Emma Macdonald – The decision by independence fighters in East Timor to swap guns for diplomacy not only worked in creating the new independent nation of Timor-Leste, but serves as a cautionary tale to countries such as Syria.

Australian National University academics have traced Timor-Leste's resistance movement and found the turning point was in using non-violent protest and gaining the approval of the international community through diplomatic channels.

Peacebuilding expert Professor John Braithwaite said it was hard to be hopeful that the Syrian uprising could be moved back from bloodshed but history and a growing body of evidence showed non-violent resistance had a greater chance of success than violent civil uprising.

The new publication, co-written by Professor Braithwaite and Professor Hilary Charlesworth from the ANU's Regulatory Institutions Network, and using input from ANU PhD student and Timor-Leste Anti-Corruption Commissioner Aderito Soares, found that international networking proved the most potent weapon against Indonesian invaders for the East Timorese.

While the Timorese independence movement was considered crushed by the 1975 Indonesian invasion, everything changed when the fight was taken "from the battlefield to the world's corridors of powers and networks of diplomatic support," Professor Braithwaite said.

"In particular, the movement became very effective through the diplomatic leadership of Jose Ramos-Horta who linked up the Timorese movement with pockets of diplomatic support around the world.'

Professor Braithwaite attributed the "genuis" of leaders like Xanana Gusmao and Jose Ramos-Horta in inspiring the Timorese people to the possibilities of non-violence, diplomacy and clandestine resistance. "Furthermore, a strategic decision was made by leaders in the independence movement to link up with the Indonesian democracy movement."

When Indonesia became a democracy in 1998, it created the historic opportunity to implement the independence that Timor had been fighting for.

Professor Braithwaite said there were two key moments when non-violence came to the fore – the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre and the 1999 independence referendum.

"The Santa Cruz massacre was an exceptionally courageous form of non-violent resistance. A large demonstration was planned, even after people had been threatened that they would be killed if they marched. The march went ahead and more than 200 people, including children, were killed. And it was the filming of this massacre by the international media that became the turning point in the conflict," he said.

"Also, after the historic 1999 independence referendum, the East Timorese military forces were held in cantonment, even though certain leaders of the Indonesian military had mobilised militia who were slaughtering civilians and burning up 70 or 80 per cent of housing and public buildings across the country."

Not reacting to this with military force ensured that the East Timor received UN and US backing for General Cosgrove's Australian forces to restore order and make sure civil war did not break out.

Professor Braithwaite said increasing international ease about Syria was warranted. Unlike the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia and Libya, where the armed forces refused to turn the guns on their own people, Syria's army was largely made up of an ethnic minority.

"It increasingly looks like the Syrian people will continue down the path of violent resistance, a very difficult road and one which will keep the international community divided," he said.

Commentary by James Dunn

This work appears to raise some interesting points, including some cautionary points. For one thing, the invasion and annexation might not have occurred if major powers like Australia and the US had intervened, even diplomatically, before the invasion began in October 1975. The leading player in the task of getting the international community to heed the Timorese appeal for an act of self determination was surely Jose Ramos Horta. In Timor the R esistance kept Timorese hopes alive, but the mass protest came from students and ordinary people rather than guns.