americanism. Simultaneously, a more profound political debate is underway, beyond the partisan shooting match that involves the post-Cold War international system and the role of the United States in it. The critique of Bush's so-called unilateralism is an extension of the European anxiety about American hyperpower that dates from the Clinton era; it is therefore a misunderstanding to attribute current suspicion of the US solely to actions of the Bush administration or the personality of the president. On the contrary, the political dimension of the debate includes both matters of short-term electoral politics and longer-term strategy. When opponents of the anti-Americanism thesis minimize the cultural predispositions that generate hostility to US positions by insisting that it is all about Bush, they misread deep-seated European misgivings. Yet identifying the shortsightedness of that approach that downplays the distinctiveness of European cultural predispositions is only part of the process of sorting these matters out.These political disputes are fought out over competing scholarly understandings of the relationship between public opinion and attitudes on the one hand and government policies and actions on the other. Methodological debates and disciplinary divides contribute to the varying results, especially in the context of contemporary habits of interdisciplinarity. How can we distinguish between opinions and biases? What impact do popular attitudes have on government policy? Should we look at mass opinion or focus on the inclinations of the elite-intellectuals, politicians, or journalistic opinionmakers? Historians with long-term views evaluate these matters differently political scientists focused on contexts of narrow policy debates, and this difference points to the deeper epistemological gap between the interpretive mandate of the humanities and an ever more quantitative political science.One of the many accomplishments of Anti-Americanisms in World Politics involves the complexity it brings to the topic, opening up these methodological problems and in particular emphasizing the multidimensionality of attitudes to the United States. European (or other) opinions about the US government do not necessarily correlate with opinions about other aspects of American society. A range of international examples highlights the diversity of anti-Americanisms. Sophie Meunier provides a brilliant analysis of anti-Americanism in France-the paradigmatic case for many-but we also learn about attitudes in the Arab world and China, and John Bowen presents a masterful contrast of anti-Americanism in France and Indonesia. The editors deserve credit for broadening the discussion, yet some greater typological distinction among these national variants would have been useful. Anti-Americanism in Indonesia seems to take place within a schema linked significantly to the US role in East Timor's independence, a background that produces a predisposition to judge other, largely unrelated matters in a negative light. To the extent that Chinese perception of the US is a function of the Taiwan question, it is similarly grounded in one significant policy point. …

East Timor's Tortured March to Statehood: A Tale of Legal Exclusion & the Vagaries of Realpolitik

In 1976, without effective local opposition, Indonesia absorbed and annexed East Timor as its twenty-seventh province, but the integration remained controversial at the international level. In the course of the next three decades and in the face of heavy-handed tactics by Indonesian forces keen to wipe out a guerrilla resistance and effectively pacify East Timorese battle raged killing thousands. Indonesian police forces regularly detained and tortured innocent civilians and brutally suppressed peaceful protests. Massive violence committed by Indonesian backed militia forces on East Timor increasingly hardened the international community's support for East Timor's independence. The turning point was the Dili Massacre in 1991 in which over 250 unarmed youth were mowed down by Indonesian military personnel at the Santa Cruz Cemetery. This Article has as its modest aim an exploration of the nexus of the principle of self-determination and the geopolitics that contributed to East Timor's tortured march to independence. In particular the Chapter will seek to examine the tenets of self-determination and its practical dynamics which yielded little protection to the aspirations of the East Timorese.

Embodying Exile: Trauma and Collective Identities among East Timorese Refugees in Australia

Some of the more interesting and useful work on diasporic and transnational identities has emanated from scholars working in cultural studies and contemporary anthropology. However, with a few notable exceptions, little attention has been paid to the specific experiences of refugee diasporas, and in particular, to the role of trauma and embodiment in the creation of these 'moral communi- ties.' Based on research with the East Timorese diaspora in Aus- tralia, this article looks at the performative dimensions (protests, church rituals, singing, and dancing) of the diaspora's political cam- paign for East Timor's independence. I consider how the bodily dimensions of this protest movement contributed to certain forma- tions of identity, belonging, and exile, within the Timorese commu- nity. In particular, I explore how these performative strategies have created a context for 'retraumatizing' bodies and memories, chan- neling them into a political 'community of suffering,' in turn con- tributing to a heightened sense of the morality of an exilic identity among many Timorese.

Peacekeeping in East Timor: The Experience of UNMISET

This article considers several issues arising from the United Nations Mission of Support in East Timor (UNMISET). It is based on the writer's field research in September 2002. This UN-led peacekeeping operation replaced the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) on the independence of East Timor in May 2002. The current areas of concern for UNMISET include management of the border-crossing with West Timor to protect from potential militias crossing over into East Timor, the immaturity of the judicial system, the limitations of capacity-building measures and structural problems within UNMISET. This article concludes that while UNMISET is a new type of peacekeeping operation for the purposes of nation-building, it should still value traditional theories of peacekeeping and lessons learned from previous operations. Therefore, the idea of withdrawing UNMISET at an early stage in East Timor's independence is considered highly premature.

Proposed Timor Sea Arrangements between Australia and the East Timor Transitional Administration

On 5 July 2001, the East Timor Transitional Administration and the Australian Government agreed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the ‘Timor Sea Arrangement’. The Timor Sea Arrangement is merely annexed to the MOU as ‘suitable for adoption… upon East Timor's independence’. This article sets out the most striking features of the Timor Sea Arrangement and considers the current litigation in the Federal Court of Australia against Phillips Petroleum for compensation for the alleged expropriation of a concession in the Timor Gap granted by Portugal in 1974.

The New Timor Sea Arrangement 2001: Is Joint Development of Common Offshore Oil and Gas Deposits Mandated under International Law?

AbstractA new Timor Sea Arrangement is to be adopted by Australia and East Timor upon East Timor's full independence. It is a potentially significant achievement in the prospects for joint development of the petroleum resources in the Timor Gap. This article analyses the legal implications of this latest development in the Timor Gap saga. The new Arrangement implements a modified version of the joint development principle enshrined by the earlier 1989 Timor Gap Treaty much more favourably to the imminent East Timor state. However, the uncertain legal status of the new Arrangement raises questions as to its continuing viability following East Timor's independence. Analysis of this Arrangemcnt suggests that it is sufficiently robust to stand the test of time. More generally, it can now be argued that joint development is mandated under international law as a viable legal alternative to straightforward continental shelf boundary delimitation in the presence of common hydrocarbon deposits.

East Timor, Australia, and Indonesia

For over twenty years Australia has recognized the legitimacy of Indonesia's illegal and brutal occupation of East Timor. The decisive influence of the Jakarta lobby, a group of bureaucrats, academics, politicians, and journalists, ensured that “good relations” between Australia and Indonesia were maintained despite Jakarta's egregious human rights record in the territory. A distorted history of Suharto's rise to power, de jure recognition of Indonesia's sovereignty in East Timor, a secretly negotiated security agreement, and strident opposition to East Timor's independence were indicative of the Jakarta lobby's success in framing Australian foreign policy. However, after encouraging the Habibie government to resolve the East Timor issue in late 1998, the Howard government subsequently committed itself to supporting a UN-sponsored ballot in August 1999, when the East Timorese were given a choice of independence or continued integration with the Republic of Indonesia. The escalation of violence orchestrated by the Indonesian military and their militia proxies in response to an overwhelming vote for independence shocked the international community and encouraged the Howard government to organize and lead a UN-sanctioned multilateral peace enforcement mission in East Timor. The success of this deployment in pacifying the territory led to the departure of Indonesian forces from East Timor and the formal revoking of Indonesia's sovereign claim to the territory. It also signaled a break with past Australian diplomatic orthodoxy towards Indonesia and the declining influence of the Jakarta lobby on Australian public policy.

The United States, East Timor, and intervention

East Timor's independence came at a frightful human cost, a cost that was almost totally avoidable. Moral responsibility for this tragedy is shared by the governments of leading countries, especially the United States, which for a quarter of a century armed and trained the Indonesian military and provided Jakarta with economic and diplomatic support, amid constant denials and evasions. In fact, U.S. support for murderous Indonesian policies began well before 1975, and the evasions continue today.

Peace through Nonviolent Action: The East Timorese Resistance Movement's Strategy for Engagement

The transition from violent struggle against the Indonesian occupation of East Timor to nonviolent resistance increased the chances of victory for the independence movement. This movement conforms to the theory of the efficacy of nonviolent political action. Aware of the difficulties facing their movement, East Timorese resistance leaders emphasised the need to advance their nonviolence strategy through links with concerned international groups. Links between the resistance movement in East Timor and the pro-democracy movement in Indonesia were also beneficial for the cause of East Timor's independence.