What does the fate of a small island in the Pacific Ocean have to do with the conflict in Kashmir? If the island is East Timor, the answer is everything and nothing, with the Indian and Pakistani governments apparently unable to address the fate of the Indonesian occupied territory without looking at it through the prism of their own battles.
No sooner had the UN-authorised intervention in East Timor, which led to the landing of Australian-led troops on 20 September, been carried out than it turned into a political football for India and Pakistan. The latter was quick to draw parallels between the crises in East Timor and Kashmir, while India, along with a range of Western powers, sought to downplay any such comparison.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz made the most ambitious effort to pair the two situations in a speech to the UN General Assembly on 22 September, in which he praised the East Timor intervention. What the world had learnt from the East Timor and Kosovo crises, he argued, was that "a people's aspiration for freedom cannot be suppressed indefinitely; a free exercise of the right of self-determination is invaluable for peace; self-determination can best be exercised in an environment free of fear and coercion; (and) the United Nations is best placed to oversee the exercise of self-determination."
Aziz went on to note that "these conclusions were already accepted for Kashmir 50 years ago". Just as the UN intervened to allow the Timorese to decide their fate in the 30 August referendum, Aziz implied, so too must nations intervene to allow Kashmiris to determine their national status. "Human rights must be upheld, not only in Kosovo and Timor, but also in Kashmir," he argued.