The East Timor Question

The Struggle for Independence from Indonesia

Stephen McCloskey, Paul Hainsworth, Stephen McCloskey, Paul Hainsworth

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2000
• Print ISBN:
  9781860644085
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780857712295
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

Originally colonized by the Portuguese, East Timor was brutally invaded and occupied by Indonesian military forces in 1975. According to the UN, this resulted in the death of about a third of the population through massacres, starvation and disease. Subsequent events in Indonesia, however, have given rise to expectations of a fundamental change in its position on East Timor. Considering the potential for change against a backdrop of growing popular and political support for the Timorese cause, this book addresses its emergence as an issue of global importance. The authors set out to show how local, grassroots, individual, organizational and campaign initiatives have contributed to this state of affairs, in the context of an increased international-relations emphasis on ethics, international morality and human rights.

Table of contents

• Cover
• CONTENTS
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• 1 Introduction: East Timor – From European to Third World Colonialism
• 2 A Personal Journey through East Timor
• 3 Reporting East Timor: Western Media Coverage of the Conflict
• 4 Balibo: The Cover-up that Led to Genocide
• 5 The Legacy of the Suharto Dictatorship
• 6 The Indonesian Propaganda War against East Timor
• 7 Seeds of Hope – East Timor Ploughshares Disarming the Hawks
• 8 New Labour, New Codes of Conduct? British Government Policy towards Indonesia and East Timor after the 1997 Election
• 9 The United States: From Complicity to Ambiguity
• 10 Canberra: Jakarta’s Trojan Horse in East Timor
• 11 The Local Meets the Global: East Timor and Ireland’s Presidency of the European Union
• 12 East Timor and Western Sahara: A Comparative Perspective
• 13 South Africa’s Transition: Lessons for East Timor?
• 14 Conclusion: East Timor After Suharto – A New Horizon
• Index of Names
• Index of Places