Indonesia ́s Annexation of East Timor

The annexation of East Timor by Indonesia was completed in its broad outlines during 1976. The new relationship was legally formalized to Indonesian satisfaction on 17 July when President Suharto signed a bill designating East Timor as Indonesia's twenty-seventh province. Subsequent decrees transformed the Provisional Govern ment into a provincial government and restructured the administrative system of the new province along Indonesian lines. The Timorese Popular Democratic Association (Apodeti) Party leader Arnaldo dos Reis Araujo was appointed as the first governor. Observers outside Indonesia charged that the annexation was accomplished by the weight of Indonesian arms with no opportunity for the East Timorese people to express their wishes m an act of self-determination. Indonesian and pro Indonesian East Timorese spokesmen replied that the East Timorese people had expressed themselves adequately through the four-party Anti-Communist Movement, the Provisional Territorial Assembly of East Timor, and several con sultations with Indonesian fact-finding missions. Collectively, these spokesmen argued, these expressions constituted an act of self-determination and rendered a United Nations supervized referendum superfluous. A majority of UN members voted otherwise in meetings of the General Assembly's Fourth Committee on Trusteeship and Non-Self-Governing Territories, the Special Committee on Decolonization, the General Assembly's 2,439th Plenary Session, and the Security Council. Each of these meetings passed resolutions urging Indonesia to withdraw its troops from East Timor and to assist in the carrying out of a UN supervized act of self-determination. However, no UN action was taken to reverse the fait accompli and no referendum was held. Meanwhile the Indo?esian authorities proceeded with the details of integrating the former Portuguese colony with the political, administrative, and economic patterns pre vailing m the rest of the Republic

Annexation · Political science · Politics · International Maritime Law Issues · Law · Peacebuilding and International Security · Post-Soviet Geopolitical Dynamics · Public Administration

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