Pacification,resistance, and territoriality: prospects for a space of peace in East Timor

Despite current United Nations-sponsored negotiations on East Timor between Indonesia and Portugal, there is little prospect for success given the overwhelming advantages Indonesia enjoys in the struggle for control over the territory. The territorialization of Indonesian power in East Timor over the last two decades has given Jakarta a level of dominance that has allowed it to avoid serious negotiations aimed at resolving the conflict. By interrogating social power in conjunction with Knight's (1994) three key components of statehood (territory, population, and sovereignty) on a variety of geographical scales, however, it becomes clear that East Timor is a far more contested terrain than it first appears. This paper illustrates that the peace process can succeed in a manner consistent with international law and human rights only by a strengthening of the forces of resistance, which necessarily entails the West's altering its relationship of criminal complicity with Indonesia.