Behind The Integration of East Timor

East Timor is a former Portuguese colony, and for approximately four hundred years it was under the influence of Portuguese rule.  Since the 15th century, the island has been a destination for Malay, Javanese, Bugis, Makassarese, Indian, Arab and Chinese trading boats.  The East Island is known to be rich in sandalwood, a merchandise that sells well in Asian markets.  Since the arrival of Westerners such as the Portuguese and the Dutch to the archipelago, Timor Island has also become a stopover destination for them after trading to the Moluccas for spices.  In the end, both the Portuguese and the Dutch made the region their colony.  East Timor was a Portuguese colony that was known as the worst colonizer, because it never cared about the fate of its colonized people.  This happened in all Portuguese colonies including East Timor.  West Timor was relatively more developed than East Timor.  By 1973, 93% of East Timor's population was illiterate. In East Timor's primary schools, most students had to learn Portuguese history.  They also had to memorize the names of Portuguese rivers, roads and cities.

East Timor is located in the east of Timor island with an area of 18,899 km2. Timor Island is rich in sandalwood and became a stopover destination for Westerners after trading to the Moluccas for spices, therefore the Portuguese (now Portugal) and the Dutch made this area their colony. East Timor was part of Indonesia from 1976-1999 as the 27th province. When East Timor was included in Indonesia, it was called East Timor. Before East Timor was included in Indonesia, it was called Portuguese Timor because it was a Portuguese (now Portuguese) colony. East Timor was under the rule of Portugal for four centuries.

The level of education in the Portuguese colonial era was far behind that of the Dutch.  The highest level of education available in East Timor was the Liseum or High School.  Most of the children who entered primary school age could not be accommodated due to the limited school buildings and teaching staff.  Meanwhile, in terms of economic development, East Timor is still underdeveloped.  The level of life of the East Timorese people is still simple, causing the pattern of materialization of the economy to be very limited.  The economic system is still very much trueque in nature.  According to Gunn, the people of East Timor still like to keep money at home, so the circulation of money is decreasing. The level of public health is relatively low.  This situation is influenced by the large number of malaria mosquitoes.  Malaria is the main disease.  The number of people affected in 1970 was estimated to be almost 11% of the population.  Desaparición de la malaria, there are also various diseases such as: tuberculosis, anemia, and malnutrition.  Health facilities were still very limited, and the population had a strong belief in traditional healers for treatment. In 1960, the Portuguese government, influenced by a UN resolution, changed the status of its colonies to overseas provinces.  This was a colonial political strategy, basically aimed at creating and shaping an elite group that remained loyal to the colonizers.

However, the colonial principle will foster anti-colonial attitudes in the community.  This is where the desire to break away from the Portuguese colonizers, including East Timor, was born.  Moreover, the Portuguese government was not responsive to the cries, demands, needs and interests of the colonized people. This situation triggered a lot of resistance in the colonies, until the Portuguese were overwhelmed by the colonial war.  This worsening situation awakened the young officers to the reality of the severity of the colonial war.  This led to resentment towards the Salazar regime and plans for a coup.  They founded Movemento as a platform for the movement.  

On April 25, 1974 there was a successful military coup called the Carnation Revolution.  The Flower Revolution in Lisbon, Portugal, led by the Portuguese Army under Major Antonio Espinola, under the movement name "Movimento Forcas Armadas (MFA)", led to the fall of the Salazar-Caetano regime. Salazar and Marcello Caetano had succeeded Salazar since the 1960s. Political change collapsed as a result of the Carnation Revolution that took place in Portugal. The Carnation Revolution reached its peak on April 25, 1974.
The Carnation Revolution (Revolução dos Cravos) was a bloodless revolution (coup) that took place in Portugal in 1974. The Carnation Revolution saw the dictatorship that had been in power for almost 50 years finally overthrown. After a brief period of chaos, Portugal emerged as an established democracy. The history of this revolution dates back to 1926, when a military coup established the Estado Novo by overthrowing Portugal's nascent First Republic in 1910 to replace Portugal's monarchy. Portuguese citizens felt oppressed under this regime for almost 50 years. After waiting, it was finally the military that brought the dictatorship to an end. Military officers with left-wing tendencies orchestrated the coup in response to the dismissal of a Portuguese general who opposed Portuguese colonial policies. The Carnation Revolution was against the salazar regime.

Salazar's government was then replaced by General Spinola. General Spinola, who was appointed president of Portugal, proposed a decolonization program for the colonies. Decolonization was basically an effort to form federal states, each with full internal autonomy, while the federal government in Lisbon would control defense and foreign relations. Meanwhile, the governor of East Timor was Colonel Alves Aldeia. The only political organization allowed at that time was the Accao Nacional Popular (ANP) or People's National Union which was a government-owned party.

At a later stage, there was a tug-of-war over policy on the colonies between President Spinola and the MFA officers who had appointed him.  There were two versions of decolonization policy regarding Portugal's colonies, Spinola's and Movemento's.  Spinola's idea of decolonization is essentially the creation of a federal state consisting of Portugal and its colonies, each with full autonomy.  Each federal member has full authority to govern its own country.  Meanwhile, the government in Lisbon retained control over defense and foreign relations.  The provinces of the Portuguese colonies were transformed into states with full autonomy.  Then, assuming that the majority of the population in the colonies would choose union with Portugal in the form of a federation, Spinola proposed that a referendum be held to give the people the opportunity to determine the future of their respective countries. It is clear that Spinola's politics of decolonization was essentially just an attempt to stop the colonial war that was weighing heavily on Portugal. Movemento's Version of Decolonization Politics As the conceptor and executor of the coup, Movimento also had a concept of decolonization politics.  Although the background of Movimento's political concept is the same as Spinola's, Movimento's concept is more dynamic. Spinola's conservative version and secondly, Movemento's version, a movement that is radical and consequential. Both had the same background and motive, namely the attempt to save the Portuguese nation and state itself, which was too heavy to bear the burden of its colonial wars in Africa so that the country became destitute and underdeveloped.

President Spinola finally resigned in September 1974, and was replaced by General Francisco da Costa Gomes as President, and Brigadier General Vasco Goncalves as prime minister.  Brig. Gen. Goncalves was the main figure behind the 1974 military coup. He had a close relationship with the Communist Party of Portugal (Partido Comunista de Portugal) leader Alvaro Cunhal.  This close relationship made government policy closer to the left, so communist groups received strong support from the government.  In the end, the influence of Portugal's communist forces also reached East Timor, both in the bureaucracy and among Portuguese military officers in East Timor. The political changes that took place in Portugal opened a new political chapter in the colony, providing greater opportunities for freedom fighters to realize the decolonization process promised by the Spinola government.

For East Timor, decolonization politics became the first milestone to form political parties as a forum to accommodate the people's voices, and 5 political parties were established, namely: Associacao Popular Democratica Timorense (APODETI) led by Arnaldo dos Reis Araujo and Eurico Guteres aimed to integrate with Indonesia. Klibur Oan Timor Aswin (KOTA) led by Lemos Pedro dos Reis Amaral aimed to integrate with Indonesia. Trabalista led by Domingos C. Pereira who aimed to integrate in Indonesia. Uniao Democratica Timorense (UDT) led by Francisco Xavier Lopes da Cruz aimed to remain under Portuguese rule and finally Frente Revolucionaria de Timor Timur Independente (FRETELIN) led by Ramos Horta and Xanana Gusma. Since these parties emerged, each party has tried to show its existence, competing with each other to gain mass support, especially the UDT, Fretilin and Apodeti parties. Meanwhile, the KOTA and Trabhalista parties did not have much influence at all in the competition between these parties.

At the same time, the Cold War was taking place in the international arena. The Cold War was an international political constellation that began after the end of World War II, which was characterized by tension as a result of the turmoil of the global feud and competition between the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, each led by two great powers, the United States and the Soviet Union. This Cold War eventually also had an impact on the problems that were happening in East Timor, including the intervention of the United States and Australia in the integration of East Timor into Indonesian territory. The United States' support for Indonesia was none other than to spread the ideology of liberalism, which was strongly opposed to communism. The United States was concerned that if East Timor became independent, it would become a communist country, while Australia's support was due to pressure from the United States and was also based on economic motives.

The United States had also been planning to approach Indonesia on petroleum matters since August 1950. Soaring oil prices due to embargoes by Middle Eastern countries in the 1970s due to the oil crisis played an important role in the Cold War. At the same time there was a nuclear expansion competition between the United States and the Soviet Union, so the United States did not want to lose the global strategy of submarine trajectories along the Indian and Pacific Oceans to establish its power.
Indonesia, at the same time as it was developing the country in all aspects, needed security stability, and Indonesia was also strongly opposed to communism, so there was concern from President Soeharto about communism emerging in East Timor, especially within the Fretilin party. If there was no stability, then development in Indonesia would fail and would affect security stability within Indonesia. Despite these concerns, President Soeharto repeatedly affirmed that he had no territorial ambitions towards East Timor and fully supported the decolonization process. President Soeharto also emphasized that if the people of East Timor wanted to join Indonesia, then East Timor could not join as a state, but became a territory of the unitary Republic of Indonesia. When examined, a state is a social group that occupies a certain territory or area organized under political institutions and an effective government, has political unity, is sovereign so that it determines its national goals.

The Portuguese government's policy of decolonizing East Timor began to be implemented when Colonel Lemos Pires took office as the new governor of Portuguese Timor on 25 November 1974, bringing with him two majors, Francisco Mota and Costa Jonatas, who had important positions in charge of politics and mass media. Lemos Pires' policy for decolonization was to withdraw Portuguese troops, from around 3,000 to 200 troops in East Timor. But in 1975, Portugal sent back about 1,000 troops to East Timor as well as the latest weapons from the North Atlantic Treaty of Defense (NATO). Meanwhile, Major Mota as the colony's minister of political affairs wanted East Timor to become a communist state. To realize this, Major Mota proposed that a coalition be formed between the two major parties, UDT and Fretilin, even though these two parties were hostile to each other. Based on Major Mota's suggestion, a coalition between UDT and Fretilin was formed on January 20, 1975.

East Timor became increasingly volatile as political change entered the region. The decolonization policy planned by Portugal did not have a unified concept, which resulted in promises to restore civil and democratic rights, as well as the freedom to form political parties in East Timor not being fully implemented. The result of the failure of decolonization was a civil war that culminated in August 1975. The upheaval in East Timor eventually led Indonesia to intervene to resolve the issue due to the inability of the Portuguese government to resolve the conflict in the region. In an effort to stop the fighting in the volatile region, the Indonesian government decided to send in ABRI troops to stabilize the border areas affected by the civil war after having previously launched Operation Komodo since January 1975.

In the process of integrating East Timor into Indonesian territory, Indonesia drafted an Integration Act and established a People's Assembly in May 1976. The task of the Assembly members was to draft a petition addressed to the President of the Republic of Indonesia for his approval.  The petition was signed by Amaldo dos Reis Araujo as chairman of the PSTT (Provisional Government of East Timor) and Guilherme Goncalves as the regional people's representative council, the main content of this short petition was for East Timor to become one with Indonesia. In 1975, political developments in East Timor experienced a critical situation with the unilateral actions of Fretilin. loudly proclaimed independence on November 25, 1975. However, other parties countered Fretilin's declaration of independence with an "Integration" declaration, which stated that they wanted to join Indonesia.
In its development, the parties that wanted to integrate with Indonesia asked the Indonesian government for help to fight the radical Fretilin party. Finally, Indonesia assigned ABRI troops to help the parties fight for integration with Indonesia. The operation assigned to ABRI troops was named Operation Seroja. Operation Seroja involved ABRI consisting of the Army, Navy and Air Force. All played an important role in assisting the pro-integration group against Fretilin.

Finally, East Timor was incorporated into the Indonesian State through Indonesia No. 7 of 1976 (LN. 1976-36) concerning the Ratification of the Unification of East Timor into the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia.  In addition, PP No. 19 Th. 1976 (LN. 1976-36) concerning the Establishment of the Province of East Timor and was further emphasized through MPR Decree No. VIMPR / I1976 which confirmed the unification of the East Timor region which occurred on July 17, 1976 into the territory of the Unitary State of Indonesia.  This integration process was based on the Balibo Declaration on November 30, 1975.
On July 17, 1976, President Soeharto orchestrated a law that was approved by the House of Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia, formalizing Indonesia's act of integrating Timor-Leste.

Reference: 

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