Flag of the West Timor Independence Movement

This is the flag of the Independent nation of West Timor, officially called the Christian Republic of West Timor (Dutch: Christelijk Republiek van West-Timor).

Great Timor (Indonesian: Timor Raya) refers to the irredentist concept of a united and independent island of Timor, covering formerlyPortuguese East Timor, and formerly Dutch (now Indonesian) West Timor.

East Timor was invaded and occupied by Indonesia in 1975, which annexed the territory as its "27th Province" in 1976, but in a referendum held in 1999, the people of East Timor voted to end Indonesian occupation and become an independent state. This caused widespread anger among many Indonesian nationalists, particularly in the military.

In 2001 and 2002, before East Timor's independence, there were claims by the Indonesian military ^[1] and some commentators,^[2] that this would inspire the secession of West Timor from Indonesia. There is not a single Timorese source about that supposed "Great Timor" movement.

However, there is no real evidence whatsoever that the people of West Timor, most of whom are from Atoni ethnicity who are mostly the traditional enemy of East Timorese ethnies, have any interest in joining their tribal enemies. Additionally, East Timor's independence movement never laid claim to West Timor at any time, before the Indonesian invasion or thereafter. Similarly, the government of East Timor fully recognizes Indonesia's existing boundaries as inherited from the Netherlands East Indies. This is similar to the position taken by Papua New Guinea in relation to Papua and West Papua in Indonesia, when Papua New Guinea became independent of Australia.

In this scenario however, it all changed.

In 1975, just before the Indonesian military occupied the former Portuguese colony of East Timor, the majority-Muslim run Indonesian government imposed a tax to all the items of the citizens of predominantly-Christian West Timor. The locals were not impressed, and started a revolution against the military. With support from Vietnam, the Philippines and Equatorial Guinea, the rebels were able to control the entire region within a decade, forcing the Nusa Tenggara Timur Provincial Government to move to the island of Sumba.

In 1985, the government signed an armistice agreement and peace treaty with the rebels, creating and recognizing the new "Christian Republic of West Timor". It was later accepted to the United Nations in 2000.