Britain in the Aftermath of the Indonesian Invasion of Timor, 1977: The Fiction of Neutrality and the Reality of Silent Help

This article fills a gap in the literature of international involvement in the aftermath of the Indonesian invasion of Timor-Leste by providing detailed documentary analysis of British conduct and motives. A substantial amount of scholarship has covered the role played by the United States and Australia during and after the Indonesian invasion of 1975. The lack of scholarly work specific to the role played by Britain during the first years of the Indonesian-Timorese conflict is regrettable as it represents a missing piece in the mosaic of international liability for one of the major massacres committed in the twentieth century. This omission has allowed the official British government version to survive, in which the country plays the role of an honest but ultimately unsuccessful broker working for a diplomatic solution between Indonesia and Portugal that would ensure the right to self-determination for Timor. The existing literature only offers a cursory challenge to this idea of British neutrality. The current article examines the details of British complicity by focusing on three main areas: the handling of the Dunn Report, which was effectively translated into a campaign to rescue Indonesia’s reputation both Timor Archives, building the archival records of Falintil, the Timorese Resistance Army domestically and internationally; the policy of aid to Jakarta, where economic and geo-strategic interests trumped considerations of ethics and international legality; and finally British abstention at the UN, advertised as the epitome of neutrality but actually representing a choice of support for Suharto’s regime.