Sasha today in its history.
Author: Sasha
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Why did Indonesia allow the rich resources of East Timor to become independent? 20 May 2002: The United Nations Trusteeship of East Timor ends, and East Timor formally becomes independent from Indonesia as the Democratic Republic of East Timor, becoming the first newly established sovereign State of the 21st century.
Why did Indonesia let East Timor become independent?
Because East Timor is inherently an independent state.
Indonesia is a concept proposed by British scholars in the 19th century, which refers to the inhabitants of the East Indies and the Malay Archipelago.
Before the 13th century, the Indonesian region was a myriad of scattered small countries with no concept of a unified state at all.
In the 13th century, the island of Java was founded by a state called Majapahit, which was a Hindu state.
At that time, Kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan Dynasty, sent a thousand warships to attack the island of Java, and joined forces with a warlord named Ktarayasa to attack the kingdom of Shinhashali. After a series of battles, the Mongols destroyed the Kingdom of Hinkhosauri and occupied half of the island of Java.
However, the Mongols' limited strength this time, coupled with the difficulty of obtaining supplies, did not adapt to the climate here, and soon became untenable. At this time, the ally Ktarayasa took the opportunity to rebel, drove out the Mongols, and seized the country.
The Mongols had planned to increase their forces by fivefold the following year, eating Java with an army of 100,000 men, but cancelled their plans because of Kublai Khan's violent death.
Ktarayasa reaped the rewards and established the Majapahit state, but controlled only part of the island of Java, the rest being vassal states and nominally submissive territories.
Majapahit was also the first major power on the island of Java, but its territory was only part of what is now Indonesia.
You know, today's Indonesia includes Kalimantan, Sumatra, Irian, Sulawesi and Java, and Java is only fifth.
Indonesia did not have any formal unification until the arrival of white colonists.
Ironically, it was the Dutch colonists who really defined the concept of Indonesia as a nation.
From the beginning of the 17th century, the Dutch East India Company began to colonize Indonesia. It was not until the beginning of the 20th century that the Netherlands expanded to the territory of present-day Indonesia.
In other words, Indonesia does not exist at all, it is just a colony of the Dutch.
Interestingly, Indonesian nationalists see this as their country. After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union hoped to disintegrate the Dutch influence in Southeast Asia, and began to infiltrate into Indonesia, supporting it to achieve independence and get rid of Dutch control.
Let's turn to Timor-Leste.
As early as the 16th century, the Portuguese colonized Timor Island at the southern tip of the Malay Archipelago and ruled for 400 years until the Japanese occupied it in 1942. During this period, due to armed conflict with the Dutch, Portugal was forced to cede part of the island, namely West Timor.
West Timor became part of the Dutch East Indies colony and was later annexed by Indonesia.
During World War II, Japan occupied the island of Timor in one fell swoop. Although the Portuguese did not enter the war, they were forced to transfer their territory to East Timor.
Indonesia therefore believes that Timor-Leste is also part of Indonesia.
The portuguese dictatorship collapsed in 1974, and in 1975 the new government allowed East Timor to hold a referendum and introduce national self-determination. As a result, East Timor was able to become independent.
It can be seen that East Timor, which has been under Portuguese control for 400 years, was briefly occupied by Japan, but has no half-cent relationship with Indonesia.
In terms of residents, the indigenous peoples of East Timor are papuans of mixed ethnicity with Malays or Polynesians, accounting for 78 per cent of the population, Indonesians make up only 20 per cent and another 2 per cent are Chinese.
At the same time, Indonesians are mostly Muslims, while about 92% of East Timor's residents are Roman Catholics, Protestants make up 2.6% of the country's population, and only 1.7% are Muslims.
Just 9 days after East Timor's independence, Indonesia, which has been coveting the country's rich resources, sent troops to occupy all of East Timor.
Timor-Leste is a sovereign state recognized by the international community, and Indonesia's move has been strongly condemned by the international community.
In December 1975, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for indonesia to withdraw its troops, calling on all countries to respect the territorial integrity of Timor-Leste and the right of peoples to self-determination.
The Indonesian army was brutal and brutal, and during the more than 20 years of the subsequent occupation, it carried out massacres on the ground, killing up to 250,000 civilians in this small country with a population of hundreds of thousands.
However, due to the huge cultural, ethnic and religious disparities, East Timor could not be mixed with Indonesia, and the revolt lasted for more than 20 years.
On October 28, 1991, Indonesian troops arrested pro-East Timorese independence activists at dili Montael Church and shot and killed a young man named Sebastian Gomez. Gomez was shot unarmed, which provoked the anger of the local population. On November 12, more than 2,500 local people came to Santa Cruz Cemetery, home to the Gomez cemetery, where signs and banners protested the indiscriminate killing of innocents by Indonesian troops, while some shouted slogans for East Timorese independence.
Suddenly, a large number of Indonesian troops rushed to the cemetery and fired wildly at the demonstrators. In a short period of time, a total of 271 people were killed, 382 were injured, and 250 people were missing (destroyed).
Survivors recall that the Indonesian army ignored the cries for help from the seriously injured civilians and instead reloaded their guns one by one.
This kind of massacre is not a big deal for the Indonesian army. Only this time there were two American journalists in the crowd, Amy Goodman and Alan Nairn. They braved the hail of bullets to capture invaluable footage, but Alain Nairn was beaten by Indonesian soldiers and his skull smashed by the butt of a gun.
Amy Goodman escaped from East Timor with the filmed content and broadcast it to the world through The British Independent Television. The whole world was shocked to witness Indonesian soldiers killing people with their bare hands.
Unexpectedly, the Indonesian army that slaughtered civilians was not ashamed but proud. The then commander-in-chief of the Indonesian army also publicly declared on television: "Our army is not a decoration, and we must execute all these demagogues, yes, all of them."
For a time, the international community was almost entirely opposed to Indonesia. Originally, some neutrals or forces that secretly supported Indonesia also turned to opposition or stood by. Even people with conscience in Indonesia have begun to oppose the government's indiscriminate killing of innocents.
The Asian financial crisis broke out in 1997, and in 1998 Suharto, a murderous demon king who tried to divert the contradictions by slaughtering the Chinese, stepped down.
Indonesia was overwhelmed by its own inability to control East Timor, which once again declared its independence.
Indonesia is not dead-hearted, but also supports the so-called East Timorese pro-Indonesian forces, and has started a civil war in the country: the United Nations condemns the Indonesian government and security forces and is responsible for the deaths of 180,000 civilians in East Timor during the Indonesian occupation of East Timor.
The 180,000 people is already a staggering amount for China, not to mention that Timor-Leste is a small country of only 600,000 people.
At the same time, the Indonesian Government is responsible for 70 per cent of the 18,600 murders that occurred in East Timor between 1975 and 1999.
Even more exaggerated, Indonesia has also forcibly taken more than 5,000 children from East Timor as punishment for the rebels. Most of these children are abused, and some girls grow up with sexual abuse.
At the same time, the Indonesian army burned and committed adultery in East Timor, causing the wrath of the international community.
On September 20, 1999, after the intervention of international peacekeepers led by Australia, Indonesian troops were forced to withdraw, ending the endless massacre. As a result, East Timor formally broke away from Indonesian control and became completely independent two years later.
It should be noted that Although Timor-Leste is very small, with a population of just over 400,000 and a very poor population, it has extremely rich resources. Proven oil reserves alone amount to 187 million tonnes and natural gas to 700 billion cubic meters.
The atrocities committed by the Indonesian army in East Timor have brought terrible disasters to the country, and many people believe that they are even more brutal than the Japanese army in World War II.
Indonesian troops carried out retaliatory massacres of East Timorese, including beheading, cutting off their genitals, scalding prisoners with cigarette butts, and mass rape and sexual assault on East Timorese women.
A young girl named Angelina recalls that one day Indonesian troops and pro-Indonesian militia broke into her home, stole all their belongings, and killed her father. Angelina was also gang-raped by 11 soldiers and forced his father to witness the whole process before shooting him.
In 2001, the East Timorese court pronounced a verdict on the East Timor massacre, sentencing ten members of the domestic pro-Indonesian organization up to 33 years in prison for crimes against humanity. With the exception of these ten men, Indonesian officers and soldiers have largely escaped the punishment they deserve.
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