In May 2002, the small southeast Asian country of East Timor finally became independent after
a campaign for statehood that had lasted for well over a quarter of a century.
While many observers see East Timor's quest for statehood as a model for
other territories seeking independence, as I'll show it actually falls into a
rather unusual category of independence movements in international relations.
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Hello and welcome. My name is James Ker-Lindsay.
If you're new to the channel,
here I take a look at international relations, conflict and the origins of countries.
The vast majority of the world's independence conflicts are secessionist in nature.
These are disputes where a part of an established state
wants to break away and become a country in its own right.
In most of these cases, the parent state - as the country it is trying to break away from
is usually known - refuses to grant permission and the territory in question is left with
little to no official international support for its attempts to become independent.
However, alongside these disputes,
there have been a select few cases when independence movement emerges
in a territory that does in fact have a legitimate and widely recognised right to statehood.
In these examples, the territory's path to statehood has in fact been thwarted
by an external power - most usually a neighbouring state that has made a land grab
for the territory at the point of decolonisation.
In a recent video, I looked at one such case:
Western Sahara. I've put a link above and in the description below.
However, another fascinating example was East Timor.
Unlike Western Sahara, which remains unresolved,
East Timor did in fact eventually manage to gain its independence.
But not without having to fight for almost 30 years to secure it.
East Timor - more properly and officially known as Timor-Leste - lies in South East Asia.
Located on the island of Timor, it shares a land border with Indonesia to its west
and is surrounded to its north and east by other Indonesian islands.
Immediately to its south, across the Sea of Timor,
is Australia; which lies approximately 500 kilometres, or 300 miles, away.
At 15,000 square kilometres,
or 5 800 square miles, it is the 154th largest of the UN's 193 member states.
Its population is around 1.27 million, making 156th in terms of population size.
The story really begins in the early 16th century
when the Portuguese first settled on the island and established a trading base.
A century later, the Dutch also arrived.
Colonising the western parts of the island, they forced the Portuguese over to the east of timor.
In 1859, the two countries formally delimited the boundaries between their two parts
under the Treaty of Lisbon.
This was followed by another convention, signed in 1893.
However, after another dispute arose, the matter was referred to the Permanent
Court of Arbitration, which set the final border between the two parts of the island.
Although the territory was occupied by Japan during the Second World War,
it was returned to Portuguese control at the end of the conflict.
However, and crucially, while the Dutch at this point relinquished their colonial holdings,
a process that led to the creation of Indonesia,
of which West Timor became a part, Portugal retained control of eastern Timor.
This determination to hold on to the territory continued even as the pace
of European decolonisation increased in the 1950s.
Portugal, which was under a dictatorship at the time, refused to accept the territories
were in fact colonies - arguing that they were instead overseas provinces of the country.
As a result, in December 1960, the UN general assembly passed Resolution 1542,
which determined Timor and its dependencies - along with other Portuguese colonial holdings,
such as Cape Verde, Guinea, Angola,
Mozambique and Goa - should be added to the UN's list of non-self-governing territories.
However, the situation changed radically on the 25 April 1974,
when a left-wing military coup - the so-called Carnation Revolution - overthrew the dictatorship.
Promising to restore democracy and reinstate civil liberties, the new regime also instituted
a major transformation in Portugal's approach to its overseas territories.
It now accepted the right of its colonial holdings to determine their own future.
Almost overnight the country retreated from what remained of its empire.
As well as relinquishing control over its two major holdings in Africa - Mozambique and
Angola, which would have been engaged in fighting local independence movements - it also decided to
give up Timor where, crucially, there hadn't been a major uprising against colonial rule.
In the months that followed plans were put in place for a handover of power.
As part of this, a general election was held.
This led to a coalition between the two biggest parties: the left-leaning Revolutionary Front
for an Independent East Timor FRETILIN and the conservative Timorese Democratic Union UDT.
However, this soon collapsed into armed conflict between the two groups.
Meanwhile, neighbouring Indonesia,
which had already made clear its hopes of being able to take control of the territory
following Portuguese decolonisation, now began to launch raids from West Timor
claiming that it was concerned about communist activity in the eastern part of the island.
Fearing the possibility of an Indonesian takeover, on 28 November 1975 Fretilin which
had now defeated the UDT declared the creation of an independent Democratic Republic of East Timor.
However, just nine days later, Indonesian forces went ahead and launched a full-scale invasion.
This was quickly condemned by both the UN General Assembly and by the UN Security Council.
Resolution 384, passed on 22 December 1975, not only called on all states to recognise
the inalienable right of the people of East Timor to self-determination and independence,
it also called on Indonesia to withdraw its forces from the territory.
Indonesia rejected the calls and in the following months
set up a provisional government in East Timor.
Then, in July 1976, the Indonesian parliament formally declared that
East Timor was now the country's 27th province.
Indonesia's invasion and occupation of East Timor
led to what would become a protracted uprising as Fretilin took up arms to resist the occupation.
In response, Jakarta imposed a harsh crackdown.
Indeed, over the course of the next two and a half decades, it's estimated that in total over 200
000 people lost their lives to the conflict and to the starvation caused by the occupation.
Meanwhile, despite its best efforts to cement its control over the territory, Indonesia failed
to make much headway internationally with its formal claim to sovereignty.
Indeed, just one country chose to back Jakarta's position.
In 1978, Australia formally recognised Indonesia's control over the territory in
a move that many came to regard as a stain on its reputation.
That said, the issue also slowly started to drop off the international radar.
Having been on the General Assembly's agenda between 1975 and 1982,
East Timor now ceased to appear.
However, this was all to change in 1991 when
Indonesian forces fired on mourners at a memorial for a pro-independence supporter.
While the number of deaths is disputed - with claims ranging from 65 to 270 - the attack,
which was caught on camera by visiting journalists, sparked
international outrage and galvanised many groups to publicise the plight of the East Timorese.
In the years that followed, East Timor enjoyed renewed attention.
This reached an apogee in 1996 when Jose Ramos-Horta,
who effectively served as East Timor's foreign minister,
and Bishop Carlos Belo, the head of the Catholic Church in East Timor, were jointly awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to reach a peaceful settlement of the issue.
But the real turning point came in 1998.
As Indonesia was rocked by the effects of the major financial crisis at the time,
pro-democracy protests erupted in the country.
After 30 years in power, Indonesia's dictator,
President Suharto, was forced to resign and a new government came to power.
And it now began to take a very different position on the question of East Timor;
accepting that it could be offered greater autonomy.
However, at the same time, Indonesia also continued to come under international pressure
to give the territory its right to self-determination, including statehood.
In early 1999, in a truly landmark moment, the new President of Indonesia, BJ Habibie,
announced that East Timor would be granted a vote on special autonomy - but on the
understanding that if this was rejected the alternative would be a separation from Indonesia.
In effect, Indonesia now recognised the option of full independence.
The referendum took place under UN auspices on the 30 August 1999.
With a turnout of 98.6% of almost 452,000 voters, the final result showed that 78.5% of
East Timorese rejected the proposal for special autonomy within the unitary state of Indonesia
and instead effectively voted for independence.
But while this should have been a moment for celebration,
it quickly turned to terror as Indonesian forces, operating in conjunction with
pro-Indonesian militias, now unleashed a wave of attacks across East Timor.
This not only resulted in hundreds of deaths, it's estimated that
half a million people fled the territory.
In response, and acting under UN authority, Australia now established a peacekeeping force.
This was replaced the following year when a more substantial UN mission
was put in place to help guide the country to independence.
Two years later, on 20 May 2002, East Timor formally and finally became independent.
Then on 27 September 2002, the Democratic Republic
of Timor-Leste was admitted as the 191st member of the United Nations.
East Timor is one of the most interesting cases of independence in modern international politics.
While it's often, though wholly incorrectly, viewed by many as a case of secession,
in fact it was actually a case of thwarted decolonisation.
Having been part of the Portuguese colonial empire it was forcibly annexed by Indonesia
following the former's hasty retreat from colonialism in the mid-1970s.
And yet, while Indonesia's claim was never accepted by the international community,
at one point it seemed as though East Timor would become another largely forgotten conflict.
It was only when Indonesia's brutal occupation was graphically exposed to
the world that an international campaign for independence really took off again.
But, even then, it was only following the overthrow of Indonesia's dictatorship
that the situation really changed.
But what's interesting is that, in essence, it shows that cases of traditional secession
and occupation following decolonisation often share one fundamental commonality.
Even where a territory has an explicit right of independence,
it invariably comes down to the controlling power as to whether it actually gets it.
I hope you found that interesting.
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Thanks so much for watching and see you in the next video