Arjunawayang

uncdan:

East Timor is probably one of the smallest countries in the world. 

In the 1700s the island of Timor was “colonized”, with the Dutch on the west and the Portuguese on the east, both sides little more than trading outposts. 

During the Second World War, the Japanese occupied the island, and the later invading Allied forces fought alongside the Timorese resistance. The Timorese are estimated to have lost between 40,000-70,000 to the fighting, and the colony was given back to the Portuguese afterwards. 

In 1974 Portugal had its own revolution, which effectively cut East Timor loose. They had a small civil struggle, which prompted Indonesia to invade. They stated that they were concerned about a potential Communist state in their backyard, which, as it was the Cold War, met with the approval of Western governments. Indonesia had long sided with the West, having banned its Communist party in the 1960s. 

The Indonesian occupation was a long and bloody one, full of extrajudicial executions, torture and starvation. There were pro-integration and pro-independence militias which fought each other with machetes and hand-made guns, and the Indonesian army was always cracking down. 

This came to a head in 1991 with the Dili Massacre (re-enacted in the photo) when 200 Indonesian soldiers opened fire on a crowd, killing some 250 Timorese and one New Zealander. Two American journalists survived beatings and managed to smuggle out footage captured, which then brought international attention to the occupation. 

It was only after Suharto, indonesia’s dictator, resigned in 1998 after large riots and protests for reform, that East Timor was finally resolved. 

Australia led the UN peacekeeping force to East Timor in 1999, securing its freedom. 

As I personally remember, the interim president of Indonesia, BJ Habibie, was pretty pissed. He had threatened war with Australia over the intrusion into what he claimed was its sovereign territory, but it was little more than bluster. 

Timor-Leste still struggles today, with tiny exports, problems with its own democratic process, and still requires UN peacekeepers to maintain order, though they’re scheduled to leave sometime after 2012.

Under Indonesian occupation the speaking of Portuguese was banned, but still used by the resistance fighters, and as such it’s one of the two official languages along with the native Tetum. It’s ironic that the language of the colonizer has come to represent the language of freedom.