in mainland India had controlled any part of what now makes up the country's Northeast, part of the reason for the ongoing insurgency in Northeast India. In 1971 Bangladesh obtained independence from Pakistan. Burma also gained independence from the British Empire, but declined membership in the Commonwealth. Indonesia gained independence from the Dutch Empire in 1949 after the latter failed to restore colonial control. As mentioned above, Indonesia also wanted a powerful position in the region that could be lessened by the creation of united Malaysia. The Netherlands retained its New Guinea part from the previous Dutch East Indies, but Indonesia threatened to invade and annex it. A vote was supposedly taken under the UN sponsored Act of Free Choice to allow West New Guineans to decide their fate, although many dispute its veracity. Later, Portugal relinquished control over East Timor in 1975, at which time Indonesia promptly invaded and annexed it. In 1999, Indonesian president B. J. Habibie was pressured by Australia and the United Nations to give East Timor independence. The people of former Indonesian East Timor were given a choice of either greater autonomy within Indonesia or independence. 78.5% of East Timorese voted for independence, rejecting Indonesia's special autonomy proposal. After the Cold War The Cold War began to wind down after Mikhail Gorbachev assumed power as Soviet General Secretary in March 1985. With the cooperation of the U.S. President Ronald Reagan, Gorbachev wound down the size of the Soviet Armed Forces and reduced nuclear arms in Europe, while liberalizing the Soviet economy. In the revolutions of 1989 – 90, the communist regimes of Soviet satellite states collapsed in rapid succession in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, and Mongolia. East and West Germany united, Czechoslovakia peacefully split into Czech Republic and Slovakia, while in the 1990s Yugoslavia began a violent break up into 6 states. Macedonia became an independent nation and broke off from Yugoslavia peacefully. Kosovo, which was previously an autonomous unit of Serbia declared independence in 2008, but has received less international recognition. In December 1991, Gorbachev resigned as president and the Soviet Union dissolved relatively peacefully into fifteen sovereign republics, all of which rejected Communism and most of which adopted democratic reforms and free-market economies. Inside those new republics, four major areas have claimed their own independence, but not received widespread international recognition. After decades of civil war, Indonesia finally recognized the