East Timor and the Confederacy

[Keeves]

A long time ago, part of the United States decided that they wanted out, and the people in control said that was wrong. The heirs to those people are now trying to allow a similar thing to happen to Indonesia. What's the difference?

[David B]

I'd say one thing is that the Southern states had voluntarily become part of the U.S. East Timor, on the other hand, had been invaded by Indonesia a couple decades ago, which had then killed something like 200,000 people who didn't like their new rulers.

[Keeves]

Oh. Sorry.

[Markxxx]

Yes but for argument's sake you could say the Portuguese stole took East Timor over by force from Indonesia. It never should have been seperated from Indonesia as a whole.

So they should only be independent if Indonesia, as a whole, votes for it. Not just that one section. For argument's sake.

I personally don't support Indonesia in this matter.

[DSYoungEsq]

Yes but for argument's sake you could say the Portuguese stole took East Timor over by force from Indonesia. It never should have been seperated from Indonesia as a whole

That would be a more compelling argument if Portugal had actually occupied and taken over something that was part of an independant nation at the time. However, when the area that is now called East Timor was colonized by Portugal, it didn't belong to any nation called Indonesia, nor even to a nation that was a fore-runner of Indonesia.

When Portugal and the Netherlands colonized the island of Timor, there was at that time no connection between it and the Javanese governments that had controlled the western part of what is now called Indonesia for some time. Therefor, the forcible annexation of East Timor by Indonesia was neither historically justified, nor accepted by the Timorese in that former Portugese colony.

Perhaps some quick look into the history of an area would be wise before making claims regarding historical claims

Also, for what it's worth, in contrast to the secession of the Confederacy, this referendum on East Timor's independence was sponsored by the U.N. and allowed by the Indonesian government.

If the autonomy package {offered by Indonesia to make E. Timor autonomous within Indonesia, as opposed to outright independent, which is what the voters overwhelmingly chose} is rejected, Jakarta has agreed to make constitutional changes to rescind legislation that annexed East Timor in 1976, allowing it to revert to its previous status. Indonesia is to withdraw from East Timor and hand over power to the United Nations, which will form a transitional authority until power is handed over to the East Timorese.

I'm not sure if I used the word "outright" correctly as an adverb up there in my aside, but whatever.
I got the quote from an article on CNN.com
http://cnn.com/ASIANOW/southeast/990...or.referendum/