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NEWS & LETTERS, June 2002
OUR LIFE AND TIMES: East Timor celebratesTens of thousands came out to celebrate the official birth of this century's first new nation, East Timor, on May 20. Former resistance leader Xanana Gusmao made the main speech in which he called for democracy, tolerance, and reconciliation. Several international leaders also attended. The presence of President Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia constituted a grudging recognition of the independence of a land her country had brutally occupied. However, in a hostile gesture, the Indonesian navy dispatched six ships into East Timorese waters on the eve of independence. No nation has won its liberation at a steeper price. After 400 years of extremely harsh Portuguese colonial rule, East Timor won independence in 1974, helping in the process to liberate Portugal from its own fascist regime. The country's new Marxist leadership worried the U.S., whose Secretary of State Henry Kissinger encouraged neighboring Indonesia to invade. Under Indonesian genocidal occupation a quarter of the country's 800,000 people died, but eventually the pressure of the East Timorese resistance helped to topple the Indonesian military regime. In August 1999, Indonesia allowed a referendum on independence, which was approved overwhelmingly. After another series of massacres in full view of the world media, United Nations forces finally intervened in December 1999. Today's East Timor is a devastated land, but one whose people finally control their own destiny. on in more subtle forms, including the debates over race and test scores. |
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