The Indonesian invasion of 1975 and the subsequent pacification program, which led to the loss of 200,000 East Timorese lives, was backed by the US administration in order to stabilise the repressive regimes in the region following the defeat in Vietnam.

To the dominant sections of the Indonesian military, the prospect of an independent East Timor was anathema. They insisted that the Communist controlled Fretilin be crushed and East Timor incorporated into Indonesia, lest the establishment of an independent state spark a revival of struggles against the military or encourage the development of separatist movements in other parts of the archipelago.

This view was reinforced by Washington. During their visit to Jakarta on December 6, 1975 part of a tour of south-east Asia aimed at bolstering the US position following the defeat in Vietnam the previous May President Ford and secretary of state Kissinger gave the go-ahead for the invasion, which was launched the following day. The content of the Kissinger-Ford discussions has never been revealed, but there is no doubt that the US made it clear that the invasion of East Timor had to go ahead.

According to the account of events provided to Australian journalist John Pilger by Philip Liechty, the CIA desk officer at the time: "[Ford and Kissinger] came and gave Suharto the green light. The invasion was delayed for two days so they could get the hell out. We were ordered to give the Indonesians everything they wanted, and US arms were shipped straight to East Timor without Congress knowing." Besides the wider geo-political concerns, the Australian government also had specific economic interests at stake. These centered on the discovery and exploitation of oil. The Australian government recognised that Indonesian incorporation of East Timor could provide important benefits.

In 1976, Whitlam's successor as Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser offered de facto recognition of Indonesia's seizure of East Timor, even as pro-independence forces controlled some 75 per cent of the territory. In January 1978, Australia gave legal recognition to East Timor's incorporation as the 27th Indonesian province in order to meet Indonesian pre-conditions for negotiations on the Timor Gap treaty covering the exploitation of oil reserves.

Oil in the Timor Sea

The former colonial power Portugal, after withdrawing from the territory in 1975, acquiesced in the Indonesian takeover. But it kept its options in the region open through successive United Nations resolutions in the 1980s, which opposed the Indonesian takeover and recognised East Timor as a non-self-governing territory, with Portugal designated the administrative power.

Within the framework of the Cold War, in which Suharto's military regime was supported as a bastion against Communism and the Indonesian masses, these resolutions remained by and large a dead letter. The Timor Gap Treaty was signed in December 1989, on board a Royal Australian Air Force VIP plane flying over the Timor Sea, by the foreign ministers of Australia and Indonesia. But even as it was being signed, economic and political conditions had begun to change.

By the beginning of the 1990s, Portuguese interest in the region was revived by the discovery of oil reserves, then estimated to be worth between $11 billion and $19 billion. In 1991 it staked its claim with the launching of proceedings against Australia in the World Court, charging that the Timor Gap Treaty was illegal, damaged the material interests of both Portugal and the people of East Timor, and abrogated the right of the East Timorese people to self-determination.

In June 1995, the World Court ruled on the Portuguese application, declaring that it could not make a decision on the legality of the Indonesian annexation because Indonesia did not recognise its authority. Following the verdict, the then Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans proclaimed a victory, declaring that Australia would have access to Timor Sea oil without interference from Portugal.

New international conditions

But, again, the international situation was changing. With the end of the Cold War, the US discovered that the Suharto regime no longer served its interests as it had in the past. In particular, the domination of the Indonesian economy by Suharto family interests and those most closely associated with the military,the phenomenon of so-called crony capitalism, was increasingly becoming an obstacle to the activities of US corporations.

The Asian economic crisis of 1997 provided the opportunity to intervene. Directed by US treasury secretary Robert Rubin, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) dictated a series of measures aimed at opening up the Indonesian economy. In essence, these measures sought to replace the domination of the Indonesian economy by Suharto and the military cliques and ensure its domination by the world market, as interpreted by the interests of US global corporations.

With the Suharto regime weakened, the Portuguese government recognised new opportunities. In April 1998, with the Suharto regime looking increasingly shaky, the National Council for Timorese Resistance [CNRT] was formed at a congress in Portugal, bringing together the rival organisations Fretilin and the UDT with Xanana Gusmao given the title of lider maximo (supreme leader).

In June 1998, the Habibie regime, seeking to deflect these pressures, agreed to give East Timor a special status with extensive autonomy, and in September 1998 signed an agreement with Portugal to commence negotiations on the proposal. The Portuguese moves sounded alarm bells in Canberra.

Concerns grew within the Australian government that it would be excluded from a UN-brokered decision on the future of East Timor in which its main immediate rival for control of the oil resources would play the leading role. Accordingly, the Australian government decided to intervene. Prime Minister John Howard sent a letter to Indonesian President Habibie on December 23, 1998 proposing that Indonesia provide autonomy to East Timor, leading to a vote on independence some years in the future. The Howard initiative was aimed at heading off the Portuguese moves.

Indonesia's ultimatum

Angered by this shift on the part of its strongest ally in the 25-year suppression of the East Timorese people, the Habibie regime rejected Howard's proposal. Habibie then sought to up the ante, declaring in January 1999 that if Indonesia's offer for special autonomy for East Timor were rejected, it would put a resolution to the Peoples Consultative Assembly permitting East Timor to secede.

Habibie's seeming turnaround represented an ultimatum: if the Western powers want to push for secession, then we will bring on the vote immediately, under conditions where the Indonesian military remains in control, ready to launch a scorched earth policy if the autonomy plan is rejected.

The Indonesian regime calculated that, with its military remaining in control, the outcome would be in favour of autonomy, whereupon, according to the terms of the agreement, the government of Portugal shall initiate within the United Nations the procedures necessary for the removal of East Timor from the list of Non-Self Governing Territories of the General Assembly and the deletion of the question of East Timor from the agendas of the Security Council and the General Assembly.

All the participants were aware that, in the event that autonomy were rejected, the Indonesian military and its militia thugs would unleash an onslaught against the East Timorese people. In July, the Dili commander of the Indonesian armed forces told the Australian Sunday television program: I would like to convey the following: if the pro-independents do win [the referendum] ... all will be destroyed. And East Timor won't be as we see it now. It will be worse than 23 years ago.

Despite these warnings, the United Nations, together with the Australian and Portuguese governments, pressed for the referendum to go ahead. For them, a defeat for the Indonesian autonomy proposal and the unleashing of violence by the military and its thugs would provide the political basis to intervene.

The tragic circumstances in which the people of East Timor now find themselves is the outcome of the combined actions of the imperialist powers--Australia, the US and Portugal among others--as well as the United Nations and the CNRT leadership.

The solution they now propose the establishment of a UN military protectorate will only bring a continuation of the disasters of the past in another form. Not until an independent program is developed, based on the unified struggle of the working class of the region and internationally, can the vicious circle of imperialist domination be broken.

Excerpted with permission from WSWS