This book provides a comprehensive country overview of Southeast Asia's newest nation, Timor Leste (East Timor). This book focuses on its cultural and ethno-linguistic diversity, and its political history from the pre-Portuguese period up to 2009. The book pays particular attention to the historical roots of the current challenges to nation-building by reviewing the Indonesian occupation; guerrilla warfare by the Timorese against the occupiers; the politics leading up to the United Nations' popular consultation and the vote for independence in 2002. Explaining the structure of the government and its parliamentary system, this book highlights the problems and historical and cultural underpinnings of the challenges Timor Leste faces in building a stable viable nation. The author presents a synopsis of selected issues including: language, truth and reconciliation, the Catholic Church's political activism, internal security problems, the 'politics of oil', and the fact that violent conflicts, from 2005 to date, have made it necessary for the United Nation's peacekeeping forces to return. Thus far, the book argues, Timor Leste's nation-building efforts have been hampered by the dynamic interaction of number of national and international factors. The first comprehensive political and cultural history of East Timor to date, this book fills a gap and will be an important single reference resource for students and researchers in the field of Southeast Asian Studies, Anthropology and Political Science.

Timor Leste: Politics, History, and Culture

At the stroke of midnight on 20 May 2002, the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste became the first new nation of the 21st century. From that moment, those who fought for independence have faced a challenge even bigger than shaking off Indonesian occupation: running a country of their own.

"Beloved Land" picks up the story where world attention left off. Blending narrative history, travelogue, and personal reminiscences based on four years of living in the country, Gordon Peake shows the daunting hurdles that the people of Timor-Leste must overcome to build a nation from scratch, and how much the international community has to learn if it is to help rather than hinder the process. Family politics, squabbles, power struggles, old romances, and even older grudges are woven into life in this land of intrigue and rumours in the most remarkable ways.

Yet above all, "Beloved Land" is a story about the one million East Timorese who speak nearly 20 different languages, and who are exuberantly building their nation. Written with verve and deep affection, the book introduces a set of colourful Timorese and international characters, and brings them to life unforgettably.

Beloved Land: stories, struggles, and secrets from Timor-Leste

A riveting firsthand account of the violence in East Timor in 1999



This is a book about a terrible spate of mass violence. It is also about a rare success in bringing such violence to an end. "If You Leave Us Here, We Will Die" tells the story of East Timor, a half-island that suffered genocide after Indonesia invaded in 1975, and which was again laid to waste after the population voted for independence from Indonesia in 1999. Before international forces intervened, more than half the population had been displaced and 1,500 people killed. Geoffrey Robinson, an expert in Southeast Asian history, was in East Timor with the United Nations in 1999 and provides a gripping first-person account of the violence, as well as a rigorous assessment of the politics and history behind it.

Robinson debunks claims that the militias committing the violence in East Timor acted spontaneously, attributing their actions instead to the calculation of Indonesian leaders, and to a culture of terror within the Indonesian army. He argues that major powers--notably the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom--were complicit in the genocide of the late 1970s and the violence of 1999. At the same time, Robinson stresses that armed intervention supported by those powers in late 1999 was vital in averting a second genocide. Advocating accountability, the book chronicles the failure to bring those responsible for the violence to justice.

A riveting narrative filled with personal observations, documentary evidence, and eyewitness accounts, "If You Leave Us Here, We Will Die" engages essential questions about political violence, international humanitarian intervention, genocide, and transitional justice.

"if You Leave Us Here, We Will Die": How Genocide Was Stopped in East Timor

A personal story by the Nobel Peace Prize Winner on the shocking genocide of the Timorese people at the hands of the Indonesian occupants.

Funu: The Unfinished Saga of East Timor

On August 30, 1999, in a United Nations-sponsored ballot, East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia and for an end to a brutal military occupation. Upon the announcement of the result, Indonesian troops and their paramilitary proxies launched a wave of terror that, over three weeks, resulted in the murder of more than 1,000 people, the rape of untold numbers of women and girls, the razing of 70 percent of the country's buildings and infrastructure, and the forcible deportation of 250,000 people. In recounting these horrible acts and the preceding events, Joseph Nevins shows that what took place was only the final scene in more than two decades of atrocities. More than 200,000 people, about a third of the population, lost their lives due to Indonesia's 1975 invasion and subsequent occupation, making the East Timorese case proportionately one of the worst episodes of genocide since World War II.

In "A Not-So-Distant Horror", Nevins reveals the international complicity at the center of the East Timor tragedy. In his view, much if not all of the horror that plagued East Timor in 1999 and in the 24 preceding years could have been avoided had countries like Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, and especially the United States, not provided Indonesia with valuable political, economic, and military assistance, as well as diplomatic cover. The author explores issues of accountability for East Timor's plight and probes the meaning of what took place in terms of international institutions and law. Examining issues such as violence, the geography of memory, and social power, Nevins makes clear that the case of East Timor has much to tell us about the contemporary world order.

A Not-So-Distant Horror: Mass Violence in East Timor

Offering a fictional treatment to a Muslim woman's life, here, a personal and family crisis impells the heroine to reexamine traditional cultural attitudes toward women. Both obstacles and support systems change as she actively participates in the struggle for Moroccan independence from France.

Year of the Elephant: A Moroccan Woman's Journey Toward Independence

East Timor's struggle for independence under Indonesian occupation has dominated international headlines. Now, as UN troops uphold the August 1999 referendum calling for the island nation's self-rule, From the Place of the Dead offers the only up-to-date, comprehensive analysis of the confrontation through the eyes of one of the most extraordinary leaders to emerge from the crisis. Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1996, has been a fearless guardian of the basic human rights of the East Timorese people. Arnold Kohen's intimate knowledge of the political, religious, and social history of the region paints a penetrating portrait of this beleaguered nation and reveals the extent of international complicity in the violence. Winner of the Christopher Award, From the Place of the Dead is the definitive account of one of the worst human rights tragedies in contemporary history.


From the Place of the Dead: The Epic Struggles of Bishop Belo of East Timor

East Timor hit the world’s newspaper headlines in August 1999 after its bloody, brave vote for independence from Indonesia - one of the great expressions of a people’s democratic spirit. Exquisitely crafted and evocative, Luis Cardoso’s personal history of his homeland takes as its central image a crossing—from child to adult, Portuguese to Timorese, tolerance to repression, colonialism to independence.

The Crossing: A Story of East Timor

East Timor is at last, and at terrible human cost, firmly on the road to independence. The significance of its passage to freedom-for its people, for Asia, and for the world-is manifold. This volume offers a comprehensive overview of East Timor's travail and its triumph in its international context. East Timor's independence constitutes one of the final and most poignant moments in a long and bitter history of European colonization and decolonization. For the people of East Timor, independence from Portugal in 1975 was only the beginning of a new struggle against Indonesian invaders--a struggle that took the lives of 200,000 East Timorese--and one that is by no means over. The case of East Timor, both during and after the Cold War, provides a litmus test for issues of international responsibility, posing questions of double standards in unusually clear-cut form. It reveals the active support by the United States and other powers for the military forces of Indonesia throughout the years of that nation's invasion and repression of East Timor, until 1998 when the collapse of the Indonesian dictatorship ushered in a new phase in the East Timorese struggle. Contributions by: Peter Bartu, Noam Chomsky, Richard Falk, Geoffrey C. Gunn, Peter Hayes, Wade Huntley, Gerry Van Klinken, Helene Van Klinken, Arnold S. Kohen, Allan Nairn, Sarah Niner, Constancio Pinto, Geoffrey Robinson, Joao Mariano Saldanha, Charles Scheiner, Mark Selden, Stephen R. Shalom, and Richard Tanter.

Bitter Flowers, Sweet Flowers: East Timor, Indonesia, and the World Community


Explores headhunting in the colonial wars and the collection of heads for European museums, 1870s-1930s. By looking at Portuguese colonialism in East Timor, it shows how indigenous peoples and colonial powers interacted in a mutually dependent way, and how collected remains became objects of political, symbolic, and scientific significance.


Headhunting and Colonialism: Anthropology and the Circulation of Human Skulls in the Portuguese Empire, 1870-1930

Timor-Leste's long journey to nationhood spans 450 years of colonial rule by Portugal, a short-lived independence in 1975, and a 24-year occupation by Indonesia. This book examines the history of nation-building and national identity in Timor-Leste, and the evolution of a collective identity through two consecutive colonial occupations, and into the post-independence era. It charts the evolution of the idea of an East Timorese nation: its origins, its sources, and its competitors in traditional understandings of political community, and the distinct colonial visions imposed by Portugal or Indonesia. The author analyses the evolution of ideas of collective identity under the long era of Portuguese colonial rule, and through the 24-year struggle for independence from Indonesia from 1975 to 1999. Reflecting the contested history of the territory, these include successive attempts to define its members as colonial subjects in a wider 'pluri-racial' Portuguese empire, as citizens in an 'integrated' province of the Republic of Indonesia - and, of course, as a nation that demanded its right to self-determination. Finally, the host of nation-building tensions and fault lines that emerged after the restoration of independence in 2002 are discussed.



Examining the history of debates and conflict over national identity, national history, cultural heritage, language policy, and relationships between distinct regions, generations, and language groups, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of Asian studies, nationalism studies, and international and community development.

Nation-Building and National Identity in Timor-Leste

Xanana: Leader of the Struggle for Independent Timor-Leste

Independent Timor-Leste: Between Coercion and Consent (Elements in Politics and Society in Southeast Asia)

This book tells the story of the traumatic creation of Asia's youngest country, East Timor, which has been struggling to rebuild itself ever since the mayhem of Indonesia's reluctant withdrawal in 1999. The author, one of a mere handful of journalists who refused to be evacuated in the final days of the Indonesian occupation, gives a vivid first-hand account of the lives of individual Timorese during the occupation, their struggle for freedom and their endeavors to rebuild their homeland. Based on years of research, and lengthy interviews with East Timor 's leaders, priests, nuns, students and guerrilla fighters, this moving and extremely readable book is at the same time also an exploration of the complexities of the country's internal politics.

East Timor: A Nation's Bitter Dawn

This book presents a history of the struggle for independence by East Timor, after it was invaded by Indonesia in 1975. The occupation, which lasted 24 years, was immediately resisted through guerrilla warfare and clandestine resistance. A continuum of effort - between the armed freedom fighters in the mountains, the resilience of urban supporters, and international activism and support - eventually brought about liberation in September 1999. Given that the Timor rebels did not have a land border with a friendly state, nor an external supplier of weapons, nor a liberated area in which to recover between guerrilla operations, their successful resistance is unique in the history of guerrilla warfare and independence struggles. Equally uncommon was an unexpected weapon in the struggle: a remarkable display of strategic non-violent action. This is the first study to integrate all the major factors in East Timor's independence struggle. The multi-dimensional perspectives addressed include: Indonesian, US, and Australian diplomacy * Indonesian military operations and activities against the populace * East Timorese resistance at all social levels * human rights abuses * the issue of oil * international diplomacy resulting from global solidarity activism. (Series: Sussex Library of Asian Studies)

The Independence of East Timor: Multi-Dimensional Perspectives - Occupation, Resistance, and International Political Activism

Until the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to two East Timorese activists, few had heard of East Timor or of its struggle for independence from Indonesia. Here, Constancio Pinto, a colleague of the two Nobel Peace Prize winners, and Matthew Jardine, a long-time chronicler of the situation in East Timor, offer a first-hand account of life inside the Timorese independence movement.

East Timor's Unfinished Struggle: Inside the Timorese Resistance

This book highlights how, and why, torture is such a compelling tool for states and other powerful actors. While torture has a short-term use value for perpetrators, it also creates a devastating legacy for victims, their families and communities. In exposing such repercussions, this book addresses the questions 'What might torture victims need to move forward from their violation?' and 'How can official responses provide truth or justice for torture victims?'



Building on observations, documentary analysis and over seventy interviews with both torture victims and transitional justice workers this book explores how torture was used, suffered and resisted in Timor-Leste. The author investigates the extent to which transitional justice institutions have provided justice for torture victims; illustrating how truth commissions and international courts operate together and reflecting on their successes and weaknesses with reference to wider social, political and economic conditions. Stanley also details victims' experiences of torture and highlights how they experience life in the newly built state of Timor-Leste



Tracking the past, present and future of human rights, truth and justice for victims in Timor-Leste, "Torture, Truth and Justice" will be of interest to students, professionals and scholars of Asian studies, International Studies, Human Rights and Social Policy.

Torture, Truth and Justice: The Case of Timor-Leste

East Timor, also known as Timor-Leste, comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, located at the eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago. East Timor was among the last of colonial territories to become independent, and it actually had to be liberated twice. First, after more than four centuries of Portuguese colonial rule, it achieved independence in 1975 only to be invaded and occupied by Indonesia. After a blood-soaked occupation of 24 years and following intense international pressure, the Jakarta-regime only grudgingly allowed East Timor to form a nation of its own in 1999. Since then, the new state has faced further armed clashes and is only now able to seriously engage in nation-building. Historical Dictionary of East Timor relates the turbulent history of this country through a chronology, an introductory essay, an expansive bibliography, and over 200 cross-referenced dictionary entries on significant persons, events, places, organizations, and other aspects of East Timor history from the earliest times to the present.

Historical Dictionary of East Timor

Across Melanesia, the ways in which people connect to land are being transformed by processes of modernization--globalization, the building of states and nations, practices and imaginaries of development, the legacies of colonialism, and the complexities of postcolonial encounters. Melanesian peoples are becoming landowners, Stead argues, both in the sense that these processes of change compel forms of property relations, and in the sense that "landowner" and "custom landowner" become identities to be wielded against the encroachment of both state and capital. In places where customary forms of land tenure have long been dominant, deeply intertwined with senses of self and relationships with others, land now becomes a crucible upon which social relations, power, and culture are reconfigured and reimagined.



Employing a multi-sited ethnographic approach, Becoming Landowners explores these transformations to land and life as they unfold across two Melanesian countries. The chapters move between coasts and inland mountain ranges, between urban centers and rural villages, telling the stories of people and places who are always situated and particular but who also share powerful commonalities of experience. These include a subsistence-based community shaped by the legacies of colonialism and occupation in remote Timor-Leste, villagers in Papua New Guinea resisting a mining operation and the government agents supporting it, an urban East Timorese settlement resisting eviction by the nation-state its residents hoped would represent them in the post-independence era, and people and groups in both countries who are struggling for, with, and sometimes against the formal codification of their claims to land and place. In each of these instances, customary and modern forms of connection to land are propelled into complex and dynamic configurations, theorized here in an innovative way as entanglements of custom and modernity.

Moving between multiple sites, scales, and forms of collectivity, Becoming Landowners reveals entanglements as spaces of deep ambivalence. Here, structures of power are destabilized in ways that can lend themselves to the diminishing of local autonomy in the face of the state and capital. At the same time, the destabilization of power also creates new possibilities for the reassertion of that autonomy, and of the customary forms of connection to land in which it is grounded.

Timor-Leste

Timor Leste: Politics, History, and Culture

Andrea Katalin Molnar

Beloved Land: stories, struggles, and secrets from Timor-Leste

Gordon Peake

"if You Leave Us Here, We Will Die": How Genocide Was Stopped in East Timor

Geoffrey B. Robinson

Funu: The Unfinished Saga of East Timor

José Ramos-Horta

A Not-So-Distant Horror: Mass Violence in East Timor

Joseph Nevins

Year of the Elephant: A Moroccan Woman's Journey Toward Independence

Leila Abouzeid

From the Place of the Dead: The Epic Struggles of Bishop Belo of East Timor

Arnold S. Kohen

The Crossing: A Story of East Timor

Luís Cardoso

Bitter Flowers, Sweet Flowers: East Timor, Indonesia, and the World Community

Richard Tanter

Headhunting and Colonialism: Anthropology and the Circulation of Human Skulls in the Portuguese Empire, 1870-1930

Ricardo Roque

The Crossing: A Story of East Timor

Luís Cardoso

Nation-Building and National Identity in Timor-Leste

Michael Leach

Xanana: Leader of the Struggle for Independent Timor-Leste

Sarah Niner

Independent Timor-Leste: Between Coercion and Consent (Elements in Politics and Society in Southeast Asia)

Douglas Kammen

East Timor: A Nation's Bitter Dawn

Irena Cristalis

The Independence of East Timor: Multi-Dimensional Perspectives - Occupation, Resistance, and International Political Activism

Clinton Fernandes

East Timor's Unfinished Struggle: Inside the Timorese Resistance

Constancio Pinto

Torture, Truth and Justice: The Case of Timor-Leste

Elizabeth A. Stanley

Historical Dictionary of East Timor

Geoffrey C. Gunn

Becoming Landowners: Entanglements of Custom and Modernity in Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste

Victoria C Stead

Timor: A People Betrayed

James Dunn

The Crossing: A Story of East Timor

Luís Cardoso