Indonesian invasion of East Timor
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| Indonesian invasion of East Timor | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Cold War | |||||||
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| Combatants | |||||||
 Indonesian Military |
 FRETILIN (FALINTIL) |
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| Commanders | |||||||
| Suharto
Maradean Panggabean |
Nicolau Lobato † | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 35,000 soldiers | 2,500 regular troops
7,000 milita 10,000 reservists Total 20,000 |
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| Casualties | |||||||
| Indonesians killed, wounded, or missing 2,000 | East Timorese killed 100,000 - 200,000 (mostly civilians) | ||||||
The Indonesian invasion of East Timor, also known as Operasi Seroja, or 'Operation Lotus', began on December 7 1975. With US approval, Indonesian forces launched a massive air and sea invasion using almost entirely US-supplied weapons and equipment.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Background
East Timor owes its territorial distinctiveness from the rest of Timor, and the Indonesian archipelago as a whole, to the fact that it was colonized by the Portuguese, not the Dutch, beginning in the mid-17th century (an agreement dividing the island between the two powers was signed in 1915). In alliance with local chieftains, the Portuguese established an increasingly harsh regime of exploitation and corvée (forced) labour that, by the turn of the twentieth century, swept up the entire able-bodied male population. The colonial regime was replaced by the Japanese during World War II, whose occupation spawned a resistance movement that resulted in the deaths of 60,000 Timorese, or 13 percent of the entire population at the time.
After the war, the Dutch East Indies rapidly became the independent republic of Indonesia. The Portuguese, meanwhile, re-established control over East Timor; but in April 1974, the Portuguese armed forces mounted a coup d´état against the fascist government in Lisbon (see Carnation Revolution), and announced their intention of rapidly divesting Portugal of its overseas empire (including Angola and Mozambique). Indigenous political parties rapidly sprang up in Timor. Elections for a National Constituent Assembly were set for 1976, with full independence anticipated three years thereafter. By 1975, the leading political force in the territory was Fretilin (the Revolutionary Front of Independent East Timor), which had established strong grassroots support throughout the countryside with progressive policies aimed at improving the lives of the peasantry. In January 1975, Fretilin formed an alliance with the other main political grouping, the UDT (Timorese Democratic Union), and local elections were held under the supervision of the Portuguese parliament's Decolonization Committee.
In mid-June 1975, Fretilin forces led by a former Portuguese soldier, Hermengildo Alves, had briefly seized power in Oecusse, a small enclave of Portuguese territory within West Timor. Jill Jolliffe reports that “the Portuguese regained control after sending a negotiating force from Dili as a result of which Alves was gaoled for twenty days and UDT and Fretilin agreed to rule jointly.” This coalition prevailed in the Oecusse enclave for the next few months.
However, within four days of their August 11 coup in the capital, UDT leaders arrested more than 80 Fretilin members, including future leader Xanana Gusmao. UDT members killed a dozen Fretilin members in four locations. The victims included a founding member of Fretilin, and a brother of its vice president, Nicolau Lobato. Fretilin responded by appealing successfully to the Portuguese-trained East Timorese military units. UDT’s violent takeover thus provoked the three-week civil war, pitting its fifteen hundred troops against the two thousand regular forces now led by Fretilin commanders.
By the end of August, UDT remnants were retreating toward the Indonesian border. A UDT group of nine hundred crossed into West Timor on September 24, followed by more than a thousand others, leaving Fretilin in control of East Timor for the ensuing three months. The death toll in the civil war reportedly included four hundred people in Dili and possibly sixteen hundred in the hills. In the aftermath, “numerous UDT supporters were beaten and jailed” by the Fretilin victors.
Indonesia stepped up its plans for invasion. In early September, as many as two hundred special forces troops launched incursions, which were noted by U.S. intelligence, and in October, conventional military assaults followed. Indonesian forces murdered five journalists in the border town of Balibo on October 16.[2]
[edit] Invasion
The invasion, which began in the early hours of 7 December 1975, came in the form of a naval bombardment on Dili, followed by landings of paratroopers from the air and of marines on the beaches. Indonesian soldiers killed civilians indiscriminately in the streets of Dili, and after an incident when Indonesian soldiers fired on each other, indulged themselves in a rampage of rape, looting of Chinese shops and public executions on the wharf. On December 10, a second invasion resulted in the capture of the second biggest town, Baucau, and on Christmas Day, around 10,000 - 15,000 troops landed at Liquisa and Maubara, where further mass killings of civilians took place. By April 1976 Indonesia had some 35,000 soldiers in East Timor, with another 10,000 standing by in Indonesian West Timor. A large proportion of these troops were from Indonesia's elite commands.
By mid-February, around 60,000 Timorese were dead. A puppet ''Provisional Government of East Timor'' was installed in mid-December, consisting of Apodeti and UDT leaders. Attempts by the United Nations Secretary General's Special Representative, Vittorio Winspeare Guicciardi to visit Fretilin-held areas from Darwin, Australia were obstructed by the Indonesian military, which blockaded East Timor. On May 31, 1976, a 'People's Assembly' in Dili, selected by Indonesian intelligence, unanimously endorsed an 'Act of Integration', and on July 17, East Timor officially became the 27th province of the Republic of Indonesia. Although the United Nations had turned a blind eye to the Indonesian annexation of West Irian some years previously, the occupation of East Timor remained a public issue in many nations, Portugal in particular, and the UN never recognised either the regime installed by the Indonesians or the subsequent annexation.
Although during the beginning of the conflict Fretilin controlled most of East Timor and, at the same time as organizing schooling, medicines and food distribution, managed to keep the powerful invading forces at bay. However, when the Indonesians started to use American OV-10 Bronco jets, supplied by the Carter administration, to bomb Fretilin militia in the mountains and lay waste the fields of corn and vegetables, resistance became difficult. Finally the Indonesian encirclement and annihilation campaign of 1977-1978 broke the back of the main Fretilin militia and the capable Timorese President and military commander, Nicolau Lobato, was shot and killed by helicopter-borne Indonesian troops on 31 December 1978. From then on the conflict turned into a small-scale guerilla warfare in which a few bands of Fretilin guerillas continued operating in some of the mountainous areas of East Timor.
The Fretilin militia who survived the annihilation campaign of the late 1970s chose Xanana Gusmao as their leader. He was caught by Indonesian intelligence agent near Dili in 1992, and was replaced by Mau Honi, who was in captured in 1993 and was in turn replaced by Nino Konis Santana. Santana was killed in an Indonesian ambush in 1998 and was replaced by Taur Matan Ruak. By the 1990s, there were only approximately less than 200 guerillas who remained in the mountains and the separatist idea has largely shifted to the clandestine front in the cities. The clandestine movement, however, was largely paralysed by continuous arrests and infiltration by Indonesian agents. The prospects of independence was very dark until the fall of Suharto in 1998 and President Habibie's sudden decision to grant referendum to East Timor in 1999.
[edit] US Involvement
A year earlier, in December 1974, Henry Kissinger of the US government had been asked by an Indonesian government representative whether or not the US would approve the invasion.[3] In March 1975, US Ambassador to Indonesia, David Newsom, recommended a ''policy of silence'' on the issue and was supported by Kissinger.[4] On October 8, 1975, a member of the National Security Council, Philip Habib, told meeting participants that ''It looks like the Indonesians have begun the attack on Timor''. Kissinger's response to Habib was, ''I'm assuming you're really going to keep your mouth shut on this subject.''[5]
On the day before the invasion, US President Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger met with Indonesian president Haji Mohammad Suharto. According to declassified documents released by the National Security Archive (NSA), in December of 2001, they gave a green light for the invasion. In response to Suharto saying "We want your understanding if it was deemed necessary to take rapid or drastic action [in East Timor]." Ford replied, "We will understand and not press you on the issue. We understand the problem and the intentions you have." Kissinger similarly agreed, though he had fears that the use of US-made arms in the invasion would be exposed to public scrutiny, talking of their desire to "influence the reaction in America" so that "there would be less chance of people talking in an unauthorised way".[6]
The U.S. also hoped the invasion would be relatively swift and not involve protracted resistance. "It is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly," Kissinger said to Suharto.
Western governments also had a role in supplying weapons to Indonesia. The U.S. had supported Suharto's regime in Indonesia during the Cold War as it was seen as a bulwark against communism and it continued the practice during the invasion of East Timor. While the U.S. government claimed to have suspended military assistance from December 1975 to June 1976, military aid was actually above what the Department of State proposed and Congress continued to increase it.
The U.S. also made four new offers of arms, including supplies and parts for 16 OV-10 Broncos which, according to Cornell University Professor Benedict Anderson, are "specially designed for counter-insurgency actions against adversaries without effective anti-aircraft weapons and wholly useless for defending Indonesia against a foreign enemy", adding that the policy continued under the Carter administration.
Testifying before Congress, the Deputy Legal Advisor of the State Department, George Aldrich aid the Indonesians "were armed roughly 90 percent with our equipment. ... we really did not know very much. Maybe we did not want to know very much but I gather that for a time we did not know." Indonesia was never informed of the supposed US "aid suspension". David T. Kenney, Country Officer for Indonesia in the State Department, also testified before Congress that one purpose for the arms was "to keep that area [Timor] peaceful."
The invasion was not given much coverage by the U.S. media. When the subject was covered, the deaths were attributed to the preceding civil war. This caused some to later accuse the media of blatant bias, because coverage of the genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge was much more common, due to the fact that more people were killed in a shorter period of time.
In 1992 the United States ended its military training programme in Indonesia, and in 1994 the United States banned the export of small arms and riot control equipment to that country. Nevertheless, organisations monitoring trade in arms have estimated that between 1992 and 1997 the United States sold more than $1 billion worth of arms to Indonesia.[citation needed] In 1995 the training programme was resumed but included lessons about human rights and the control of civilian crowds. The Joint Combined Exchange Training program managed by Green Berets and Air Force commandos continued until 1996 without the knowledge of Congress. The fact that some of the aircraft sold to the Indonesian army were not designed for offensive purposes did not prevent them from being so used. Arms sales to Indonesia remained suspended until a promise was received that lethal weapons and helicopters would not be used in East Timor. The UK government is also known to have allowed the sales of arms to be used in East Timor.[citation needed]
[edit] Australian Reaction
Similarly, Australian governments protested loudly in public after the event but had already provided private assurances that no substantive action would be taken. This was an unpopular policy with the Australian public, as the heroic actions of the Timorese people during World War II were well-remembered, and vigorous protests took place in Australia, but to no avail. It is widely believed that the primary motivating factor for the Whitlam and Fraser governments' lack of opposition was the possibility of oil being found in the waters between Australia and Timor.
[edit] UN Reaction
On December 12, 1975, the United Nations General Assembly approved a resolution according to which, "having heard the statements of the representatives of Portugal, as the Administering Power, concerning developments in Portuguese Timor...deplores the military intervention of the armed forces of Indonesia in Portuguese Timor and calls upon the Government of Indonesia to withdraw without delay its armed forces from the Territory...and recommends that the Security Council take urgent action to protect the territorial integrity of Portuguese Timor and the inalienable right of its people to self-determination".
However, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the US ambassador to the UN at the time, wrote in his biography that "the United States wished things to turn out as they did, and worked to bring this about. The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook [with regard to the invasion of East Timor]. This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with not inconsiderable success." (A Dangerous Place, Little Brown, 1980, p. 247) Later, he admitted that as American ambassador to the UN, he had defended a "shameless" Cold War policy toward East Timor.
[edit] Notes
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- [5] Indonesian Casualties in East Timor, 1975–1999: Analysis of an Official List.
- Gendercide Watch. Case Study: East Timor (1975-99)
- History of East Timor - Indonesia invades
- USING ATROCITIES: U.S. Responsibility for the SLAUGHTERS IN INDONESIA and EAST TIMOR by Peter Dale Scott, Ph.D.
- War, Genocide, and Resistance in East Timor, 1975–99: Comparative Reflections on Cambodia by Ben Kiernan
