From: jb00@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (JOSE ANTONIO BASTO)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.portuguese
Subject: East Timor & The U.N.
Date: 11 Dec 92 15:37:09 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

II.6 - The international position of East Timor (*)

 This is a synopsis of the presentation done by
Professor Adriano Moreira, President of the Oriental
Studies Centre of the Lisbon's Society of Geography,
and Parliamentarian of CDS, Centro Democra'tico e Social,
Christian Democrat [ Centre Social Democratic Party.]

_______
(*) This synopsis, as all the others, was dom by the coordinator of
this Seminar, based on the  presentation and trying to use as many quotations
as possible. Professor Adriano Moreira reminds us that the United Nations had
considered ever since 1961, all Portuguese overseas territories (including
Timor) as non-autonomous regions. Even the Portuguese Republic, after the
1974 Revolution assumed its statute of administering power, under the
international regime of Trust Territory. Although a fully detailed agreement
has not been celebrated "it is obvious and unrefutable that the relations
between the United Nations, the Portuguese Republic and Timor are being
developed under a typical relation of Trust Territory with Portugal acting
under mandate from the international community."

section # 11

PART-II

2nd SEMINAR ON EAST TIMOR, PORTO UNIVERSITY, PORTUGAL, 1990

"EAST-TIMOR, LAND OF HOPE"

II. -EAST TIMOR, INDONESIA, AUSTRALIA AND THE WORLD
GEOPOLITICAL SITUATION: PROSPECTS FOR EVOLUTION
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


 "The Timor issue is simultaneously a problem for the
Portuguese national conscience and an embarrassment for the
lack of such a conscience, as far as the interests of the big powers
are concerned. Those interests are still hiding behind the so often
invoked communist danger".(...)

 "Indonesia's regime as the aggression power (...) is one of the
rare examples of a State of National Security: the army is in
power and the enemy is identified as communist. It had an history
of failed and inconsequent liberalization attempts, assuming a
need for security against aggression that is perceived as
potentially coming from external sanctuaries."

 When trying to take over the Western Papua New Guinea
(...)"Indonesia proclaimed to submit to the rule of colonial self-
determination"(...) publicly rejecting any potential claims over
the then Portuguese Timor, in order to consolidate its claims over
New Guinea [Irian Jaya.]. "Having won its prize, does not hesitate
to make incursions into Papua New Guinea, independent since
1975, in hot pursuit of Irian insurgents."(...)

 "It also invoked the usual enemy of the State of national security
at the time of the revolutionary Portuguese decolonisation for
East Timor, pointing to the danger of becoming a sanctuary or a
focal point, according to the modal form the guerrilla might
assume. Everything could be considered to be a normal police
activity, without any support of international law but solely
based upon security interests. Even an abusive police case does
not imply territorial gains, as it was the case of the occupation
[of Timor.]"


_______
(*) This synopsis, as all the others, was dom by the coordinator of
this
Seminar, based on the  presentation and trying to use as many
quotations as possible.
 Professor Adriano Moreira reminds us that the United Nations had
considered ever since 1961, all Portuguese overseas territories
(including Timor) as non-autonomous regions. Even the
Portuguese Republic, after the 1974 Revolution assumed its
statute of administering power, under the international regime of
Trust Territory. Although a fully detailed agreement has not been
celebrated "it is obvious and unrefutable that the relations
between the United Nations, the Portuguese Republic and Timor
are being developed under a typical relation of Trust Territory
with Portugal acting under mandate from the international
community."

 "Of the many functions and powers entrusted to the United
Nations' General Assembly and to its Custodial Council (article
87) is "to enable periodic visits to Trust Territories on the dates
agreed with the administering power. Nothing on its [UN]
Charter allows for one of its members to totally boycott the full
implementation of the decolonisation programme. Quite the
contrary, any act against such objective violates the [United
Nations'] Charter and gives authority to the Security Council to
act upon it. It seems very hard to prove that a genocide is not a
generalized aggression, because it clearly is a crime against
humanity.

 "This brief explanation purports only to recommend a total
repudiation of the current international process that wants to
consider the question of Timor as merely a problem between
Indonesia and Portugal, trying to bring an end to the dispute
between the old colonial power and the invader.

 "Portugal can only (...) exercise its limited powers as
administering nation, acting on behalf of the world interests
vested upon the action of the United Nations. UN has the sole and
direct responsibility for decolonisation, for the repudiation of
the aggression, for the fight against genocide and other crimes
against humanity.

 "We cannot allow it to alienate its intervention and
responsibility into a totally unjustifiable form of mediation
between Portugal and Indonesia. The UN is not a mediator, it's the
direct holder of an interest:  self-determination; of an
international responsibility: peace; and is forced to try to
restore the independence of subjugated people and to reject
military conquest.

 "It is illegitimate to consider this to be a question between
Portugal and Indonesia. It is a question between Indonesia and the
international community represented on behalf of the UN, by an
administering power whose incapacity is not its own but of the
community on whose behalf is acting upon.

 "The people of Timor counts on Portugal to fulfil all its
administering obligations, but cannot acquit the international
community here represented by UN of its fundamental
responsabilities".
[end]

-- 
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