| East Timor is a new nation-state. It has been 28 years since it gets independence in 1974.When we look back the 28-years history of East Timor, we found that East Timor was influenced by the international context and the great powers all the time in the long process for independence. As a small role on the international political arena, its fate is shaped to some extent.East Timor was once a Portuguese colony in the long period of colonial rule. On the one hand, Portuguese kept East Timor's original clan system, even intensify its internal conflicts. On the other hand, Portuguese reinforced the sense of difference between East Timor and West Timor. This has caused a bad impact. After Word Warâ…¡, many newly independent courtiers emerged on the international political arena along with the wave of decolonization. As long as the Portugal's government didn't want to abandon East Timor, it must do so when the new government came to power in 1974.East Timor get the hope of independence.However, Indonesia want to annex East Timor. In the Indonesia's intervention, the struggle between East Timor's three larger political parties lead to a civil war. In the background of cold war and getting the support of United Sates and other countries, Indonesia found excuses to annex East Timor. East Timor became the 27th countries of Indonesia. East Timor's process of independence was interrupted.Indonesia started running East Timor from the end of 1976. Along with investing there, Indonesia also took colonial measures in East Timor, including implant Indonesia's language, culture to the East Timorese and repressing the people of East Timor who resisted. Various forces of East Timor united because of a common enemy. A sense of a"common entity"was being intensified. In a sense, this kind of sense of common entity was shaped by the external forces. But from 1976 to 1989, because of the disregarding of the international society mainly those countries having substantial influences on Indonesia, East Timor was fighting alone for a long period. Their power was so much weaker than Indonesia that they were just doing a job continuing their fighting, which cannot have any substantial influence.In the end of the 20th century, the overall international situation experienced some changes. The calling of democracy and freedom was so high that the whole world seemed to be blowing wind everywhere before the coming of the storm. The Indonesian government decided to open East Timor to show its accomplishment and the democracy there, but which finally lead to the Dili event. At that time, the Cold War had come to an end, Indonesia's strategic position had been weakened, and the powers of the public voice, non-governmental organizations were rising. Because of the mass media's revealing of Dili event, it makes East Timor the small role almost forgot by the international society once again draw the world's attention. Under this circumstance, the resisting power of East Timor also adopted a new strategy according to the new situation, namely nonviolent resistance, which gained widespread international sympathy. However, the pressure of the public voice, nongovernmental attention can just focus on the criticizing of human rights, which still cannot compete with the sovereign states and have influence on the Indonesian government. As Suharto's reign being stable, the western countries were all convinced that it was still of great advantages to keep a good relation with Indonesia. Therefore after some simple criticism, the countries like U.S. still had close relations with Indonesia. The independence of East Timor need another opportunity that was just the Asian financial crisis.Although the Asian financial crisis itself maybe a disaster, it's positive from the view of its political impact upon East Timor's issues. Suharto stepped down in financial crisis, and Western countries put pressure on Habibi government out of their own consideration. Considering many factors, Habibi government finally decided to allow for the referendum of East Timor people. If the referendum result is that more than half don't support the mergence of East Timor into Indonesia, Indonesia will allow East Timor's independence. On August 30, 1999, the referendum held, and the result was that 78.5% of the citizen didn't agree that. The people of East Timor should have achieved independence, but the Indonesian military didn't reconcile. With the support of the military in Indonesia, some who supported the merger of East Timor with the Indonesia in East Timor started the riots and led to a large-scale bloody conflict. Like what happened in 1974, the independence of East Timor was interrupted again by external force because of the changed international environment. However, just like Indonesia had to take into account the international environment to find an excuse to send troops when they annexed East Timor in 1976, now Indonesia can not simply ignore the attitude of the international community. Under the pressure of The United Nations, the United States, Australia and Japan, Indonesia was forced to accept the takeover of East Timor by the UN. The United Nations founded East Timor Transitional Administration and completely takes over East Timor's affairs. But the United Nations with non-governmental organizations under its guidance don't take into account the local culture, social structure and some other specific circumstances, and arbitrarily act according to its own will so as to be criticized as "neo-colonial" by some commentators. After nearly three years of unsuccessful management, the United Nations hand over the right of management to East Timorese. East Timor has its own constitution, elected its own president and gets its nation-state identity; however, the long-term social problems formed by interference of foreign forces were not resolved because of its national identity.Looking through the history from 1974 to 2002, we find that East Timor, as a small role on the international arena, its fate is not entirely in its own hands. Although it opposes consistently, the change of its fate is mainly shaped by the international environment and great powers, even protest itself is a rebound under pressure from outside and the means of protest needs to be changed to meet the change of international environment. In the process of resistance, because salvation overrides everything, it hides instead of solving internal conflicts. When foreign forces withdraw, the problem caused by the disappearance of external force and the internal problem highlight at the same time. As a result, when we view the current situation in East Timor, we should use a historical perspective to see the cause and effect of this problem and the mode of its fate by big country, rather than simply rebuke. In dealing with the dilemma that East Timor face, those countries that have shaped East timor's destiny should shoulder its share of responsibility.
|
PDF Full Text Request