Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975 and it remains occupied to this day. Indonesia had also previously taken control of West Papua/Irian in 1963 in an extremely underhand manner. The United Nations has roundly condemned the former action and largely ignored the latter.
In this Report, East Timor, West Papua/Irian and Indonesia, the author. Keith Suter highlights the key points in the territories' histories, detailing the involvement of Indonesia, along with the other main actors, and examines the role of the grosing resistance movements in East Timor and West Papua/Irian.
Since the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, many thousands of East Timorese have been killed. Yet little international attention was paid to the plight of the East Timorese until footage of the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre was broadcast around the world. In West Papua/Irian, the Indonesian government operates a highly controversial ‘transmigration programme' and gives extensive mining and logging concessions, bypassing the indigenous peoples' rights.
If the human rights situation in West Papua/Irian is little known, the international outrage over Indonesia's abuses in East Timor has led to few concrete results. As this Report clearly demonstrates, urgent action - on both East Timor and West Papua/Irian - is long overdue.