East Timor
East Timor is a political division, consisting of the eastern half of the island of Timor. Its capital and main port is Dili. From the 16th century onwards it was a Portuguese colony known as Portuguese Timor.
In November 1975, Portuguese Timor declared it's independence as the Democratic Republic of East Timor or RDTL, however this independence was to prove short-lived as on December 7th, Indonesian forces launched a massive air and sea invasion of East Timor. During the invasion mass killings and rapings took place which was to leave 60,000 Timorese dead by mid-February. A puppet "Provisional Government of East Timor" was installed in mid December and in July the following year, following a vote by handpicked "representatives" and a "request" by the "Provisional Government", East Timor was officially annexed by Indonesia - a step which was never recognised by the United Nations.
Several Timorese groups fought a resistance war against Indonesian forces for the independence of East Timor, during which many atrocities and human rights violations by the Indonesian army were reported. A sad highpoint was the killing of many East Timorese youngsters (reportedly over 250) at a cemetary in Dili on November 12, 1991. In total, estimates of the number of deaths in this war range from 100,000 to 350,000 - on a total East Timorese population of only 700,000. In 1996, Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo and Jose Ramos-Horta, two East Timorese peace fighters received the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1999, the Indonesian government decided, under international pressure, to hold a referendum about the future of East Timor. The referendum, held on 30 August, gave a clear majority (78.5%) in favor of independence, rejecting the alternative offer of being an autonomous province within Indonesia.
After the referendum, administration of East Timor was taken over by the United Nations, through the United Nations Transitional Administration for East Timor. Elections were held in late 2001 for a national assembly to draft a constitution which is supposed to be finished by mid-December 2001; East Timor is expected to achieve independence on 20 May 2002.
Country code (Top level domain): TP
External Sites: