DYNAMICS OF INDONESIAN - TIMOR LESTE RELATIONSHIPS: The Long Road of East Timor Towards an Independent State Through a Referendum in 1999

Abstract

There are two main questions which has to be answered in this paper: first, how the
dynamics between Indonesia-Timor Leste relations since integrational process in 1976
year which has chose to separate up to be an independent state by referendum process in
1999; And secondly, why does Timor Leste become repettional issue of the international
politics?. This paper uses a neo-realism approach, which emphasizes the role of an
international structure on determining the behavior of states. According to neo-realist, the
role of the state is in fact passive and powerless, because the behavior of the state follows
the existing international structure. This research uses qualitative-descriptive method.
Data collection with in-dept interview as main data sources, and also uses written data
sources as secondary data such as books, journals, and internet media. The findings
suggest that the cold war had caused the “omission politics” of the big countries on what
happened in Timor Leste. As the cold war ended, major countries withdrew support for
indonesia and this led to the issue of Timor Leste being the main discourse in international
forums and eventually bringing Timor Leste into an independent state