Talk:History of East Timor

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the History of East Timor article.
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[edit] earlier comments

When discussing the event in East Timor (and probably many other places) you can't ignore the effects and influence of the arms trade on the development of those events. The following are just a few of the available sources. http://www.motherjones.com/arms/indonesia.html http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/indoarms.html http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/indo101001.htm#weapons2 http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/armstradecodeofconduct.htm

For British involvement http://www.oneworld.org/ips2/sept99/14_45_070.html Eclecticology 09:57 Sep 3, 2002 (PDT)

From the article:

  1. Throughout the period 1975-1995 more than a billion dollars worth of American weapons were sold to Indonesia.
  2. In addition, 80 million dollars of free equipment was provided between 1975 and 1982.
  3. The sale of arms to any country intending to use them for aggressive purposes is illegal under American law.

It would help the article if someone could document any of the above points. I'd particularly like to see a definition of the word "aggressive" in the 3rd point.

Also, in general it's more helpful (and less provocative) to attribute claims to their proponents, as in The People's Movement for a Free and Independent East Timor said that... or whatever the case may be. Then it doesn't matter so much what the US really did: the article is only reporting what the PMFIET said they did. --Ed Poor

What caused Timor to develop into East and West? Different ethnic groups? Different colonial masters? Rmhermen 11:52 Sep 3, 2002 (PDT)

I guess Bush decided to side with the separatists:

The United States salutes the establishment of East Timor, the first new nation of the millennium. With those in Dili, we celebrate the successful conclusion of the long struggle of the people of East Timor for an independent nation. We are heartened that the people of East Timor have embraced the path of democracy that will lead their nation to peace and prosperity. On behalf of the American people, I congratulate Xanana Gusmao, who was sworn in as East Timor's first President. [1]

And here's some Australian politician recounting his version of what happened:

A unilateral declaration of independence by Fretilin in November 1975 was followed by an overt Indonesian invasion of East Timor in December. The newly elected Coalition Government, led by Malcolm Fraser, was robust in its criticism of this use of force but unsuccessful in achieving its objective of a United Nations-supervised act of self-determination in the territory. Indonesia*satisfied by its own political processes that the East Timorese wished for integration with Indonesia*formally incorporated the territory on 17 July 1976, an incorporation recognised by Australia in 1979. [2]

--Ed Poor

Noam Chomsky wrote, "During the 24-year-long Indonesian military occupation, more than 200,000 people * one-third of the population * were killed." [3]

Noam Chomsky is just about the very definition of "unreliable source". His writings on human language acquisition are classic and brilliant; his writings on anything at all political are total hogwash. --LDC
Perhaps we ought to see his sources before we dismiss his figure due to a personality conflict. user:Montrealais
While I think you're the one with "hogwash" here, LDC, Chomsky's a dumb source to use on this issue. It's not like he discovered the atrocities himself here. It makes much more sense to go to the closest sources, rather then get dragged into a debate on Chomsky's credibility that's completely unnecessary.

NB -- The closest sources agree with Chomsky.

I recently added a paragraph on World War II history, based on [4], [5], [6], [7] and [8]. It was replaced shortly afterwards with what I can only assume, based on the cited references, is a revisionist history sympathetic to the Japanese. I reverted it. I am not an expert on East Timorese history, so if the author of this section (User:PinkBotRX) wishes to make a case for his/her addition, I will consider it on its merits. -- Tim Starling 04:55 21 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I was going to revert it myself, Tim. Your version is much better, and doesn't try to hide ugly facts. Tannin 06:55 21 Jun 2003 (UTC)
The ultimate source of "East Timorese civilian casualties have been estimated at 40,000" is Rondan (April 17, 1985), a Japanese magazine, where a Christian poster in Kobe insisted so. Shortly after that, he took back the statement and apologized. The groundless rumor is, however, being circulated without verification as you have seen several times. Anyway, labeling an objection as a revisionist view is quite common to WW II-related topics. --Pinko
Historical revisionism (of the bad kind) is real and it must be fought. The only way to fight it is by applying a high level of academic rigour — searching for the truth rather than for confirmation. Clearly at least one side of this debate is applying historical revisionism, because there are two inconsistent histories of the same event, one of them sympathetic to the Japanese, the other to the Australians & Allies. If you want to continue replacing my paragraph with yours, you'd better have some good references to back it up. With URLs, please. -- Tim Starling 15:47 23 Jun 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Operasi Komodo and UDT Coup

Can someone add sections on these events - they are quite important events in the dying months of Portuguese rule and the lead-up to the Indonesian invasion


I agree, PMA. Alas, while I stayed reasonably current on the events at the time they were taking place, that was a long, long time ago and I've forgotten most of it. Tannin 04:08, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC)

[edit] What?

Many socialist and communist leaders, in fact, saw independence as unrealistic, and were open to discussions with Jakarta over Portuguese Timor's incorpration into the Indonesian state.

What????????????????????????????????????????? Pedro 02:28, 4 May 2004 (UTC)
Please spend less time writing question marks and more time fixing the article. Dispute boilerplates are for when the discussion has broken down, not for when you just couldn't be bothered fixing something. -- Tim Starling 08:33, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)
I'll try to get info. But this article is very partial. If you say "Many socialist and communist leaders, in fact, saw independence as unrealistic, and were open to discussions with Jakarta over Portuguese Timor's incorpration into the Indonesian state." would be a major scandal in Portugal. The article is suspitions, forgets the importance of Portugal in the guerilla and independence of East Timor. And tries to make Portugal the "bad" in the story and the USA the good, when the USA has almost half of the Guilt along with Australia. But I'll try to see the timorese view on these issues. Maybe you think I'm being partial cause 'm Portuguese. But I believe that I'm not I growed hearing about East Timor like most Portuguese. That also became a Portuguese fight.--Pedro 12:30, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I don't care whether you're Portuguese or Martian. My problem is that you're complaining and not fixing. See Wikipedia:Why Aren't These Pages Copyedited, Wikipedia:Avoiding common mistakes and Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages. Fix it, then put it on your watchlist and make sure nobody reverts it. -- Tim Starling 00:47, Jul 28, 2004 (UTC)


I guess Bush decided to side with the separatists: Bush did not 'side with the separatists' in East Timor, firstly because they were not 'separatists' in the first place, and secondly, by the time of Bush's election East Timor was on its way to independent statehood. So what else would he have said? And, Alexander Downer is not just 'some Australian politician' - he's the foreign minister.

As regards Pedro's remarks, Costa Gomes and other socialist or communist leaders did say in 1974 that independence for East Timor, and were open to the idea of incorporation into Indonesia, though not the way things turned out. 02:55, 30 Dec, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] GWU national security archive

The cat's out of the bag - a huge amount of stuff has recently been published by the National Security Archive.

Start from here to read straight from the horse's mouth: http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB174/index.htm Boud 10:26, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Australia

Perhaps more needs to be said of Australia. The oil issue is clearly a big one and only get's brief mention here. Especially since Australians like to present themselves as the heroes and saviours of East Timor thanks to INTERFET when in reality the Australia gov along with the US (and UK?) where a big stumbling block and a villian for a long time (and Oz continues to deny East Timor their rights) Nil Einne 14:40, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed merger with the article Australia's alleged East Timor cover up

The merger tag was posted today without comment that I can find. I'm no expert on Timor, Australia or an alleged cover up, but I have a couple of more generic observations:

  • 1. From looking at Talk:Australia's alleged East Timor cover up, there's a lot of controversy over POV in the other article. In fact there's been a proposal to delete the article for POV reasons. Purely from a process point of view, you might want to straighten out those issues before any merger.
  • 2. There's so much in the article on the alleged cover up topic that it would really lengthen the History of East Timor article. If the other article is not deleted, it might make more editorial sense to mention the cover up allegations in one sentence in this article and then include a link to the other article.--A. B. 15:17, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about that. It was me that added the merge tag; I should have added a comment as well. AaETcu is proposed for deletion for being POV. Now that's not a valid reason to delete a page, but it has to be said that the material there doesn't really hang together ATM. It's not really a single topic, so much as a couple of different topics with a common feature - Australian misbehaviour during the history of East Timor. The question is, would it enhance this page to merge in some or all of the material on that page? Regards, Ben Aveling 08:41, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Indonesian People's View on East Timor

I'm an Indonesian, a Christian, 17 years old and I've read the History of East Timor article. I think it's so unfair and gives negative view to Indonesia, especially Indonesian government policy. The facts are right but this article doesn't give facts from Indonesian side.


There are several unfair facts, i.e :

1. The Associação Popular Democrática Timorense (Timorese Popular Democratic Association or Apodeti) supported integration with Indonesia, as an autonomous province, but had very little grassroots support.

Declaration of Balibo (1975) had proved this wrong.


2. In the mid-1990s, the pro-democracy People's Democratic Party (PRD) in Indonesia called for withdrawal from East Timor. The party's leadership was arrested in July 1996.[8]

The head of PRD, Budiman Sudjatmiko, was arrested with some other PRD leaders in July 1996 not only because of East Timor issue, but also for several critics against authoritarian government of Suharto, including demand for Suharto's withdrawal from presidential position. During Suharto's regime, this issue was extremely 'taboo'.


3. Directly after this, Indonesian-backed paramilitaries as well as Indonesian soldiers carried out a campaign of violence and terrorism in retaliation

Some paramilitary organizations (popular in Indonesia and East Timor as milisi) were immediately established by loyal pro-integration volunteer. One of those was Besi Merah Putih (Red and White Iron, BMP) led by Eurico Guterres (had been sentenced for 10 years at the recent time by Indonesian court). These milisi didn't get any support from neither Indonesian government nor its military. They made violences, riots and so on because they believed that the referendum was unfair. UNAMET which controlled the referendum was considered pro-Australia, a country that has so many self-interest on East Timor. The only 21.5% result of referendum for pro-integration didn't reflect the true opinion of East Timorese. In campaigns before referendum, pro-integration and pro-independence mass are balanced.

There were also some reports that the pro-integration people were forced to vote for independence. The Fretilin's military forces (Falintil) came to their houses in the morning right before referendum. The pro-independence or Fretilin, believed that USA and Australia would aid them, launched a counterattack against pro-integration milisi and even attack Indonesian forces that were ready to withdraw from East Timor. No choice for those poor Indonesian forces but to defend themselves; otherwise they'd die.

Many pro-integrations had said the referendum as ragged, but no Western countries believe. But when Viktor Yushchenko in Ukraine, Aliaksandar Milinkevich in Belarus, and Mikhail Saakashvili in Georgia said so, you can see: sanctions, critics, and else. What a democracy. So what is democracy? It is Western countries' way to control the culture of Eastern countries. Hamas in Palestine won the election by what the Westerns said as democracy, but the biggest democratic country in the world gave economic sanction as the result. Lee family in Singapore, Kings in Saudi Arabia, were they elected by democracy? But the biggest democratic country in the world didn't say anything about it.


4. This is the fact:

What did Portugal do for East Timor? During three centuries they did nothing. They colonized East Timor and made the people suffer. They left East Timor in civil war.

What did Indonesia do for East Timor? When East Timor became the 27th province of Indonesia, the Suharto government build the roads, buildings, bridges, churches, electricities, telephone networks, water supplies, hospitals, universities. Indonesian government improved the economy, health and education in East Timor. The militias killed approximately 1,400 Timorese and forcibly pushed 300,000 people into West Timor as refugees. The majority of the country's infrastructure, including homes, irrigation systems, water supply systems, and schools, and nearly 100% of the country's electrical grid were destroyed. Impossible. They built it and then they destroyed it. Even if it was right, East Timorese didn't cost anything. Indonesian government only took what had they given. The infrastructure maintenance in East Timor was the fastest among the other provinces in Indonesia in 80s. Many other provinces felt slightly unhappy because of this unfair policy. Ex-Vice President Try Sutrisno said at that time to the people which criticized the lack of develompent in East Timor 'Only crazy people say that the development of infrastructure in East Timor isn't good'.

What did USA and Australia do for East Timor? In 1975 they let Indonesia 'invade' East Timor and didn't say anything. A poor region that won't give anything, they thought. And then, there are issue that uranium was found in Timor Gap. An established and strong government of Indonesia can't be forced to share much of it, thought the Australian government. If East Timor is independent, their poor, newborn and weak governmnent will be easily tempted to share those materials. In 1998, Australia spoke loudly for Indonesian withdrawal from East Timor. Under the banner of anti-imperialism. But also with the help from the country that invaded Philippines, Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Vietnam and Iraq. They sent troops, 'liberate' East Timor, let East Timorese declared their independence in triumph and euphoria, and then left them again. Now, East Timor is one of the poorest nations in the world.

I'll continue next time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adri K. (talk • contribs)

Paragraph 3 of point 4 does make a lot of sense. I agree with you. But considering that, what now doesn't make sense is East Timor's independence. Was it just a matter of pride? Was there something political behind want for independence? They were abandoning what Indonesia did for them, but for what? Redshift489 06:17, 3 March 2007 (UTC)Redshift489

[edit] citation needed

for this paragraph:

"The United States had also expressed concerns over Portuguese Timor in the wake of the war in Vietnam. Having gained Indonesia as an ally, Washington did not want to see the vast archipelago destabilised by a left-wing regime in its midst." --pmoney 09:43, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment

This is supposed to be an article about the History of East Timor, not History of East Timor and extensive quotes of U.S. approval of it's subjugation. CJK 21:50, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why East Timor Exists

One item of information that I have not seen mentioned once is the issue of Religion. The Roman Catholic faith is the only substantial interior support and life of these people. They were so severely beaten down, threatened, and yes, KILLED by the highly violent Islams who dominate the majority of Indonesia. For the sake of life and religious freedom, they had no choice but to create their own nation, which did not come without enormous loss of not just Catholic, but also Protestant lives. The small minority of Muslims who still live in that section of the island were feared and still are.

Another issue that I have not seen mentioned at all is the very "vibrant" (unfortunately, male and female, starting from age 3--my authority being immigrants from Malaysia, in a free country now, but still very watchful of their children) child sex slave industry which has been taking place in that part of the world for far too long. It is rarely reported, except for the Christian radio stations, and of course, because of the faith of these people, they would not tolerate it any longer, and were willing to fight for their children and for the rights of children of surrounding islands.

Christians, and most especially Catholic Christians have been martyred by the thousands, island by island; these people have been standing for Religious Freedom, which includes respect for the youngest (they abhor abortion) and the oldest in their culture.

I vote that more research be examined, and ALL information be included in the history of East Timor, including whatever cover-ups may have occured so that a complete and truthful history be available to everyone. No more should there be ANY re-writing of "history." The truth shall set us all free that we may learn from error and never again repeat the same.

[edit] Religion Issue in East Timor (reply for the opinion above)

Indonesia is a multiethnic and multicultural nation. Its motto is 'Bhinneka Tunggal Ika' that literally means 'Those different things are the same one'. So, if you're talking about Indonesia, you can't only talk about Javanese (majority ethnic, almost 50%) or only about Islam (majority religion, almost 80%).

You can't say 'Muslim Indonesians KILLED people in East Timor because they're Catholic'. Informations for you, (which I think didn't know anything about Indonesian culture) Catholics in Indonesia aren't ony in East Timor. There are high percentage of Christians in Indonesia big cities, and Christians are major population in North Celebes, North Sumatra (these two provinces have an estimated population about 15.000.000 people), and a high-populated regency in Central Java, Magelang. A church will be easily find in Indonesia, except in some areas.

President of Indonesia (constitutionally should be a Muslim) occasionally come to national Christmas celebration in Jakarta. How about in USA or other Western countries? Do your government representations come to an Islamic feast celebration? Almost 20% of Parliament members in Indonesia are Christians. How are the Parliaments in Western countries? How much are the Muslims percentage? For information, current Prime Minister of East Timor Mari Amude Alkatiri is also a Muslim, born to a Yemen family in Dili.

Indonesia is a place where you can find the high tolerance for religion. More than Western countries which often claim themselves as the place of liberty and freedom. I'm a Christian, and I'm also proud of my nationality: Indonesian.

Back to East Timor issue, actually there's no (or only little) religion issue there. If Indonesian Muslims treat the Christians so bad, not only East Timor; North Celebes, North Sumatra, Papua, Magelang, and even a half of capital city Jakarta will demand an independence. I don't say that in Indonesia, Muslims treat us Christians very well. We realize that we are still considered as slight minorities. But we can still express our faith to Lord Jesus Christ, and then to our red-and-white banner and garuda emblem.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Adri K. (talk • contribs)

Yes, from my understanding, religious differences were not a major reason (if at all) for any abuses, mistreatment etc, nor was it the reason why East Timor sought independance. Altough of course, the Church was used as a vehicle for independance but was not a REASON for wanting it. --Merbabu 03:10, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Correct. East Timorese used Christian church to show there difference from Indonesia. 1975 only 30% of ETimorese were Christian. Originally they were Animists. --J. Patrick Fischer 07:19, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template

If anyone knows East Timorere history very well, then please create the unexisted articles in Template:History of East Timor. 96.229.179.106 (talk) 05:58, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Nice work. I can't say I'm an expert, but I have a broad idea on East Timor history and I will have a go at filling out the template (some actually already exist) and maybe starting a few articles. --Merbabu (talk) 09:04, 16 February 2008 (UTC)