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Timor Leste: challenges of a new democracy.

Article Excerpt
Timor island was a Portuguese colony for more than 400 years. The western half of the Island was colonized by the Netherlands, becoming part of Indonesia upon independence in 1949. Timor-Leste was briefly independent in 1975 when Indonesia invaded. The 24-year Indonesian occupation was brutal, responsible for the deaths of almost 1/3 of the East Timorese people. Most East Timorese people never accepted Indonesian rule, and nearly all of them supported the resistance, voting 78.5% for independence from Indonesia in a UN-organized referendum in 1999. Before and after the vote, the Indonesian military directed a scorched earth campaign which destroyed virtually all the infrastructure and three-fourths of the buildings in the country, and forced 75% of the population to flee to the mountains or to West Timor. Not one Indonesian has been held accountable for these crimes against humanity.

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The United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) governed East Timor for 30 months from the referendum until transferring sovereignty in May 2002. In 2001, Timorese elected a Constituent Assembly to write their constitution, with many of the political parties and leaders from before 1975 still involved. Fretilin, the dominant party when Indonesia invaded, won 55 of the 88 positions, with ten of the fifteen other contesting parties each winning a few...

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