Term Paper on East Timor's Struggle for Independence
East
Timor is the eastern half of the island of Timor, which, at approximately 34,000
square kilometers, is a size smaller than the state of Maryland. It was
Indonesia's 27th state which is now become independent country. The story of
East Timor so frequently reported in the international media. The people of East
Timor have bore pain for generations: Colonial rule revolutions, wrong
government policies and internal disagreement have exacted a great toll.
Beginning in 1975, the East Timorese destroyed fatality to an attack by
Indonesia. Indonesian army killed more than 200,000 people. At the instance it
could be said that the people of East Timor also fell victim to the Cold War.
Even though the UN Security Council formally called for the invading troops to
give up, in fact the United States and its leading associates did not take a
firm attitude to stop the slaughter in East Timor.
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The story of the clash in East Timor has its origins in the region's regal past.
For more than 400 years, East Timor was proscribed by Portugal. Meanwhile, the
western half of the island, along with the other islands that today make up
Indonesia, was under Dutch rule. The Indonesians gained self-government from the
Netherlands in 1949 and for the next sixteen years struggled with mounting
political unsteadiness. The chaos erupted into civil war in 1965. As head of the
Indonesian army, Suharto led the military to conquest over Soviet-backed rebels.
At least 300,000 revolts were killed in Suharto’s effort to squash opposition to
his rule. East Timor was shielded from the aggression in Indonesia. In 1974, on
the other hand, Portuguese colonial rule over East Timor unexpectedly ended
after Portugal’s despotic government fell from power. The East Timorese hoped
that the fall down of the Portuguese empire would permit them to attain
independence. “East Timor was seized by Indonesia after the Portuguese removal,
and its people began an independence movement almost right away. East Timor's
move violently for independence was cruelly repressed by Indonesian military
forces for over 25 years”. (Amnesty International, 1985)
During 1975 using weapons supplied by the Portuguese, Fretilin forces seized
Dili, the capital of East Timor. Civil war had broken out. Instead of
re-establishing order, the Portuguese authorities forsook East Timor on. While
the civil war threatened to brim over to Indonesian territory, the Fretilin
unilaterally announced independence. At the time of incorporation, the living
standard of most of the populace of East Timor was considerably lower than the
rest of Indonesia apart from Irian Jaya. More than 70 percent of the population
was uneducated. Many were secluded in remote villages with no roads or means of
conversing with the outside world; cultivation was on a prehistoric survival
basis. To provide not only for essential human needs in East Timor but also to
lay a base for future development, Indonesia has poured six times as much
possessions on a per capita base to East Timor as to any of its other provinces.
In 1991, East Timor established some $199 million in Indonesian Government
allowance, almost a hundred times more than the average yearly growth expenses
for East Timor during the final years of Portuguese regulation. The number of
schools has grown from 47 elementary schools, two junior high schools, one high
school and no college at the end of Portuguese rule to 579 elementary schools,
90 middle schools, and 39 high schools also three colleges. When the Portuguese
left, East Timor had two hospitals along with 14 clinics with a total of three
doctors plus two dentists. Now it has 10 hospitals in addition to 197 village
health centers staffed by 104 doctors, six specialists and 14 dentists, helped
by more than 1,500 paramedics. In 1974, it had only 20 kilometers of paved
roads; since then 3,800 kilometers of roads have been constructed, including 428
kilometers of covered highways and 18 bridges.
The Indonesian Government has supported crop diversification and encouraged
profitable fishing in the province. Coffee making has risen from in to in most
of which is sent abroad. New industries have also been recognized including
printing, soap industrialized and electrical equipment congregation. From
January 1999 pro-Indonesian militia, supported by the Indonesian security
forces, used aggression, threats and threats to try and pressure the East
Timorese population to hold up continued incorporation into Indonesia in the 30
August vote organized by the United Nations. In clear revenge for the
irresistible vote in favor of independence, the aggression intensified after the
results were announced. An expected one thousand pro-independence supporters
were killed and hundreds of thousands fled their homes or were by force drove
out to Indonesia.
A UN study team found that an outline of serious violations of basic human
rights and humanitarian rule had taken place in East Timor during 1999.
International pressure convinced Indonesia to establish its own investigation,
led by Indonesia's National Human Rights Commission, which also found that gross
human rights contraventions had been committed. Criminal examinations into five
cases were opened.
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After further than 400 years as a Portuguese colony, the eastern part of the
island of Timor was moving towards decolonization and becoming a free state when
Indonesia invaded the territory in 1975. So far, over one third of the
inhabitants of East Timor have decomposed in the worst genocide per capita since
the holocaust. Though the past year has seen lots of transforms in Indonesia,
with East Timorese in the city of Dili, the capital realizing more liberty to
state their views, this is a virtual depiction. East Timorese put their lives at
risk whenever they protest in fact, their lives were at risk even when they were
quiet, awful atrocities persist on a daily basis in the outer lying regions.
The disaster of East Timor is one of the world's best-kept secrets. The
Indonesian autocracy is a preferential trading partner of the majority Western
countries as of cheap labor and resources. Therefore so many governments, has
helped remain this genocide a secret. Thousands of Indonesian troops and secret
police watched over the East Timorese. No one, particularly a journalist, was
permissible to enter or leave the country devoid of permission.
Confrontation was rewarded with desertion, rape, torment, apprehend or murder.
For instance, on November 12, 1991, in what is called the Dili Massacre,
hundreds of unarmed women, men and children were killed for representing for
freewill. In spite of the risks, the East Timorese believe that to oppose is to
win, as well as insolently continued their struggle. The pro-democracy group in
Indonesia supported East Timor's struggle. And, internationally, East Timor
commonality movements become too big to ignore. “The 1996 Nobel Peace Prize was
awarded in two equal parts, to Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and Jose Ramos-Horta
for their work towards a just and passive resolution to the conflict in East
Timor”. (Taylor, 1999)
Carlos Belo, bishop of East Timor, has been the leading spokesperson of the
people of East Timor. At the threat of his own life, he has tried to defend his
people from infringements by those in control. In his efforts to form a
resolution based on his people right to self-government, he has been a steady
spokesman for peacefulness and dialogue with the Indonesian authorities.
“Ramos-Horta has been the foremost international spokesman for East Timor's
reason since 1975. He made a noteworthy input through the settlement talks and
by working out a tranquility plan for the state”. (Turner, 1998)
The human rights state of affairs fatally took situation in East Timor and
Indonesia itself. The 1996 State Department Country Report on Human Rights
Practices validates that Indonesia's armed forces persist to carry out
persecute, extra-judicial executions and other ruthless human rights violations,
together with the confinement and incarceration of East Timorese for the
expression of their supporting views. In the first half of 1997, consistent
reports document at least 707 arrests and 49 killings in East Timor. During
January to December 1998, human rights violations in East Timor took place in
all the four rustic regions in the territory. There are 31 parishes in these
four regions, and each parish falls under the liability of a rural community
priest. Human rights data is serene from each parish priest as well as other
foundations of the Justice and Peace Commission.
The major types of human rights violations stanch in East Timor were random
arrest and imprisonment, extra-judicial executions, instinctive and enforced
disappearances, threats and harassment, anguish and ill treatment, rape and
sexual mistreatment. There have also been violations in relation to land and
labor rights.
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All the aforementioned types of human rights infringements are violations of
civil, political, communal, inexpensive and cultural rights personified in the
covenants and treaties to which most U.N. member States are signatory. During
the period of January to December 1998, the Justice and Peace Commission
established 656 cases of human rights violations committed by the State against
East Timorese civilians. These cases were foundation on consequences from
investigations, fact-finding pasture trips as well as protests from victims as
well as their families made to the bishopric in Dili. These cases obviously
indicated that violations have sustained despite the transform of leadership in
Jakarta. Finally in 2002, East Timor declared as a democratic and sovereign
state. The trail to independence started when an irresistible majority of the
East Timorese on 30 August 1999 voted to break up from Indonesia. The United
Nations had taken on an exclusive liability in East Timor so as to set up the
foundations for a new structure of supremacy from the ground up as per the
Security Council Resolution 1272 of 25 October 1999.
Works Cited
Amnesty International. East Timor: Violations of Human Rights: Extra judicial
Executions, "Disappearances," Torture, and Political Imprisonment, 1975-1984.
London, U.K.: Amnesty International Publications, 1985, PG 65,
Jones, Sidney. Injustice, Persecution, Eviction: A Human Rights Update on
Indonesia and East Timor. New York, NY: Asia Watch, 1990, PG 43,
O'Shaughnessy, Hugh. East Timor: Getting Away With Murder? / Words and pictures
by Hugh O'Shaughnessy. London: British Coalition for East Timor, 1994, PG 86,
Scharfe, Sharon. Complicity: Human Rights and Canadian Foreign Policy, The Case
of East Timor / Sharon Scharfe; photographs by Elaine Briere. Montreal: Black
Rose Books, 1995, PG 61,
Taylor, John G. Indonesia's Forgotten War: The Hidden History of East Timor /
John G. Taylor. London; Atlantic Highlands, N.J., USA: Zed Books; Leichhardt,
NSW, Australia: Pluto Press Australia, c1999, PG 98,
Telling: East Timor, Personal Testimonies, 1942-1992 / Michele Turner.
Kensington, NSW, Australia: New South Wales University Press; Portland Or. :
International Specialized Book Services, 1999, pg 23
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