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East Timor
Total Population – 101,965,000
Infant Mortality Rate – 24 per 1000
Life Expectancy – 73 years
GNI per Capita – US$5,910
Infant Mortality Rate – 24 per 1000
Life Expectancy – 73 years
GNI per Capita – US$5,910
Background
East Timor is still reeling from its recent struggle for independence from Indonesia and decades of neglect by the international community. When the new left-wing Portuguese government relinquished all its colonies in 1975, East Timor enjoyed (literally) a few days of independence. When East Timor declared its independence on November 28, 1975, Suharto’s Indonesia responded by invading the country nine days later. President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger met with Indonesian dictator General Suharto hours before this invasion, giving him a de facto green light for the aggression, beginning a long history of U.S. government complicity with Indonesian repression of the East Timorese. The U.S. continued its support for Indonesia’s armed forces (then called ABRI, now TNI), supplying $1.1 billion in weapons in the 1975-99 period. During this period, the ABRI napalmed and displaced entire villages and disappeared, raped, tortured, and murdered civilians in an attempt to break the backbone of the resistance. More than 200,000 East Timorese, a third of the pre-invasion population, are estimated to have died as a result of this repression—either directly at the hands of the Indonesian police and military or indirectly as a result of starvation and disease.
Until 1991 the world community had all but ignored these atrocities. On November 12, 1991, ABRI soldiers opened fire on a funeral procession, killing 270 East Timorese. This massacre, recorded by British cameraman Max Stahl, brought East Timor to the fore. International solidarity movements, like the East Timor Action Network/U.S., emerged to pressure foreign governments to withdraw support for Indonesia’s occupation. East Timor’s independence struggle gained wider recognition when, in 1996, Bishop Carlos Belo and exiled resistance leader Jose Ramos-Horta, both East Timorese, received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Finally in August 1999, a UN-sponsored referendum for independence was conducted in East Timor. Despite the widespread repression, some 98 percent of the population came out to vote, with more than 78 percent opting in favor of independence. Again, the Indonesian military responded with a rampage, killing some 1,500 people, displaced three-quarters of the population and destroyed more than 75% of East Timor's infrastructure. Despite all, in May 2002 East Timor was internationally recognized as the world’s newest independent state and democracy.
Resources:
http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/Timorleste.html
http://www.fpif.org/briefs/vol5/v5n43timor.html
http://www.etan.org/news/2004/08refer.htm
