(2001 est. pop. 800,000). On 20 May 2002, the former Portuguese colony of East Timor, occupied by Indonesia in 1976, became the world's newest independent state. East Timor burst into world attention on 30 August 1999, following a flawed U.N.-supervised referendum on independence that left Indonesian armed forces in charge of security. When almost 80 percent of registered voters rejected integration with Indonesia, a full-blown campaign of terror orchestrated by the Indonesian led to the destruction of 70 percent of East Timor's infrastructure. Many Timorese were murdered, kidnapped, or disappeared. As many as 500,000 were displaced from their homes. In response to international outrage, the U.N. Security Council mandated an Australian-led international force (INTERFET) to restore security and supervise the withdrawal of Indonesian occupation forces. Deemed successful, INTERFET was subsequently transformed on 25 October 1999 into a U.N. blue beret force (United Nations Transitional Administration for East Timor) to provide security pending a transition to full independence.
Topography and People
Of recent geological formation, the island of Timor features a mountainous interior, with its highest peak, Tata Mai Lau, rising 3,000 meters above sea level. Situated at the extreme east of the Lesser Sunda chain, Timor island is subject to great climatic contrasts between monsoon seasons, and is ecologically more vulnerable than islands to the west. The southern coast supports an extensive coastal plain, which is more restricted in the north, where mountain spurs extend tothe sea. The diverse landscape is matched by a variety of climatic zones and supports a diversity of vegetation: swamps on the plains, pockets of tropical rain forest, and extensive eucalyptus forests on the mountain slopes.
While anthropologists differ as to specifics, there is broad agreement that eastern Timor was populated by successive waves of Malays and proto-Malays, and also Papuan elements, although none exist today in pure form. The linguistic situation is no less complex: there are sixteen distinct languages in the whole of Timor, thirteen of which are spoken in East Timor. Most of these fall into either the Austronesian or Papuan language families. Tetum, also spoken in parts of West Timor, serves as lingua franca in East Timor.
The Traditional Political System
Sharing cultural and political traditions with other islands and societies in the Lesser Sunda Islands, Timor's traditional political system conforms to what Dutch anthropologist F. A. E. van Wouden calls a "segmented society" (one divided along ethnic lines). Not directly touched by Indian or Islamic influences, Timor never developed a centralized government, aside from a highly mythologized center believed to have been located in Wehale, in West Timor, in what would eventually become Dutch territory. In fact, geography and the complex peopling of the island bequeathed many competing and warring societies, often in conflict with each other and with outsiders who came in search of Timor's coveted sandalwood. Real power was in the hands of the "liurai," a Portugalized term meaning "little king." While the traditional lineage of the liurai was ruptured by the Portuguese after the Boaventura rebellion of 1911–1912 in order to win and cement new alliances, they continued to wield considerable local influence, surviving even the Indonesian occupation.
The Portuguese Colonial System
First reached by Portuguese traders and missionaries in the early 1500s, the island of Timor was ruled from the early 1700s by Portuguese governors sent first to the enclave of Oeccuse, and then, with the transfer of the seat of government in 1776, to Dili, the present capital. Although Timor was distant and neglected within its empire, Portugal nevertheless developed a successful coffee plantation system, as well as bequeathing the Timorese a Catholic and Portuguese heritage.
In the modern period, notably after the 1911–1912 rebellion, the Portuguese introduced new forms of local government around military posts centered on districts, but in a classical colonial system that saw little Timorese representation in the upper echelons of colonial administration. The rising tide of anticolonial nationalism in Southeast Asia bypassed eastern Timor. The major threat to the status quo was always Indonesia, as proven by an Indonesian separatist rebellion in the Viqueque district of eastern East Timor in 1959, suppressed with much loss of life.
Treated as part colony, part protectorate, a system that saw metropolitan Portugal subsidize only a meager developmental budget—which left most Timorese outside the coffee economy living in an unmonetized or subsistence economy—there is a sense that Portugal actually conserved rather than dissolved feudal bonds and cultural forms.
Portuguese political life atrophied under the premiership of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar (1932–1968) and his successor, Marcello Caetano (1968–1974), but with Lisbon's "flower revolution" of 25 April 1974, in which reformist soldiers replaced the dictatorship, the independence of Timor was placed squarely on the table, and political parties sanctioned. But just as East Timor's majority Fretilin party prevailed in a short civil war against its adversary, União Democratica Timorenses, and proclaimed a democratic republic on 28 November 1975, Timor was robbed of its short-lived independence by invading Indonesian forces. After successfully waging a guerrilla war of resistance against the Indonesian occupier, the armed wing of Fretilin (Falintil) only grew in stature with the capture and incarceration of its leader, José "Xanana" Gusmão (born 1946 in Manatuto district of East Timor), in 1992. As leader of CNRT, an umbrella front conjoining Fretilin and other parties and personalities, Gusmão, along with countrymen Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo and José Ramos-Horta (recipients of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize), became an international symbol of East Timor's struggle for freedom and justice.
The Indonesian Colonial System
Following an invasion on 7 December 1975, East Timor was annexed as the twenty-seventh province of the Republic of Indonesia. The Jakarta government reproduced in East Timor all branches and agencies of its own central and provincial governments. In a classic case of internal colonialism in which most East Timorese were economically and politically marginalized, Indonesian rule was supported not only by a cadre of collaborators, but also by an iron fist. The foremost Indonesian achievement in East Timor was undoubtedly the introduction of a universal education system that saw large numbers of Timorese students rise through the educational hierarchy, some attending universities in Indonesia. The other tangible achievement of Indonesian rule was the expansion of the infrastructure bequeathed by the Portuguese. Both education and infrastructure served the counterinsurgency aims of the Indonesian military, as did such forms of population control as resettlement villages and the introduction of large numbers of Indonesian settlers. Sustained and repressive military actions, however, not only led to the deaths of up to one-third of the population of East Timor, but also destroyed the fabric of traditional Timorese society.
Rule Under the United Nations Transitional Administration
Headed by a Brazilian diplomat, Sergio Vieira de Melo, answering directly to the U.N. secretary-general, and staffed by some one thousand international civil servants, the United Nations Transitional Administration for East Timor (UNTAET) formed the de facto government in East Timor from early 2000 until its dissolution in May 2002. UNTAET was also backed by eight thousand international peacekeepers, along with hundreds of civilian police. UNTAET was empowered to make and enforce laws, to enter into international agreements (such as the renegotiation of the Timor Gap Treaty), and to supervise all aspects of governance. UNTAET decrees covered the establishment of a central banking system, the nomination of the U.S. dollar as official currency, the creation of a police force, the rebuilding of the justice system, the creation of a civil-service commission, and the recruitment of a seven-thousand-member civil service. Nevertheless, in deference to East Timorese opinion, and sometimes frustration owing to disagreement with East Timorese over administrative issues, UNTAET sanctioned the establishment of a transitional National Consultative Council alongside a parallel East Timor Transitional Administration, thereby speeding up the "Timorization" process.
In mid-2001 UNTAET focused on drawing up electoral laws and the norms for the creation of political parties. An election in which sixteen political parties took part was conducted on 30 August 2001 for a second transitional Constitutional Assembly; Fretilin emerged victorious. Fretilin Vice President Mari Alkatiri was appointed the country's first chief minister. The main task of the transitional assembly was to debate and approve the new nation's constitution.
Having adopted both Portuguese and Tetum as official languages, the new Democratic Republic of East Timor remains true to its long history under European colonialism. Under East Timor's new constitution, East Timor will be governed by a mixed presidential and cabinet system; church and state will be separated. East Timor vows to uphold a democratic system with free institutions, but as a desperately poor country, it will remain dependent upon the goodwill of international donors for years to come. The United Nations maintains a scaled-down presence in East Timor to further assist in capacity building and to guarantee East Timor's security.
