East Timor Conflict: the Role of ASEAN-Centric Multilateral Diplomacy Structures and Extraregional Actors

The East Timor conflict is still one of the most underastimated by the scientific community armed conflicts in the world history. Being the bloodiest conflict in the history of the Australia-Oceania region, which has claimed at least 200,000 lives, it has been purposefully ignored by both scholar community and decision–making centers for the long time, including those that were originally designed to ensure security in the South-East Asian region – ASEAN. Today, it is possible and necessary to make conclusions from on-going that can coordinate and make the world better place to live and substantially benefit to the world's experience of peacekeeping and conflict resolutions. This paper focuses on the East Timor conflict (1975-1999) from the perspective of the different international actors’ involvement. Giving a brief outline of East Timor history, the author further proceeded to describe the principles of the ASEAN institutions, established in the interests of conflict resolution, whereafter gradually focuses on the main actors that managed and influenced the conflict – Portugal, Australia, the United States and the United Nations, respectively.In the end of each of the sections, the degree of effectiveness of a particular actor in resolving the conflict is being evaluated. The narrative and analysis are presented chronologically, and the work contains many references to normative legal acts and to authoritative researchers of the East Timor conflict. A wide database, consisting of historical monographs, analytical notes, memoirs of direct participants of the events, as well as media content– documentaries, films and articles with political investigations have been used in this work. A rich body of the source database consists of Portuguese-language literature. That is why it was Portugal that supported the people of East Timor throughout the conflict.