The world's betrayal of East Timor

A market at Baukau, East Timor, before the Indonesian invasion I visited East Timor in about 1973. This photo was from that visit. When I visited East Timor in about 1973 it was a Portuguese protectorate or colony. There was a revolution in Portugal in 1974 and the subsequent Portuguese government virtually threw the Portugal's overseas colonies (Angola, Mozambique and East Timor) onto their own resources. This could be called the first betrayal. Not surprisingly there was a struggle for power within each of the ex-colonies. The detailed history of this period of East Timor's history can be read elsewhere, (see Wikipedia for example), however, I believe a fair and very short summary is as follows: Fretilin, an organisation with leftist tendencies, reached dominance within East Timor; At the time there was great fear of communism among Western nations, none of them wanted a new country with perceived communist tendencies in the southeast Asian region; There seems to have been a behind the scenes flurry of conversations between particularly the USA, Australia and Indonesia about the situation; The result was that Indonesia was told that neither the USA nor Australia would stand in the way of Indonesia forcing East Timor's integration into the Indonesian nation (sometimes called the Javanese Empire – therein lies another story). Of course Indonesia was the primary culprit in the East Timorese genocide. The Indonesian treatment of West Papua (Irian Jaya in Bahasa Indonesia) is possibly just as bloody and criminal as their treatment of East Timor. The West, and the rest of the world, hears very little about West Papua because the Indonesian government hides their crimes in that state to the best of their ability (and The West seems not to be very interested anyway). I have written about Australia's specific (and repeated) involvement in the betrayal of East Timor's on another page on this site. East Timor, or Portuguese Timor as it was then, was one of Australia's closest neighbours. It is a matter deserving of national shame. However, Australia redeemed itself to some extent by sending troops to East Timor to restore order in 1999 (starting on 1999/09/20) following Indonesia's granting of self determination under President Habibie. The West's, and Australia's, shoddy treatment of East Timor, was particularly shameful considering the support that the East Timorese people gave the Allies against the Japanese in WW2. Peter Stanley wrote: "While 150 Australians died in the Timor campaign, 40,000 Timorese paid the real price. Has Australia made good the price in blood that they paid? We owe Timor a debt." Related pages Related external pages... East Timor Retrospective, by Noam Chomsky, October 1999 - just after the deployment International Force East Timor (INTERFET - mainly Australian) troops to restore peace. Death of a Nation: The Timor Conspiracy; a movie exposing the world's shame over East Timor by John Pilger. Indonesian invasion of East Timor; Wikipedia. Indonesian occupation of East Timor; Wikipedia. Australia and the Indonesian occupation of East Timor; Wikipedia. 1999 East Timorese crisis; Wikipedia. Australia's shame over East Timor; Sydney Morning Herald. INTERFET: History in Focus; Anzac Portal; Sharing Australia's military and service history through the experiences of our veterans Remembering Darwin … and Timor, February 1942, by Peter Stanley. A largely untold story? The East Timorese suffered following the Japanese invasion in WW2, which itself seems to have been in response to the Australians stationing troops in a neutral territory. 150 Australians and 40,000 Timorese died. Related material on this site... Australia's shoddy treatment of East Timor USA's involvement in East Timor's betrayal Ashamed to be Australian? Change Australia

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